FACE TO FACE
"You, Dick? Thank God!" cried Stepan. Then his face flushed, and he came
forward, furiously. He dragged the spy out, looked at his face, and then
spurned him with his foot.
"You saved my life, I think, Dick," he said, simply. "I never suspected
this! Treachery in our ranks. I had not supposed that any Servian would
sell his country. Mike Hallo, of course, we never trusted--but this man!
Well, he will pay in one way or another."
"I knew what was going to happen. I was here and heard them talking."
"I didn't even know he had come. I had made some discoveries below, and
was hard at work. I knew that Hallo would not leave without my
knowledge. He would not have wanted to leave me here alone in the
warehouse. But, Dick, how did you get here? How did you come to leave
the boathouse? I asked you to wait there, you know."
"How did you know I had gone?"
"Vanya, the soldier, told us. I sent him to fetch you. And when we
learned that you had gone, we suspected that Hallo had had some part in
it, for by then I had been told that he had escaped after they had
caught him. But you don't know about that--"
"Don't I though? I was there listening, while he told this other fellow
all about it. He was in the boathouse when we landed, Steve!"
"Ah! I knew it! I told Milikoff so! That was how he escaped! But how did
you come here--free?"
Dick told his story as quickly as he could; told of how he had escaped
from detection in the boathouse because Hallo had been even more
frightened than he himself, if anything, and of his wild chase after the
Hungarian.
"I was afraid I had done wrong in going--afraid that I should have
stayed in the boathouse and waited for you to come. Did you come here
after me, Steve? Wasn't that your purpose?"
"Yes, in a way. I thought that Hallo had something to do with your
disappearance, and I never dreamed of your being able to fool him as you
did! But I should have come in any case. Milikoff and I had decided that
before we knew that you had vanished. And if you hadn't been here, Dick,
they would have killed me, I think, when this wretched traitor told
Hallo that I had been deceiving him."
"He told him more than that, though Hallo did not know it was you of
whom they talked, Steve. This spy told him that you were the most
dangerous of all--and Hallo said he didn't believe there was any such
person as Stepan Dushan!"
They both laughed, and Steve laughed still more when he heard of Hallo's
mystification and fury about the revelation of the hiding places of the
stores on the Drina.
"That was what made us sure that Austria had decided for war," he said.
"We knew that she would not prepare for an invasion there so secretly
otherwise. That was why we knew that it would be useless to agree to her
terms, even if that had been possible."
"Hallo said no one but himself knew about those stores."
"He was nearly right--but a miss is as good as a mile," said Stepan,
with a laugh. "He knew--and the staff knew--and I knew! I found out all
about those things by reading his private letters, Dick. That was the
part I hated most about the work. I had to read all his letters after we
became sure of what he was doing. It made me feel wretched at first, as
if I were doing something very dishonorable."
"But you weren't doing it for a dishonorable reason, Steve. Still I can
see how you felt."
"But I didn't feel that way very long, Dick, because I soon found out
what a miserable cheat and swindler he was! You were surprised, you
know, when you found out that I knew all about you."
"I certainly was! I never was so much surprised in all my life!" said
Dick very quickly.
"Well, I may have some more surprises for you still, Dick. I'm not sure,
but I do know some things I haven't told you yet."
"You do, Steve? Why can't you tell me now?"
"I can, but I want to make sure that they will be of some use to you
before I do. If I told you some things I know, they might make you
change your plans, and then they might not be of any value, after all.
They might only put you off. You see, when I first found out these
things about the way he had treated you, I didn't know you and didn't
have any reason at all to suppose that I ever would, or that I'd ever
even see you. New York's a long way off--and, of course, I was more
interested in what was going on here, because I knew that this war might
come along at any moment, and I was here just to see what I could do for
Servia and to interfere with the things we had reason to suppose Mike
Hallo was doing for the Austrians."
"Of course. I can understand that, Steve. There wasn't any reason for
you to do as much as you did, and to take all the interest you did in
me, when you didn't know anything about me."
"Well, at first I just wanted to help you because I hated him so. I
thought there was a chance to spoil the trick he was trying to play on
you. When I found that he was planning to get rid of you by having you
arrested before you could get back to the American consulate I wanted to
trip him up."
"You certainly did a lot for me, Steve. I don't know whether I'll ever
be able to get anything out of him, but if I do it will be due to you.
If they had ever got me out of here and away to Buda-Pesth, I'd never
have been able to come back, even if they had not managed to trump up
some charge against me and kept me in prison for a long time."
"Oh, they would have done that, Dick, of course. That was the idea. And
it's very easy for them to manage such things here. As easy as it used
to be in France before the revolution there."
"What are we going to do now, Steve?"
Dick looked down at the helpless figures of the two men on the floor.
Neither of the scouts had paid much attention to them as yet, but now
they leaned down and examined them.
"They're not badly hurt," said Steve, contemptuously. "They saw the
crate falling and so did I. And they tried to jump. So it didn't fall
full on top of them, but struck glancing blows on their heads and almost
pushed them out of the way. I don't see how you ever got it going at
all, all by yourself! It looks terribly heavy."
"I think it was because it wasn't very well balanced, Steve. If it had
been turned the other way probably I couldn't have budged it. But the
heavy end was on top, which made it go over. I sort of jumped at it, and
that gave it the start."
"I'm afraid we'll have to leave them here," said Steve. "I wish there
was some way for us to take them along, but I don't see how we can. We
might be able to drag Hallo with us, but we wouldn't get very far."
"I suppose not. He has lots of friends, hasn't he? I saw ever so many
people stop and speak to him when I was following him on the way here."
"I don't think he's got many friends, but there are a lot of people who
know him, all right. Still, it isn't that--it would be making ourselves
conspicuous by having him with us at all."
"It would be a good thing to take him, though, if we could, wouldn't
it?"
"Oh, yes. The best thing in the world! If we could only get him to our
boat and carry him back to Belgrade!"
"Steve, how about the men who are working in the tunnel under the
arsenal?"
"What do you mean? What do you know about the tunnel under the arsenal?"
Steve was startled and dismayed, but Dick laughed at him.
"That's all I know," he said. "Just that there is such a thing, Steve.
You needn't be frightened--I haven't been spying around. But this man
that came here to see Mike Hallo knew all about it. He told him the mine
was going to be sprung to-night, and that they must hasten to stop it."
"That ends the last doubt! He is a traitor!" said Steve. "He surely will
have to pay the price of treachery, too, when there is an opportunity."
"Do you mean that they will kill him?"
"What else can be done? It is his life against a nation, Dick. A man
like that may cause a thousand deaths by betraying a single secret.
But--about the men in the tunnel. I might have known that there was some
good reason for your knowing. Yes, it is true. There are men working
there, and they will try to explode their mine and blow up the arsenal
to-night."
"Can't you reach them? I think that two or three men might get Hallo
through the town and to the boathouse. They could pretend that he was
drunk, and that they were helping him along, if he was still
unconscious."
"Dick, I think you've hit on the right idea again! I'll try to get them.
But suppose they come to first?"
"If we tied them up?" was Dick's suggestion.
"It would be risky. The watchman may come here at any moment after he
hears no more voices."
"Yes, that's so. How long would it take you to go?"
"To go and come back? Twenty minutes, perhaps."
"Then go! Don't delay any longer, and I will stay here and keep watch."
"In here? No, it is too dangerous. I am afraid now, if they learn what
you have done for us, they will be able to make a real charge against
you, and that even your consul could not help you to escape severe
punishment."
"I would not wait here--not in here, Steve. I would watch outside. Look!
Do you see these grains of corn?"
He picked up a handful of the kernels from a sample basket on the table.
"Yes. What about them, Dick?"
"I will keep watch. If he comes out, I will follow him and every three
or four feet I will let a little of this corn drop, so that it will mark
a trail for you to follow. Do you see the idea?"
"Yes, and that is magnificent, Dick! That is the best chance we shall
ever have of catching him. It will be better for him to come out, for he
will lead you away from the busier part of the city, perhaps, so that it
will be easier for us to take him! I'm off! I think we have a chance to
get the scoundrel this time, thanks to you!"
They slipped out together, leaving the two unconscious men.
"I think Hallo will come to before long," said Dick. "The other will
take longer for he seemed to be more badly stunned, or else he's not as
strong as Hallo. Will Mike leave him there, do you think?"
"Yes. Why not? He will be thinking of his own precious skin, you may be
sure. Good luck, Dick! I'll be back just as soon as I can!"
"Yes--hurry! But I think we'll be all right."
Dick took his place in a dark doorway on the opposite side of the
street and began his vigil. The seconds seemed to drag by endlessly, but
Dick never took his eyes from the entrance of the warehouse. And at
last--he had really been waiting less than ten minutes!--he was
rewarded. Hallo came out holding his hand to his head, staggering a
little as he walked. Dick gave him a start, and then crossed and
followed. He dropped his corn as he went, and his hand was on the
automatic pistol in his pocket, which somehow gave him a sense of
security.
Hallo turned a corner; Dick hurried a little. And, as he rounded the
corner in his turn, there was Hallo--waiting! At the sight of Dick he
almost screamed, but choked the cry.
"So it's you, is it?" he cried. He made a savage rush, his arms
outstretched like those of a gorilla.