To one who had been more than forty-eight hours drifting in a
scuttle-butt in mid-Atlantic, the sight of almost any kind of craft
would have been welcome. Tom Cameron hailed first the plume of drifting
smoke, then the mast and stacks, and then the high, camouflaged bow of
the _Admiral Pekhard_ with a joy that increased deliriously as he became
assured that the ship was steaming head-on to his poor raft.
The steamship was moving very slowly, and it was hours before, waving
his coat frantically as he stood in his bobbing craft, he knew he had
been sighted by the lookout. The latter had not expected to see anything
like Tom and the remains of the wrecked Zeppelin in these waters. The
lookout had been straining his eyes to catch sight of a periscope.
It was providential that the course of the _Admiral Pekhard_ was
bringing her almost directly toward the drifting bit of wreckage. She
was almost on top of Tom before the lookout hailed and Boldig ran up to
the bridge to get a better look at the object which had caused the
excitement.
"That is no part of an underseas boat!" cried Boldig to the lookout.
"What is it?"
"There is a man in it--see! He waves his coat. It looks like a boat--no!
It is one mystery, Herr Boldig."
But the latter now had his glasses fixed on the drifting raft. He saw
the broken stays, the slipper-shaped bow of the Zeppelin, and he
suddenly understood. It was not the first wreck of a Zeppelin's frame
work that he had seen floating in the sea; but it was the first in which
he had seen a living man.
Boldig himself hailed--hailed in German. And fortunately for Tom Cameron
he replied in the same language. His accent was irreproachable. Had it
not been, the German officer might have thought twice about attempting
to rescue the lone castaway.
The young American had no idea at first that this was a German-manned
steamship--that she had been boldly taken over on the high seas by a gang
of German pirates. Yet he was sharp enough to realize almost at once
that there was something wrong with her.
No passengers on her decks, no officers on her bridge until this one
hailed him, and no crew along her waist watching him. Besides she was
coming along at such a crippled gait.
He knew she must be a passenger ship, and the Union Jack at her masthead
showed her nationality. But where was she going and why was she not
convoyed?
Tom had already seen the smoke of several destroyers or converted
trawlers, but had not been himself sighted by their lookouts. This was
his first chance of rescue, and he was not at all particular just then
who the people were aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, as he saw she was
named. With that name and under that flag she must be a British ship. As
he was drifting in a part of a German Zeppelin, he naturally expected to
be taken aboard as a prisoner. Yet he did or said nothing to reveal his
true identity for the time being. If they wished to think him a German
at first, all right; explanations could come later.
Boldig called three men to man the motor boat that trailed astern. He
had to stop the ship's engines to do this, for steam could not be kept
up without the small force of stokers at his command working at top
speed through their entire watch. The whole crew were almost exhausted.
Those whose watch it was below at this time must be allowed to sleep to
recover their strength. It was a ticklish situation in more ways than
one.
The _Admiral Pekhard_ began to roll in the trough of the sea. As she
rolled toward him Tom could better see her deck and upperworks. He
marked a woman's figure come out of the after companion on the upper
deck. She stood there alone and shaded her eyes with her hand as she
looked off at him.
The siege Tom Cameron had been through since the Zeppelin was wrecked
had racked his body a good deal, but by no means had it weakened his
mind. He was sure there was something wrong with this craft. The three
men were an hour in tuning up the motor-boat engine and getting that
craft near enough to his raft to take Tom aboard.
The latter saw that neither of the three men was an officer. One was
Fritz, and he spoke to the castaway in English. But Tom was wary. There
was a flaxen-haired, big-bodied fellow who glowered at him and spoke
nothing but German.
"You fell with an airship--yes?" this man asked, and Tom nodded.
The American had done secret service work behind the German lines on one
occasion. There he had assumed the character of a Prussian military
officer, and gradually he took on the attitude that he had used
familiarly at that time. His speech and appearance bore out the claim he
meant to make if these people proved to be Germans, as he more than half
suspected. How the Germans ever got control of a British ship was a
mystery!
Boldig met Tom Cameron at the rail when he came up the captain's ladder.
He offered a hand that the American was forced to accept.
"You have the good fortune to escape both peril by air and sea, _Mein
Herr?_" said Boldig. "Your companions?"
"Are gone," Tom replied in German, shaking his head. "I am of all, the
lone fortunate. 'The survival of the fit'--is it not so? We were bound
for London. Because I had lived there much, I was to pilot _Herr
Leutnant-Commander_ over the city!"
"Ah!" said Boldig. "I thought you did not seem entirely German."
"It is the heart that counts, is it not?" Tom returned.
He knew this arrogant-looking man must be a German through and through.
The British flag flying over the ship did not reassure him. He had
ventured his story of being the Zeppelin pilot as a bit of camouflage.
If he was mistaken--if this was an honest vessel and crew--he carried
papers in his money belt that would explain who he really was.
"And you, _Mein Herr?_" Tom asked with a gesture indicating the _Admiral
Pekhard's_ empty decks.
"Our story you shall learn later," said Boldig. "But rest assured. You
are among friends."
He hastened to show the flaxen-haired man and Fritz how properly to pay
off the line holding the motor boat in trail. The engines started again,
and the ship began to pull ahead.
Tom, standing upon the after deck, gazed quietly around him. He felt
that the situation was strained. There was something threatening in the
pose of Boldig after all. This was no tramp steam freighter with half a
crew. No, indeed! She was a well found and well furnished passenger
craft. Where were the crew and passengers that should be aboard of her?
And just then he saw a white hand beckoning at the after cabin
companionway. He remembered the woman he had observed from the wreck of
the Zeppelin standing at that doorway. Swiftly Tom crossed the deck
behind Boldig's back and reached the door which was open more than a
crack.
The hand seized his own. The touch thrilled him before he heard her
voice or caught a glimpse of Ruth Fielding's face.
"Tom! Tom Cameron!" she murmured. "You are saved and have been sent to
me."
"Ruth!" He almost fell down the stairway to reach her. He took her in
his arms with such ardor that she could not escape. In that moment of
reunion and relief she met his lips with as frank and warm a kiss as
though she had really been his sister.
"Tom! Dear Tom!" she murmured.
"Great heavens, Ruth! how did you come here? What is the meaning of this
business? Those Germans out there----?"
"And there are only two faithful men aboard--the first officer and the
radio chief. Both locked in their rooms, Tom. We are four against eleven
of these pirates!"
"Pirates!"
"No less," the girl hastened to say. "I cannot tell you all now. The
others escaped in the small boats; but Mr. Dowd, Mr. Rollife, and I were
left. Then the German members of the crew, and this officer, Boldig,
came back and took the ship. They expect a big submarine with an extra
crew to pick them up."
"What under the sun----"
"Oh!" gasped Ruth, hearing Boldig outside. "Here he comes! He has been
so brutal--so disgusting! Oh, Tom!"
Her friend wheeled and leaped up the stair again. As he went he drew the
automatic pistol from his bosom where he had hidden it and kept it dry.
As Boldig thrust back the door Tom pushed the muzzle of his weapon
against the man's breast.
"Up with your hands!" Tom commanded. "Quick!"
Boldig fell back a pace. Tom followed him out on the open deck. He
reached quickly and snatched the pistol from the German's holster with
his left hand.
Then, his eye flickering to the men at the rail and seeing the
flaxen-haired man trying to draw his pistol, Tom sent one bullet in that
direction. The man, Guelph, sank, groaning, to the deck.
"Pick up that pistol, muzzle first, and bring it here!" commanded Tom to
Fritz, and the latter obeyed quite meekly. Neither he nor the third
seaman was armed. After all, Boldig did not trust his underlings.
"How shall we get your two friends out of their rooms?" Tom asked Ruth
without looking around at her, for he kept his gaze upon Boldig and the
others.
"That man has the keys to their staterooms."
"Come and search his pockets," said Tom. "Don't stand between me and
him. Understand?" he added to Boldig. "I will shoot to kill if you try
any tricks. Keep your hands up!"
Was this Tom Cameron, Ruth thought? She had never seen Tom assume such a
character before. She had forgotten what army training had done for her
childhood's friend. When he had come to see her on his leaves-of-absence
from the front he had seemed all boy as usual. But now!
She found the keys, and in five minutes Mr. Dowd and Mr. Rollife, armed
from the right collection of weapons in the captain's room this time,
joined the wonderfully arrived castaway on the open deck.
Dowd had handcuffs, too, and Boldig, Fritz, and the other unwounded
seamen were quickly manacled and shut into separate rooms below.
Ruth tried to make the wounded Guelph more comfortable, although he was
not seriously hurt. While she was doing this, and her three friends were
searching the rest of the crew for arms and separating them so that they
could do no harm, the girl chanced to glance over the rail and saw a
sight that called forth a cry of rejoicing from her very heart.
There was a gray, swiftly steaming ship, a warship, bearing down upon
the _Admiral Pekhard_, and the Stars and Stripes was at her masthead!