AN ADVENTURE—
The boys were walking briskly down a tree-bordered, rather badly lighted
street in the residential quarter as this conversation took place. They
had been to the home of a friend of Captain Bracebridge with a
confidential note. The man to whom they had taken the message had been
absent at the theater. As they had a verbal message to deliver, too, and
supposed that it, like the note, was confidential, they had not wished
to confide it to a servant but had decided to wait. It was, therefore,
late when, their errand completed, they started back on a lonely walk
through the residential section to the ship.
The good folk of Antwerp go to bed early. No one else was on the street
as the boys hurried along. Tree shadows lay across the road in black
patches, where there were lights brilliant enough to effect such
results.
“Well, I suppose we ought to be glad to have the chance to get abroad at
all,” muttered Raynor, continuing the conversation whose record began in
the last chapter.
“Yes, indeed, we’re lucky fellows,” said Jack cheerfully.
“Yes, it’s a fine old city and all that,” admitted Raynor rather
grudgingly, “and I’ve certainly enjoyed my stay here; but I’d have liked
to look about a little more. I wonder if there isn’t some place where
they have machinery to show?”
“Gracious! I must say you’re a barbarian. Can’t you see all the
machinery you wish in that greasy, fire-spitting old engine room of
yours, without wanting a sight of more?”
“Well,” retorted Raynor, “would you trade one of those ‘old masters,’ as
they call them, for a dandy set of modern instruments to put in your
wireless room at home?”
Jack was fairly stumped. He broke into a laugh.
“That’s not a fair way of putting it,” he said after a minute. “I like
monkeying with wireless as much as you do with machinery, but I can
enjoy other things.”
“So can I. An ice-cream soda, for instance.”
“I’m with you there,” agreed Jack, “but we’ll have to wait for that.”
“Yes, till we get back to the U.S.A. The stuff they sell you for soda
here wouldn’t be offered you by a bankrupt druggist in Skeedunk with
bats in his belfry.”
Jack broke into a laugh, which suddenly changed into a quick exclamation
of astonishment.
“Hark!” he cried.
“What’s the matter?” breathlessly from Raynor. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“You didn’t? You must be—there it is again.”
This time it was Raynor’s turn to start.
“I heard it all right then,” he exclaimed. “It was——”
“A woman screaming.”
“That’s what. Gracious, what’s the matter?”
“It’s off down that street there,” decided Jack, pointing a little
distance ahead where a small street branched off the main thoroughfare
and skirted a small, unlighted park. “Come on,” he shouted to Raynor,
and was off.
“What are you going to do?” called Raynor.
“Find out what’s the trouble. There’s something serious the matter.”
Suddenly the cries stopped as abruptly as if a hand had been clapped
over the mouth of the person uttering them.
“There’s no time to lose,” panted Jack, sprinting.
“I’m with you,” gasped Raynor, running at his companion’s side.
The two lads dashed around the corner. Before them lay a narrow, gloomy
street, edged by the dark trees of the little park, which, at that time
of night, was, of course, deserted.
At first glance, nothing out of the ordinary appeared. Then they
suddenly saw the headlights of an automobile. As suddenly, the lights
vanished. They had been switched off by somebody.
“There’s where the trouble is,” cried Jack, and was conscious of a wish
that he had some sort of weapon with him. They were rushing into they
knew not what danger; but Jack was no quitter. Some woman was in
trouble, and that was enough for him.
The same was the case with Raynor. Both lads, typical Americans,
lithe-limbed, stout of heart and muscle, and with grit to spare, didn’t
give a thought to the danger they might be incurring by their daring
dash to the rescue. The mere idea that they were needed urgently was
enough.
“Some ruffians are attacking the auto!” came from Jack as they drew
closer.
“Yes. Look! There’s a woman in the car. Two of them,” added Raynor.
“They’ve been held up.”
“Looks that way.”
As the two boys neared the car, the whole scene became clear to them. It
was a limousine and three men, two on one side and one on the other,
were poking revolvers into the windows of the enclosed part. As the boys
came up, the chauffeur, who till then had been paralyzed by fear, leaped
from his seat and dashed off, taking the low stone wall, surrounding the
park, at one bound.
“The great coward! He might have been a big help to us, too,” exclaimed
Jack with indignation as he saw this.
“Yes, it’s three to two, and they are armed,” cried Raynor.
The next moment, with a startling yell they attacked two of the men
simultaneously. One of them went down with a crash under Jack’s powerful
right swing before he could do anything to defend himself, for none of
them had noticed the approach of the two American lads.
The fellow’s revolver went spinning over the wall and fell with a ring
of metal out of his reach. In the meantime, Raynor was not having such
an easy time with the man he had tackled. This fellow was a
heavily-built specimen of dock lounger, or worse, with a Belgian cap on
his head and a handkerchief tied over the lower part of his face.
As Raynor rushed him, he seized the young engineer in an iron grip and
pressed a weapon to his side.
“Fool, to interfere! This is your last moment on earth!” he snarled.
From the interior of the limousine, two women, one elderly and the other
young, looked out, paralyzed with alarm. Too frightened to scream, they
sat stock still as they saw what was about to happen.
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