PERILS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Tom did not seem to be very much astonished when his chum made that
statement.
“Well, do you know, I rather half expected that was what you were going
to tell me,” he observed coolly. “I wondered whether such a smart chap
as Adolph Tuessig, if he is aboard this steamer, would let a chance get
past him to have my trunk broken open and looked over. That was what
happened, was it, Jack?”
“While one fellow watched us another must have been busy in our
stateroom,” explained the discoverer of the latest outrage. “These
rascals seem to incline toward the burglary business, all right.”
“Why not, when spying is always associated with thievery?” Tom told him
plainly enough. “Did they do much damage? I purposely left the trunk
unlocked so as to save them from smashing it.”
“Oh! did you?” exclaimed his chum, elevating his eyebrows. “Then I
warrant you they found nothing for their pains.”
“How could they, when as you know I am not carrying a message to the
French Government in connection with my father’s invention? Neither
have I a design of the new airplane stabilizer in my possession, no
matter what they believe. Tell me what you found once you stepped
inside the stateroom.”
“Oh, it is a sight to behold, Tom, with all your traps thrown around
every which way for Sunday! They even ripped the lining of your steamer
trunk in several places, trying to learn whether you could have hidden
a paper under that. The fellow had to work like lightning, I guess, and
couldn’t afford to be particular. You’ll certainly have to get that
trunk fixed, once we land.”
“I think I’d better go back with you and take a look,” and Tom got to
his feet. “Of course we can do nothing about it, because like as not no
one saw the sneak thief enter or leave our room, and we couldn’t very
well accuse Potzfeldt of robbery on general principles.”
“It makes me furious to know how our hands are tied,” grumbled Jack;
“because I hate a sneak like a skunk, and would like to see both of
those fellows taken in hand by the British when we land. But I suppose
they’ve fixed things so they’ll be decently treated as friendly to the
cause.”
When shortly afterwards Tom entered their stateroom he looked around
with no little concern, as well as secret amusement. Knowing that he
had practically nothing to fear from thievery, he could afford to allow
himself to be amused.
“Well, I should say that chap did toss my duds about with a vengeance,”
he told Jack, who followed him inside, and then hastily closed and
fastened the door after him. “It looks as if a cyclone had struck my
trunk and scattered every thing right and left regardless.”
“Look and see if they took anything,” Jack advised.
So the owner of the stuff proceeded to replace it once more in the
small trunk that could be accommodated under one end of the lower
berth, Jack’s belongings in a similar receptacle taking up the
remainder of the space.
“Everything seems to be accounted for,” announced Tom, when he had
gathered up all the clothing and such things as he carried with him to
be used in his work as an aviator.
“That proves one thing,” snapped Jack; “It wasn’t any ordinary thief
who entered this stateroom while we were on deck and searched your
trunk. He was looking for something besides money or valuables. Say,
he must have been pretty mad when he found he’d had all his work for
nothing, and given his business away in the bargain, for of course he
understood that you’d guess what it all meant.”
“It strikes me,” mused Tom, sitting on the lower berth, and turning
toward his indignant chum, “that we’re having all sorts of thrills
aboard this steamer long before we get to the danger zone and the
waiting subs.”
“A little bit too much excitement to please me. The trouble is it’s all
on one side. So far we haven’t been able to get a single whack at those
clever scamps.”
Tom was taking it very much in the light of a joke. He at least was
not worrying himself because the plotters had met with such a bitter
disappointment when they may have anticipated great things to come of
this secret search.
“Do you think they’ll be ready to give it up as a bad job, now that
they’ve looked your trunk over, and failed to find anything?” Jack went
on to ask.
“That’s hard to say. They may take a notion to scatter your trunk
around for a change.”
“But why should they do that?” demanded Jack.
“On general principles, and because, don’t you see, I might have been
shrewd enough to hand the paper over for you to hide away in your
trunk. Then again, if they had the nerve and could manage it, they
might try to chloroform us some fine night as we slept, and search our
clothes, even ripping open the fleece linings of our leather aviation
coats in the hope of finding something worth while.”
Of course Tom spoke half in a joking mood, but his chum took it all
seriously enough. Unaccustomed to dealing with clever rogues, Jack was
beginning to imagine all manner of terrible possibilities as hanging
over the heads of his companion and himself.
“Say, we really ought to complain to the captain, and have this thing
stopped,” he burst out. “If he knew what was going on aboard his
old boat he’d gladly put a man on duty day and night to watch our
stateroom.”
“But we ought to be able to look out for ourselves, it strikes me,
Jack. Since we have no paper to be taken away from us, why should we
worry? They’ll give it up as a bad job presently. Besides, we’re only
two nights and a day out from port now, and there’ll be plenty to
engage our attention from now on, without borrowing trouble.”
“Well, I’m going to leave my trunk unlocked, after this, so as to save
them the trouble of smashing it if they should come in here again,”
Jack remarked sagaciously, taking a pointer from what his chum had
told him.
Later on, when at the table, they found that the company seemed
unusually quiet. Seldom was a laugh heard, and serious faces were the
rule rather than the exception. Though those aboard might be reckoned
brave men and women, or they would not have been there, the near
approach to a dreaded peril was beginning to get on their nerves.
Tom decided to lounge in the cabin after the meal, and for a time Jack
was willing to stay there also. But he seemed very restless, and was up
and down many times inside of the next hour.
“I think I’ll go outside, and take a few turns,” he finally told Tom.
“I feel stupid after eating so much supper, and a bracing air would
serve as a tonic. See you later, Tom.”
“Well, don’t forget what we were talking about,” the other warned him.
“It’s as dark as a pocket out there, because they won’t allow lights,
you know, and after all, the stars don’t count for much. Keep away from
the rail, Jack!”
“I will,” the other assured him as he turned away.
After that Tom continued to keep his attention fixed to some extent on
the story he was reading. Now and then he looked around, and noted
that the passengers seemed loth to retire to their several quarters.
They clustered in little groups in the saloon, where the lights burned
dimly and the openings were duly covered with cloth, so as to prevent
any escape of the scanty illumination.
Any one could easily see that their subdued spirits indicated a
pervading fear lest at any minute they should hear loud excited cries,
to be quickly followed by a frightful explosion that would tear a great
hole in some part of the big steamer and let the sea rush in with
greedy force.
Jack had been gone some little while and Tom looked for him to come
inside again. In fact, he should really have done so already, his chum
felt, unless he had by chance met some entertaining person outside, who
had interested him so that the passage of time had been unnoticed.
Tom found himself wondering whether Bessie Gleason could have gone
outside. He had noticed her looking suggestively toward Jack while at
the table every time her gloomy-faced guardian turned away to speak to
the neighbor on his left. Tom somehow conceived the impression that the
girl wanted to see Jack again in private. Perhaps she had something
further to communicate, some fresh warning to give Jack; and if she
could slip away from Mr. Potzfeldt and pass out to the promenade deck
in order to join Jack there--
He had just reached this point in his thoughts when he saw the girl.
She had apparently just come from her stateroom, for she was in company
with the Red Cross nurse. There was a half-frightened expression on
Bessie’s pretty face. Still, who could wonder at such a thing, when
people many times her age were looking peaked and white in those
critical hours.
The girl was looking in Tom’s direction now. He saw her make an
involuntary gesture as if gripped by some emotion. Then she started
forward--she was heading straight toward the spot where the youth sat,
as though bent on speaking to him.
Tom put his magazine down. After all, the story he chanced to be
reading was not one half as exciting as the conditions by which he
found himself surrounded at that very moment.
“Oh, where is Jack?” asked the girl, as soon as she reached his side.
“I hope he has not gone out on that gloomy deck to walk!”
“Just what he did some little time ago,” Tom told her, at the same time
feeling a sense of coming peril gripping his heart and thrilling his
pulses. “But why do you look so anxious, Bessie?”
“Oh, I hardly know! I heard so little of what they were saying, because
they talked so low!” she told him, her eyes round with newly-awakened
fears. “But don’t you see, they might mistake Jack in the dark for you?”
“Do you mean you have a suspicion some one intends to knock me down, if
it can be done in the gloom of the night, Bessie?” he asked her.
“Yes, I am afraid it means just that! But please let us go and find
Jack!” she begged, in a low, thrilling tone.
Of course Tom needed no urging. His heart was beating tumultuously as
he left his chair and, followed by the eager girl, passed from the dim
cabin to the utter darkness of the promenade deck. He was almost afraid
of what he might find there.