WHEN SWORDS CLASHED
"I wonder if that winds up the whole show?" asked Billy Worth, a short
time later, as Alec and Monkey Stallings joined him, while there was
an unusual bustle among the numerous retinue of the hard-working
stage manager.
"Not on your life, Billy," observed Alec, "though I'm all in myself
so far as taking any more wonderful pictures goes, because I've used
my last film, which I consider hard luck. Hugh just told me the worst
is yet to come."
"What! are they going to make out to burn the old castle down? Is that
worrying you, Alec?" asked the Stallings boy.
"Sure it is," frankly confessed Alec. "Of course, the fire will be
a whole lot of a fake; that is, much smoke, and no real danger to the
girl shut up in that high turret room; but, all the same, it's going
to do considerable harm to the building, which may queer it for Aunt
Susan's purposes."
"Well, what can you say?" demanded Billy. "These people have put
up the money to cover any damage they may do, and money talks every
time. Here comes Hugh back to tell us what the programme is. He's
just left that hustler of a director, and the chances are Hugh knows
all about it, because he's made a big hit with the manager."
"Hugh always does make people look up to him, somehow," mused Alec,
as though it often puzzled him to know just how the other managed it.
"There, Arthur has joined him, too, and is coming along," Billy went
on to say. "He's about finished helping the doctor take care of the
wounded yeomen who had the bad luck to be caught when that treacherous
old wall caved in."
The scout master, accompanied by Arthur, quickly joined them, to be
greeted by a shower of eager questions.
"I can tell you all about it, fellows," said Hugh, making as if to
ward off an attack. "Mr. Jefferson, the manager, says he figures
on completing his work in the one visit, and has made all necessary
preparations. It's a tremendous job to fetch his big company all
the way from New York up here. If they make good to-day they expect
to go back in the morning, or perhaps to-night, if they can catch
the late train. Otherwise they'll have to make another try to-morrow.
Personally, I think they'll make good to-day."
"What's the next stunt, Hugh?" asked Alec, his voice more or less
betraying the eagerness and concern he felt.
"Oh, from what I can gather," answered the scout master, smilingly,
"it runs about like this: The forces headed by the hero knight have
carried the outer works of the fortress castle in which the villain
has the fair heroine shut up in that turret room. The invaders, having
made a breach in the walls and swarmed over in various places, will
now pursue the few desperate defenders of the castle through this
passage; and that, with many a desperate hand-to-hand fight. Always
the knight in armor is seen hewing his way steadily through all opposition,
with one object in view. Of course this is to meet the scoundrel,
and finish him, which he eventually does after a dreadful sword fight."
"Whew!" gasped Billy, listening with round eyes to the stirring story.
Alec, too, was deeply interested, but his professional instinct caused
him to remark:
"They'll have to burn heaps and heaps of flashlight powder to get all
those inside effects. Wish they'd let me see just how they manage it,
but it would be apt to queer the value of the picture to have, a modern
Boy Scout appear in it. If I get a good chance, though, I've a notion
to ask Mr. Jefferson."
"You'll never be able to make it, Alec," Hugh told him. "He's the
busiest man on earth. He has to be thinking of fifty things at once."
"Go on, Hugh, and tell us the rest," urged Billy, pawing at the sleeve
of the other, which action he doubtless meant to be an urgent second
to his appeal.
"Every once in a while there will be glimpses shown of Rebecca in her
dungeon, looking out of the little opening, and carrying on as if
nearly frightened to death, for gusts of smoke will be circling around
her, and she is supposed to know that the fire is getting closer all
the time."
"Wow, that must make it a thriller for fair!" exclaimed Monkey Stallings,
who was known to love exciting stories, though his watchful mother
kept a tight rein on his propensity to indulge along those lines, and
censored all books he brought into the house before allowing him to
devour them.
"Of course," remarked Alec, flippantly. "It goes without saying that
eventually knight in shining armor, Ivanhoe, or whoever he may be,
gets to the locked door of the turret tower room, bursts his way through,
and saves the lovely maiden, like they always do in stories of those
olden times. But here's hoping the fire doesn't get out of control,
and set in to destroy the best part of this wonderful castle. Such
things have been known to happen, I've read."
"Gosh!" ejaculated Billy with morse than his accustomed vigor, "you're
only thinking of the humbug old castle, Alec, and what chance there
would be for your rich aunt to buy the same if half burned down.
Guess you forget the poor girl shut up in that lonesome turret room;
what d'ye suppose would become of _her_ if the fire got beyond control?"
"And not a ladder in sight, either," added Monkey Stallings, dismally,
as he swept his eyes around in a nervous way. "As for a fire company,
there isn't one closer than Danbury, which is all of ten miles away.
Whew! I'm beginning to wish the whole business was over with, boys, and
the troupe jogging along back to the town they came from in all those
big automobiles."
Hugh made no remark just then, but perhaps this suggestion of possible
trouble cause him a little concern. He could be seen looking gravely
toward the immense pile of real and imitation stone as though mentally
figuring what it might be possible to do in a sudden emergency.
As numerous events in the past had proved, Hugh Hardin was always a
great hand for mapping out things beforehand. He believed in the
principle of preparing for war in times of peace, so as not to be
taken unawares.
"A man insures his home," Hugh often said in explanation of this habit,
"when everything seems lovely and safe, not when the fire is raging,
and his property going up in flame and smoke."
The stage manager had determined that there was no need of repeating
the last wild scene where the castle was taken, and a tottering wall
fell unexpectedly in the midst of the furious struggle. Let it stand,
he had determined, accident and all. It appeared to be almost perfect
"copy," and would show up as a faithful portrayal of the stupendous
perils attending the efforts of his company in enacting just one phase
of a romantic drama of the days of chivalry.
"I notice that they are meaning to use two machines and a couple or
camera men, so as to get all the excitement down pat," ventured Alec,
presently, as they stood and watched the hurrying people of the play
in their remarkable attire suggestive of those feudal days of old.
"One is to be kept busy outside," explained Hugh, "while the other
takes pictures of the fighting going on through the corridors and
apartments of the castle, while the knight and his valorous retainers
are battling their way closer and closer to the place where the captive
'maiden' is held fast behind the locked door. I got all that stuff
straight from Mr. Jefferson, and those are his own words, so don't
laugh."
"Huh! it's too serious a business to do much laughing," grunted Billy.
"I'm just itching all over to see how it comes out. There, that must
have been the signal to start. I can see some of the men beginning
to make an awful smoke with the apparatus they're handling. What a
good imitation of the real thing it is!"
"Whoopee! listen to the big swords clashing inside the castle, will
you?" cried Monkey Stallings. "Say, we're missing great stunts,
believe me, in having to stay out here. I've got half a notion-----"
However, Monkey did not finish the sentence, whatever rash notion was
flitting through his active mind. Possibly he had indulged in a wild
dream that for one of his climbing abilities it might prove feasible
to reach a window above, and by thrusting his head through the
aperture see something of the wonderful things going on in the
passages where the crowd was thronging.
It was the fact of Hugh looking meaningly at him that caused Monkey
to stop in the midst of his sentence, for he saw by the expression
on the face of the scout master that Hugh would not permit any meddling.
The enormous expense and labor attending the taking of that picture
must not be wasted through any injudicious act on the part of himself
or one of his chums.
As the minutes passed the confusion became almost a riot, so it seemed
to Billy. The shouts of the fighting men grew hoarse with constant
repetitions, for naturally they had to give vent to their emotions,
or else much of their efforts would have lacked in the genuine feeling.
How those swords did whack and beat upon each other as slowly but
surely the defenders of the castle were being cut down one by one!
It was terribly realistic, too, with the vast volumes of smoke rising
up in billows, and here and there what seemed to be a red tongue of
fire shooting through the appalling waves of black vapor.
Presently, as the boys understood, matters would reach a climax. This
was when the hero knight attained the goal for which he was striving
so valiantly.
Then he would be seen attacking the fastened door furiously, while
inside and out that ominous smoke curled in wreaths about him. In
the end, just when it seemed as though all would be lost, of course,
the knight must batter his way in through the broken door, and the
dashing rescue would be complete.
Hugh was beginning to feel nervous, and with a reason. While his
chums' were wholly wrapped up in observing the numerous exciting
incidents that fell under their observation, and connected with the
work of the laboring players, the scout master had made a sudden
discovery that worried him.
It was a very small matter, and would never have been noticed by any
one whose training had not been that of a scout, accustomed to observing
everything happening around him. But small matters may become _deciding_
factors.
The wind had shifted all of a sudden, and besides coming from a new
quarter was rapidly growing in violence. Hugh knew this from the way
the smoke had turned and was now sweeping toward the southeast. This
fact, while trifling in itself, might, as he well knew, assume a
terrible significance when it was remembered that a dozen industrious
supers were playing with fire, and causing it to appear that the whole
wing of the castle were enveloped in flames, real or make-believe.
Hugh had eyes for nothing else after making that thrilling discovery.
He watched with his nerves on edge, and at the same time began to
think within that active brain of his what his plan of campaign must
be should the worst that he feared come to pass.
Those hoarse shouts of the combatants, the clang of steel smiting
steel, the roar of the manager's voice through his big megaphone,
the shrieks of the women connected with the troupe, induced by the
real excitement of the occasion---all these sounds fell upon deaf
ears as Hugh gripped his chum Arthur by the arm and called his attention
to the impending peril, becoming greater with every second.
"The wind, don't you see it's whipped around, and is coming from a
new quarter?" was the tenor of what he called in the other's ear.
"If that fire gets away from those supers it's going to give them a
heap of trouble! Yes, it will chase those fighters out of the passages
in a hurry, and I'm afraid it'll even cut off the poor girl who is
supposed to be locked in that turret room."
"Hugh, look! look!" ejaculated Arthur, in sudden excitement; "Just as
you said, I do believe the fire has got beyond their control already.
Listen to the way everybody is whooping it up now. It's real fright
that we hear, and no make-believe!"