CAPTURED.
AT the open door of the office Alf paused; the room was empty and dark,
but in the corner stood the safe, still apparently fast locked; so at
least the key had not been found.
All the other lower rooms had been overhauled and looted, everything
valuable having been carried away, unless indeed it had proved too big
to be handled.
Alf then went upstairs, but there seemed to be no one anywhere. Even
the servants' rooms were empty, their cupboards and drawers open, and
garments scattered about, as though they had dressed in great fear and
haste.
Last of all, he went to the nursery. By this time the horrible silence
of the house was getting upon the boy's nerves, and for the first time
he felt his courage giving way, as he stood in the dear familiar room,
now so lonely and deserted.
He turned and was about to descend the stairs again, when he fancied he
heard a little sound somewhere close by.
"Anyone here?" he called, with a shudder at the sound of his own voice.
Then the door of a big wall-cupboard opened softly, and Bert's fair
head and white face appeared.
In an instant the boys were locked in a close embrace, and for a minute
or two neither could say a word. But at last Alf mastered his feelings
and began to question Bert, learning from him that the workmen had come
to the house in force, and had gone all over it, making a great noise
and alarming him greatly.
He said that soon after Alf had left for the town, the nurse went to
see if she could do anything for Mr. or Mrs. Oliver, promising to
return to Bert very soon.
But she had not come back, and meanwhile the child had heard the talk
of the ruffians on the stairs, and their threats to bring a bomb or
dynamite and blow up the safe, since they could not open it otherwise.
Then, for fear of their coming in and finding him, Bert hid in the
cupboard, and only found courage to come out when he heard his
brother's voice.
"Then you don't know what has become of dad and mother and nurse?"
asked Alf.
"No, I don't know anything," replied Bert.
"Well, happily Yakov Ivanitch will be here presently with his own men
and some Cossacks, and perhaps they'll find out what has become of all
our people."
"Ach, so? Will they, indeed?" said a harsh voice behind them. "Well, it
is well to know what is likely to happen, then one is prepared."
The boys, turning quickly, saw that the speaker standing in the doorway
was the man with the great red scar, the brutal face, and heavy,
powerful form.
"So it's you we have to thank, young gentlemen, if the whole nest of
police hornets comes buzzing about our ears?"
"Not both of us," retorted Alf stoutly; "my brother had nothing at all
to do with it."
"Oh, indeed! So it was you alone? Well, whoever it was, I think we
won't wait here for your friends to arrive. Lucky I happened to think
of taking one more look round! Come along, both of you!"
And grasping in his huge hands the collar of each boy, he dragged them,
in spite of their struggles and hearty kicks at his shins, down the
stairs and into the back yard, where a sledge was waiting, with a horse
harnessed, and Alf recognised both as his father's.
"Where art thou taking us, thou ruffian?" cried Alf.
"That's not your business," replied Red-scar. "I am not here to be
questioned; get into the sledge."
"I cannot leave my pony behind," said Alf stoutly. "He is in the
stable, and I must go and fetch him."
The man hesitated. "There is no time to lose," he urged.
"It will not take long," rejoined Alf, "and my brother can come with
me."
"What! And lock yourselves into the stable and wait for the police?"
snarled Red-scar. "No, thank you But the pony is worth money, so you
may fetch him, and I shall hold your brother as hostage for your
return."
Once in the stable, Alf deliberately fed his pony, for Sharik had made
a double journey, at high speed for him, and might have to run far
again directly. His saddle and bridle were still on him, so his young
master took all the time at his disposal in giving him a good feed of
oats, unheeding, until the good little animal had partly satisfied its
hunger, the calls and curses of the man.
But at last, fearing on Bert's account to anger Red-scar further, he
led Sharik out, knotted a leading strap round his arm, and without
replying to the horrible language of the ruffian, got into the sledge
beside Bert, while Red-scar scrambled on to the driver's seat.
Alf looked eagerly in the direction of the town as they emerged into
the high road. He was hoping, almost against hope, that the rescuers
might appear, even now, at the eleventh hour. But no one was in sight
along the white snow road. Their driver turned the horse's head in the
opposite direction, and with a sharp cut of the whip set the pace at a
gallop.
"Whither art thou taking us?" asked Alf presently.
"After a while you will see," replied the man, with a brutal laugh.
"Be assured of one thing, thou hideous ruffian," said the boy
indignantly, "that ere long thou and thy fellows shall smart for this.
My father hath ever been a just and kind master to his workmen; and for
this ill return they shall, without doubt, pay the price."
"Crow not so loud, my chicken!" sneered the man, his cruel red smile
scorning to stretch all round his head. "Troublesome cockerels now and
again get their necks twisted."
"The wicked old cocks always do," retorted the lad, nothing daunted;
"and so, please God, shalt thou, too, one fine day; and the sooner the
better for the rest of us!"
"Wait a bit, my fine young gentleman!" snarled the fellow over his
shoulder. "Your turn will come presently. Hideous ruffian, am I? That
makes one more thing to thank you for, you stuck-up young monkey!"
It was after three o'clock in the morning by Alf's watch when, in the
middle of a pine forest, Red-scar pulled up the panting horse before
the door of a rude shanty, a woodman's log hut, built of whole pines
roughly trimmed with an axe, and with the crevices stuffed with moss
and lichen.
Out of a chimney smoke curled upwards in fantastic shapes, and
dispersed in the wintry sky.
"Get down," said Red-scar. He had scrambled out of the driver's narrow
seat, and now threw back the furred apron that had protected his young
passengers.
"What is this place?" asked Bert, shivering as he stood in the snow of
the little clearing round the hut.
But the man did not condescend to reply. He strode to the door of the
hut and thumped on it with the handle of his whip.
It opened, showing the light inside, and holding the door open—Stepan
the fitter. "Come in, come in!" he said, with some show of heartiness,
as the lads, stiff with cold, stood shivering on the threshold. "There
is a good fire in the stove here, and I will make some tea to warm you.
What about the horses, Gavril?" he added, turning to Red-scar, whose
real name the boys now heard for the first time.
"That means Gabriel in English, Bert," said Alf, with an attempt at a
smile. "Nice specimen of an archangel, isn't he?"
"The horses?" repeated Red-scar, from the door; "the shed will be all
right for them. There is plenty of straw, and I have stopped up all
the cracks and mended the door, so that it shuts quite tight. Also I
brought hay and oats," and he stepped to the sledge and dragged two
sacks out of the front of it. "They made a good footstool for me," he
added, "and kept my feet warm."
Stepan, while his companion was occupied with the horses, busied
himself in making the tea.