WHERE WAS PORKY?
Where was Beany?
Beany himself, trussed up neatly with many cords and wearing a scientific gag which made speech or yells impossible, yet which did not hurt him very much, would have been glad to have been able to answer that question.
Where was Beany? Beany didn't know where Beany was, and also he felt a natural and lively curiosity as to where Beany was going to be in the near future.
He had entered the passage in the wall on the spur of the moment; he had acted without counting the possible cost or the probable consequences.
Usually the boys acted together; if possible, they always left some clue for the other to follow. Hence they had hitherto come out of some pretty dark and serious scrapes with whole skins and a desire for further adventures. But this time Porky, in the General's office, Porky, sound asleep with his head on the General's desk, could not know that his twin brother was faring forth alone on a desperate adventure. If he had known at the moment what was happening, if any warning could have pierced his sleep-drugged brain, well, this story would not have been written.
Beany popped into the secret passage and slid the panel shut behind him with a careless backward-reaching hand. His eyes and his thoughts were on the pitchy dark before him. He thought with a sense of relief that he had a tiny flashlight in his pocket, but whether it would flash when required to do so was quite another matter.
Beany was bitter on the subject of flashlights, knowing well how apt they are to respond to every touch when not required particularly to do so, and having learned by sad experience that it was when the festive burglar was in the room, the pet kitten down the well, or the diamond in the crack that they would not flash at all. So he merely felt of the pocket where the flash reposed, and stood silent, back against the panel, waiting to accustom those marvelous eyes of his to the dense darkness.
Beany Potter had a gift given to few—eyesight that served him almost equally well by day or by night. There was scarcely a limit to his strange focus. And at night, like members of the cat family, he was able to make out not only forms, but in many cases features and colors as well.
When he had become used to the pitch blackness of the tunnel, he discovered that he was in an arched stone passage just wide enough for one person to walk without brushing the sides. It wound forward on an incline, and ten feet from where Beany stood turned a corner. Still forgetful of danger, he ran noiselessly forward and gained the turn, where he stood listening. There was not a sound to guide or warn him, so he went on, scarcely breathing. His footsteps made not the slightest sound, and he could feel that there was something soft and deadening under his feet, either fine sand or bran, or something of that nature, that had been spread for the purpose of stifling the sound of passing steps. Now he could clearly hear voices above, and decided that he was near or right under the room where the General had his office and held all his staff meetings.
Beany stopped at once and commenced tracing the sound. After a little he found the source. At one side of the passage a common funnel was set in the wall. Beany placed his ear to the funnel and was startled by the clearness with which he was able to distinguish sounds in the General's office. He could hear the scratching of the pen as the General wrote, the steady tramp, tramp of Colonel Bright as he paced the room. Even the steady breathing of his sleeping brother was plainly audible.
Beany seized the edge of the funnel and was about to tear it loose but decided that it was better to leave it apparently untouched. So he rammed his handkerchief tightly down the neck of the funnel, and chuckled to note that the sounds from the room were suddenly silenced. If any one should come behind him and try to listen, they would get one good big surprise, but no information, for the handkerchief was packed well out of sight.
This done, Beany turned and, smiling over his precious information, started back, when a sound, a far distant sound, rooted him to the spot. It was a woman crying in a low stifled tone. "Oh, oh, oh!" cried the voice with choking sobs.
Then another voice spoke, and a sneering, low laugh floated back to Beany. The sobbing voice cried out again in English.
"Oh, don't! Oh, please! Oh, I can't tell you because I don't know! Don't hurt him! Don't hurt him!"
Beany forgot that he was alone, unarmed, a boy. He forgot the dark passage; he forgot caution. Afterwards he wondered why he did not think to call up the funnel for the help he needed. He just turned and, trusting to his wonderful eyes to take him safely over the black unknown path, he ran swiftly in the direction of the voice.
Around a corner, down a short, straight passage, around another corner, then through a low, narrow door that swung half way open, Beany shot into a large room or cavern. He did not stop to see where he was, but continued his chase across the space. There was another door beyond. A light shone through this door and Beany headed for it. From within the choked sobbing continued. Half way he smashed into something—a piece of heavy furniture of some sort. He rebounded as if from a blow, and staggered. Before he could get his balance again, a form appeared against the light in the door ahead and another form seemed to take shape from the dark bulk of the piece of furniture he had stumbled against. He was seized in a pair of steel-muscled arms, a heavy cloth was thrown over him and rolled tightly around him.
In the instant he was made helpless, powerless.
He heard rapid orders. Through the thick cloth he could see a dim glimmer of light. He was laid down on a couch of some sort, and tied, hands and feet.
Then and only then was the heavy cloth removed, and Beany, blinking in the glare of half a dozen electric lanterns, stared at the group around him.
He was lying on a great bed that was occupying the middle of the room. It seemed a funny place for a bed, but later Beany noticed that the moisture was thick on the walls and was dripping down the corners. The middle was about the only dry place. The covers had been luxurious—soft and silken comfortables padded with feathers, and delicate blankets, but they were soiled and torn by careless spurs. At the foot of the bed, staring at him with amazement in her face, was the old scrubwoman. It was evident that she recognized him. She had seen him often enough, Beany reflected. He returned her look and nodded. A big man, the one in the duster, standing close at Beany's side, noted the nod and rasped out a remark, directing it at the old woman. She did not condescend to notice him. Two other men were there. From the inner room the sobbing continued. Beany scowled. He fixed his eyes on the old woman.
"Somebody is being hurt," he remarked.
No one spoke. Beany did not take his eyes from the woman's face.
"I know you can hear," he informed her, "and I bet my hat you speak English! I wish you would talk and tell me who is getting hurt. I can't do any harm just at present."
The woman continued to stare at him for a moment, then bared her toothless gums in a cackling laugh. She nodded quite gaily.
"No, you can't do much harm either now or later, my little sparrow-hawk."
She spoke in clear, perfect English, with only the slightest accent to betray her German blood.
"I liked you two boys, up above. You were always agreeable to the poor old deaf and dumb woman. No sneers, no jokes about her, always nice and pleasant. Two nice boys! Made just alike, and such fonny names—Peany and Borky; so fonny!" She laughed again.
The man in the duster commenced to swear in German. Beany knew it was swearing, and recognized it as German.
The old woman raised her hand.
"Calm yourself, Excellency!" she said, with the air of royalty. "There is no need for excitement. Why should I not say what I please to this foolish child who has made such a great mistake; ah, such a great mistake?"
"It iss his last!" snarled the man in the duster, breaking into English. "His last; his last!" he kept repeating.
"Calm yourself," said the old woman, frowning. "We know that; it is all so easy; why do you annoy yourself? I am only sorry that it is one of those nice boys. Such pleasant, polite boys! The other will feel the lonesomeness very much; is it not so, my little sparrow-hawk?"
She smiled in the boy's face. Then she came to the side of the bed, and with a not ungentle hand arranged him in a more comfortable position. Then she touched the man in the duster, whom she called Excellency, and together they went into the farthest corner of the big room and whispered for a long time, while the two other men stood motionless beside the bed and watched Beany as closely as though they thought he might float off through the ceiling. Presently, as though they had come to a decision, Excellency returned, the old woman, whom he called Madame, at his side. They too stood and looked long at the boy.
"How did you get here?" asked Madame finally.
"Through the panel," said Beany, who knew there was no use keeping back anything they could so easily find out for themselves.
The old woman started to ask another question when the low sobbing in the other room was accented by a moan. With a glance at Beany's cords, the group beside him all went out of sight through the open doorway. In a few moments there was silence, with the sound of heavy breathing.
"Drugged!" guessed Beany.
Presently the two men returned. They took Beany from the bed, and sat him down in a chair, binding his legs tightly and, after searching him for a pistol, released his arms. A cord cunningly wrapped around his waist held him firmly in his seat. Beany was glad to have his hands free.
Hours passed. Beany felt cramped and was furiously hungry. His brain milled round and round in a ceaseless effort to find some way out of the situation. He did not feel proud of this last exploit. He had acted rashly and without the least glimmer of caution. He knew well that he was doomed. There was no possible finish but death, and if it could be a swift death without torture, it would only be on account of the ray of friendship that Madame felt for the two youngsters who had respected her infirmities and age.
Beany was against a blank wall. Knowing that he had no possible chance of escape, Madame climbed up on the bed, the three men disappeared in the inner room, and finally, to his amazement, Beany too dozed off, although he could not help thinking that it was not at all the thing to do under the circumstances.
When he woke, he was dazed and stiff. His legs, strapped tightly to the chair, felt asleep. Madame, fully dressed, as she had lain down hours before, sat blinking on the side of the bed.
"Well! Wie befinden sie sich?" she said, grinning at the prisoner.
Beany accepted the friendly tone, although he did not understand the words.
"Morning!" he offered in return.
Madame clapped her wrinkled hands sharply.
The man who had stared through the keyhole appeared.
"Coffee!" said Madame abruptly. It was a command.
The man saluted and withdrew, to return with a tray and a. steaming cup. Madame sat sipping the boiling draft, gazing at the boy meanwhile.
"It is really too bad," she said finally, in her careful, clear English. "Such a boyish, silly thing to do! And you see how it is. You are such a nice boy; I do hate to let them kill you, yet you cannot go back; you must see that. However, you shall have an easy way. I shall assert my authority. You look surprised. Do you think it strange that so old a woman, so frightful an old woman, should still have authority? Even so, I have plenty of it. I am powerful. If I chose, I could call the Emperor cousin. What do you say to that?"
She seemed to expect an answer. Beany did not know what to say, but after a pause in which she stared at him unwinkingly, he managed to retort, "Some dope!"
"Indeed, yes!" said Madame, to whom the slang was Greek. "Indeed, yes! Well, your coming has spoiled nothing but your own life. We have the information that we want, we have two prisoners who are most valuable. The others will go on to-day, while I, the cousin of an emperor, will for the time continue to wait on those pigs of officers upstairs. Deaf and dumb!"
She laughed silently, with queer little cackles. Then setting down the empty cup, she went into the inner room.
Beany sat thinking the big thoughts that come at hours so filled with doom. Yet somehow it did not seem possible to him that he was to be snuffed out so soon; he, Beany Potter! He looked at his wrist watch. The crystal was broken but the watch was still running. Beany started to wind it, then stopped. What would be the use?
"Well, it may as well go as long as I do," he reflected, and finished winding it. It sounded loud as thunder in the quiet room.
He commenced to think of his brother with all his might. His spirit called to him over and over. He thought again of the time and remembered that although he had looked at his watch, he had not noticed the time at all.
Once more he looked. To his amazement it was noon.
Beany commenced idly feeling through his pockets. If he could only find some way of communicating with Porky before it was too late! All at once his fingers closed on an object that he knew. His face lighted..... If there was any way—Oh, if there was any way!
Then Beany's clean boy soul went down upon its knees, while Beany, lashed to the chair, closed his eyes and prayed. Earnestly, humbly he prayed for help; and then, feeling that he had done all he could in the way of asking, opened his eyes and set his whole mind on Porky. He kept his hand in his pocket closed on the object he had chanced on.
Presently the two men came back, untied the cords that bound Beany to the massive chair, tied his hands behind his back, untied his ankles and led him into the inner room. Beany flashed a curious glance around it.
The room was not dark, like the room he had just left. It was well lighted by grated windows overgrown outside with heavy underbrush. Beany guessed that they were away from the ruined castle itself and somewhere out on the grounds. There was more furniture, and another bed like the one in the room that he had just left.
On this tumbled couch lay a form closely covered with a blanket.
"Dead, whoever he is," said Beany to himself.
Facing him was a straight chair and in it, bound and gagged, was a young man in the uniform of the French army. He was trussed up until movement of any sort seemed impossible. Most of his face was covered with the cloths that formed the gag, but over the bandages a pair of sharp, intelligent eyes flashed a message to Beany. He had been buffeted and racked, threatened with all the horrors imaginable and subjected to some of them, but from out those eyes looked a spirit that blows could never break and death itself could never quell. Beany returned the look with a long gaze. He underwent a new agony. Not only was he unable, through his foolhardy action, to save his own life, but here was another as well that he could not save. For he knew that the youth before him must be doomed. His gaze roved to the bed. There was something strangely graceful and soft about the outlines of the form under the comfortable. He felt his hair prickle on his head. All at once he knew. It was a girl! It had been her voice he had heard sobbing. As he looked, he hoped and prayed that she was indeed dead. He stifled a groan.
Madame gave an order. He was once more fastened securely in a chair and the old woman came beside him and offered him a paper and pencil.
"You may write a note to that twin brother of yours," she said. "We are through with this underground hole. It is damp, anyway. I do not need any further help. But you shall write and tell your brother where to look for you. I will see that he gets it in good season. Not to-day, nor yet to-morrow. Little boys in these war-times must be taught not to meddle. Write what you will."
Beany took the pencil obediently, and wrote:
"Open panel at right of office door by pressing upper left-hand carving. Send some one else to look for me. Love to Mother and Father. Good-by.
"BEANY."
Madame took the brief note and read it. "That is short, but it will do," she said. Then she turned to the others. "As soon as it is dark take your prisoners to the foot of the garden. There will be a French car there. The girl, as you know, is to be taken unharmed. Go to our own base. We will make her speak when we get her there. You know what to do with this other."
She picked up a broom and grinned down at Beany. "I am going up to see what they are doing above. Don't you wish you had had the sense not to meddle?"
As she passed him Beany strained forward against his bonds and caught her by the dress. He clasped her knees in his agony.
"Please, please, Madame!" he cried. "Please don't let them kill me! I promise that I won't tell!" His voice went up in a cry that was almost a whine. The old woman broke away from him in disgust.
"Bah! You are all alike! live, live, live always! Why don't you learn to die, you Americans! That is what we have got to teach you!" She struck him smartly across the face, and moved to the door with a backward look of command.
"Be ready when I return," she said. "In the meantime not a sound!" She grinned at Porky. "I will see you once more, young man," she chuckled, and left the room.
As the door hid her from view, Beany drew a long breath. He seemed strangely excited and relieved. Once more he consulted his watch. It would be at least an hour before dark. There was a fighting chance. Death or life? Life or death? His fate was trembling in the balance.
Where was Porky?