TO THE RESCUE
Porky was getting worried. It was growing late, and there was no sign of Beany.
He asked a couple of the aides when they came in if they had seen anything of his brother, but no one had any news for him. Porky looked into the narrow hall at intervals, and twice he went out and wandered around the grounds that surrounded the castle. But nothing of Beany!
Finally he returned to the office, and took up his station at the window where he could see far down what had been the drive. The office was in a room in what had been the wing, and jutted out into the space now soiled and useless, which had once been a lovely, widespread garden of lawns and flowers, but which now looked worse than any ploughed field.
Something kept pulling at Porky's heart. He knew the feeling, had had it often; and it told him, as it always did, that his twin brother, whom he loved so well, was in trouble and needed him. Usually he felt something that impelled him to go in a certain direction in search of Beany; something, a force directing him—he never could tell just what it was. But he always obeyed it, and so did Beany, to whom the same feelings came. But now Porky sat irresolutely at the window, baffled and worried. He felt anchored to the spot, yet knew in his heart that his brother's need was great. Every time he got to his feet and started out of the room, something pulled him back. Finally in despair, he settled down and stared with unseeing eyes into the growing darkness of the ruined gardens.
His heart beat heavily. His mind and soul called his brother, demanding an answer from the silence and the night. The officers and aides who had been in the room left it, and Porky was alone. Presently, as the waiting grew almost more than the boy could endure, a slight sound caused him to turn around. It was the old scrubwoman, broom in hand.
"Hullo!" said Porky, and turned back to the window. He was too badly worried to be polite.
"Hay-loo!" said the old cracked voice in broken English. Porky looked around again. She was standing at his side, smiling at him, a queer grinning leer not at all pleasant. Porky felt an insane desire to ask her if that was the best she could do. But he did not. He simply stared at her, at the wrinkled face and bright, twinkling, keen eyes. Porky felt that those eyes were almost too keen, almost too intelligent for that old peasant woman.
They looked steadily at each other, Porky wondering more and more at the expression on the old mask of a face. She was little, bent and feeble; she scarcely came to tall Porky's shoulder; yet to the sensitive, worried boy as he gazed at her there came a feeling of something wicked, powerful, and threatening. There seemed to the alert senses of the boy that there was a knowing twinkle in the old eyes when she looked questioningly around the room, and said, "Your brodder. Ware iss he?"
"I don't know," said Porky slowly. "You didn't see him outside, did you?"
"No, I dit not see heem outsite; me, I have seen nozzing outsite."
She smiled and wagged her old head, looked piercingly at Porky again, and turned away. Porky watched her squat old bent figure, then drew his breath sharply as something caught his eye! It was something caught on one of the ample folds of her ragged skirt, something that glittered! All the blood in Porky's body seemed to make a mad rush to his head, then ebbed back to his heart. He started toward the old woman, then stopped and thought, staring at the object on her skirt. He knew it well. The old woman stooped to pick up something and the object on her skirt swung free and glittered in the uncertain light. Porky drew a sharp breath as he recognized his brother's message. For a message he knew it to be. The little glittering object was a leather fob strap. At the end dangled a swimming medal that Beany had won long ago. He had always carried it as a pocket piece, and in some way it had accompanied him on the Great Adventure. It had never been out of Beany's pocket.
Yet there it was, hanging to a fold of the old woman's tattered dress swinging and glittering! Evidently she did not know that it was there.
Porky, suddenly alert, started to his feet and took an impulsive step toward the old woman. Then, before she had time to notice his action, he stopped. He could not remove the dangling medal without letting her know that something was up, and his only move was to watch her when she left the room. Somewhere, Beany was in trouble! Porky realized that the message of the medal was a desperate, last resort. A million to one shot, he told himself anxiously; but it had reached him, and while he lived there was hope for Beany. He studied the old scrubwoman with a new understanding. She no longer appeared harmless, stupid and ignorant. The keen twinkle in her old eyes; what had it meant? The seemingly simple and innocent question, "Your brodder. Ware iss he?" was just to sound him, the boy decided. He knew, all at once, that she knew all about Beany. To follow her was to find his brother, alive, or ... Porky could not say the rest even to his own soul. He would follow her! He would find the brother whom he loved better than his own life! His blood boiled when he thought of the condition he might find that dear one in, and he set his jaw in a way that promised desperate things.
Old Elise went pottering around the room, unconscious of the glittering eyes bent steadfastly on her, and ignorant of the glittering trifle fastened to her dress. Porky felt that he would gladly barter years of his life to know how it came to be there, but he clung to the happiest reason that he could think up: Beany himself had in some way fastened it on the old woman. Porky decided to obey the summons as he imagined them to have been sent. By hook or crook, he would follow the old woman, sly and crafty as he now believed her to be. By hook or crook, he would find his brother. Starting towards the old woman, he waited until she stooped over the General's table, wiping off the papers with a careful, shaking old hand. Porky, suspicious of everything now, fancied that she swiftly read the words on the uppermost pages, but he was busy with deft fingers unfastening the fob from the tattered skirt. He slipped it in his pocket, picked up a pencil and pad from the table, and once more sat down by the window. A few minutes later, while the old woman still pottered around, Porky rose and idly left the room, whistling as he did so. He unconsciously repeated Beany's performance in the dusky hall. He went to the turn, and dropping on one knee, bent a steady gaze on the door he had just closed. He was rewarded in a moment by a sight of the old woman. She came out of the General's office, softly closing the door behind her, and commenced feeling over the secret panel. It opened, and she entered, closing it as she went, but not before Porky was beside it, his eye on the spot he had seen her old fingers press. He waited for what seemed to him an eternity, then pressed the carved ornament of old oak. It gave, and the opening panel disclosed the passage in the wall down which Beany had so recklessly followed his quarry.
Porky was cautious, yet determined. Noiselessly he trailed the old spy until they reached the great chamber where the big bed was. Not once did she look behind. It did not occur to her that she could possibly be watched or followed. She had grown careless. She did not even mind the fact that she had left the heavy door swinging ajar behind her. Why, indeed, should she? Was not the door in the panel too cunningly contrived for any one to find, except perhaps that Boy Scout who now sat fettered in his chair waiting his end? His brother ... bah! She had left him above. She crossed the room, and stooped to reach a shawl she had thrown on the high bed. As she bent, something light and strong and cat-like leaped upon her seizing her wrinkled throat in a vise-like grip. She could not scream. In a second the curtain of the bed was wrapped over her, fold on fold. She struggled furiously, but to no avail. She was nearly smothered. Porky didn't much care. He worked in a frenzy of haste. He pulled down the thick cords that had been used to pull the bed curtains open and shut, and tied his human bundle securely. Then with a cautious thought he shoved her under the high bed, and made for the inner room.
It was silent. A single candle burned on the table. Beany sat in his chair. He was bound and gagged. As Porky sped across the room he saw the diabolical contrivance hanging above the boy's head.
A massive blade with a heavily weighted handle hung directly over the boy, point down. The cord which held the weapon passed through a pulley to another pulley, and from there to the table. There it was fastened to a short stick that was strapped to the alarm key of a common alarm clock. As Porky's quick glance took in the whole scene, the little alarm clock gave the cluck that precedes the striking of the alarm. Porky made a dash across the room, as the alarm commenced to sound and, seizing his brother's chair, swung him aside as the whirling alarm key tightened the cord. One after another, with deadly swiftness, the cords tightened until a quick pull on the smallest cord of all, a mere thread, snapped it.
The heavy blade seemed for a moment to balance in air, then it dropped down and buried its razor point six inches deep in the old floor.
Not until then did Porky slash the cords which bound his brother, and as Beany shook himself free, with many faces to ease his tired jaw where the gag had pressed it, Porky dropped limply into a chair and mopped his brow.
"The sword of Damocles!" was all he said.
"Don't know the gent," said Beany huskily. "Did some guy play this trick on him! If he felt as nervous as I did before you came, I feel good and sorry for him. Gosh, I have been sitting all trussed up there for about a year! Let's get out of this!"
"No special hurry," said Porky wearily. He could not recover at once from the shock, but Beany was chipper as a cricket.
"Well, I don't know," he said, "I have not grown so fond of this little old dungeon that I want to reside here long. Besides, perhaps you don't know the old lady who sweeps upstairs as well as I do. She is apt to be up to almost any trick."
"Not if the Court knows himself, and he thinks he does," said Porky positively. "I left her under the bed in the other room with about a mile of flossy curtain cord twined around her. She is safe enough. We will go up and report this little affair, and get a couple of men to come down and take her to the General. She is a hard character. A spy, in fact."
"I guess I know that!" said Beany, rising and rubbing his stiff legs and arms. "I have a lot more to report than you have. Let's be off!"
Together they hurried into the first chamber, and made for the door leading into the passage. Porky, in passing, looked under the bed. Then with a gasp he looked again and, dropping on one knee, seized a bundle of ragged clothing and a tangle of crimson curtain cords.
He looked at them, turning them over and over. Then he shook them. Then he looked under the great high bed again.
"What ails you?" demanded Beany impatiently.
"She's—she's gone!" said Porky feebly.
The old woman had vanished.