Chapter XII: In the Hands of the Enemy

Some distance away, and seemingly on slightly higher ground, a light was shining, and a second light moved with a curious jerky motion and then disappeared.

The raiders knew that their safety depended on playing a tremendous game of bluff, and that before the news of their adventure spread.

Already a faint grey veil was creeping over the darkness, and at the end of several minutes they found themselves approaching a beech wood which clothed the base of a high hill, and saw that the stationary light came from a curious castellated building at the edge of the wood, where a rustic bridge spanned a swift stream. There was no one about, and the iron-bound door was open.

"Somebody's hunting-lodge," muttered Laval. "They have gone up the hill to see what the explosion meant. That was a lantern we saw moving among the trees."

"Well, it's nothing venture nothing have," said Dennis; and they went in noisily.

The walls of the hall were covered with boar spears and trophies of the chase, but they had scarcely time to glance round them when an old woman came forward out of the darkness with her hands raised.

"Gentlemen!" she cried; "can you tell us the cause of that terrible noise that shook the castle a little while ago?"

"Yes, good wife; it was an awful explosion at the Zeppelin shed over yonder," replied Dennis. "We had the misfortune to be flying over the spot when it happened, and my observer was struck. I am the Lieutenant Blumberger of whom you may have heard." And he imitated the overbearing manner of a Prussian officer.

He had condescended to satisfy the woman's curiosity, but now he must be obeyed.

"To whom does this house belong?"

"It is the hunting-schloss of Count Rudolf von Rudolfstein," said the old woman. "But my master is away serving with the army, and there are only my husband and myself here. Karl has gone up the hill. He said it was an accident, and one can see the ground from there."

"I know the Count very well," said Dennis, looking round the entrance-hall as though the place were his own. "Get me a basin of hot water and some towels. And is it possible that you have any petrol here?"

"There is plenty in the garage," said the old woman, "but I cannot get it until Karl returns. But, _Himmel_, the gentleman will bleed to death!" And she pointed to a great red pool gathering on the stone floor as Laval leaned heavily against a table. "Come in here!" And, carrying a lamp with her, she unlocked another door, and led the way into a handsome room, lined with polished pine, with a huge stove at one end.

Laval, who was suffering agonies, sank with a groan into the first chair, and with an exclamation of commiseration the caretaker's wife hurried away in search of bandages.

"It is good so far," whispered Laval through his clenched teeth. "Leave me to the mercies of this ancient dame; she will stop the bleeding if she can do nothing else. But, for Heaven's sake, find that petrol!"

"That's all very well," said Dennis desperately, when a cough made him turn, and he swung round to see a bent old man, with a long white moustache and a lantern in his hand, standing in the doorway.

"Good! You are Karl," he said at once, repeating his explanation of their presence. "Count von Rudolfstein is my friend, and if he were here his house would be at our disposal. I must fill my tank without delay and return yonder."

"It is terrible, Herr Officer. The whole ground seems to be burning!" said the old man, completely disarmed by the cleverness of the lad's impersonation. "How much petrol do you require?"

"Twenty gallons, if you have it. Let us lose no time. Here is your good frau who will look after my observer."

"And to think, Herr Officer," said the old man. "One of the new super-Zeppelins that was going to punish England for her treachery! Oh that I was a young man again, and I had an Englishman within reach of these arms! They are still strong enough to strangle him!"

Dennis let him ramble on, and followed him as he strode out of the hall to a coach-house that had been converted into a garage.

A very handsome car stood over the inspection pit, and at one end of the building was a great stack of petrol tins. Evidently the Count was a wealthy man, and evidently too there was not that shortage of petrol in Germany that some of the English papers had been exulting over of late.

"Wait a moment," said the old forester, as Dennis seized a couple of tins in each hand. "We can sling more of them than that on this pole, and carry it between us."

Dennis inwardly congratulated himself that the old forester had not only no suspicions, but was also a man of resource; and the pair were soon crossing the bridge on their way to the aeroplane, which was now distinctly visible in the growing light.

"Ah!" chuckled the old man, pointing to the distinguished mark painted in black on the Aviatik's side, "they gave my son the Iron Cross for bravery at a place they call Verdun, but I am sorry he did not win it for killing Englishmen."

"Well, you can tell me what he did do while you hand me the tins," said Dennis, climbing up and unscrewing the cap of the tank, and the gurgle of the liquid into the big receptacle was like music to his ears.

"I tell you what it is, my friend," he said, when he had emptied the last tin; "we could do with a few more, and I also see there is something here that requires my attention."

His quick eye had noticed that one of the stays which supported the upper plane wanted tightening, and he opened a tool bag.

"I will bring them; I will not be long," said the old man, who was delighted to have had a listener to the story of his son's exploits, never thinking how little of it the herr lieutenant had really heard.

"There, that's secure," said Dennis to himself. "I wonder why that old dodderer is so long? I must get back and see how poor Laval is getting on, and then, heigh-ho for La Belle France!"

As he straightened his back the dull thud of galloping hoofs made him turn round, and to his dismay he saw a couple of German officers approaching across the sandy plain.

"By Jupiter! Talk about bluff now!" he thought. "Thank goodness they're coming from the right direction!" And drawing himself stiffly up, he saluted as they reined in below him.

They were both of high rank--one of them a colonel; and it was the colonel who spoke first as he and his companion flung themselves from their horses.

"You heard it?" he cried in a voice that thrilled with excitement.

"Everyone within twenty miles must have heard it, Herr Colonel," said Dennis solemnly.

"Do you know the extent of the damage?" was the next question.

"I do not. I had a little trouble with my engines, and was just on the point of going there to see what had happened."

It was perhaps the worst thing he could have said, for the two officers immediately climbed up and squeezed themselves into the observer's cockpit.

"Quick! You will carry us there. It is a command!" said the colonel. And Dennis's eyes roved in vain round the pilot's seat for any sign of a weapon.

He bent down under pretence of examining the shaft of the steering-wheel to collect his thoughts and compose his features, and then a thought came to him.

Had they been on the ground he would have pleaded that his engines were still wrong, but it was too late now.

"I will take you willingly, Herr Colonel," he said. And, sitting down, he passed the two ends of the securing strap round his waist, and drew the buckle tight.

"You are a long time, young man," said the colonel's companion.

"We are off now," replied Dennis, starting the engines to avoid any awkward questioning, and breathing a silent prayer that they were all right.

He thought of Laval, too, and wondered what he would think when he heard the whir; and it was as well that he did not know what was happening to his French friend, or possibly he would have failed to keep his nerve for the task he had set himself!

The horses shied, and bolted across the plain, but no one thought of them as the Aviatik ran uneasily forward over the soft ground and rose like a bird.

For a few minutes they mounted skyward, climbing slowly, and the stout General tried to make his companion understand by much gesticulation that the blockhead was taking the wrong direction.

But the "blockhead" knew what he was about, and after a half circle to test the working of the engines, he opened the throttle and shot her upwards at a terrific speed.

Well might his two passengers cling desperately to the gun brackets and to each other, but their shriek of terror was drowned as the machine gained an altitude of fifteen hundred feet and deliberately _looped the loop_!

For a moment Dennis braced himself and clutched the wheel like a vice, but the strap held, the circle was completed, and the Aviatik, righting herself, skimmed over the pine-topped hill behind the hunting lodge, and planed majestically down towards the starting-point.

Dennis's face was as white as a sheet of paper as he turned and glanced back over his shoulder. He was alone!

"I hope it was playing the game," he muttered, as he brought the machine to a stand. "At any rate, it was the only game I could play under the circumstances."

He jumped down and ran towards the lodge, feeling shaken and trembly, wondering what he would find. It struck him as odd that the garrulous old forester had not returned. Was Laval dead or dying?

As he crossed the stream and mounted the slope he stopped, for the old man's voice was bellowing furiously, and the old woman screamed in concert.

"What on earth is going on?" thought the lad, and seeing that the shutters of the ground-floor room in which he had left his friend had been opened, and it being very nearly broad daylight, instead of entering the hall he sprang to the window and looked in.

Claude Laval, terribly weak from loss of blood, but with an odd, defiant smile on his face, was sitting upright in the carved chair, the sleeve of his wounded arm slit from shoulder to wrist, revealing the drenched blue-grey of his own French uniform beneath it. In front of him, his white moustache bristling with fury, and murder in every line of his wolf-like face, the old forester lifted a hatchet in both hands, while his wife, no longer the trembling servile old peasant of half an hour before, was tightening the knots of the rope she had thrown round Laval's body, binding him tightly to the chair!

* * * * *

In the little village three leagues from Bar-le-Duc a powerful car drew up in a cloud of dust in front of the restaurant where our friends had dined the night before, and General Joffre stepped from it on to the pavement.

"Ah, what? You do not know where he is? No one has seen him--the young English lieutenant who was to meet me here?" said the General, knitting his white eyebrows. "That is strange; but never mind"--and he drew out his watch--"it still wants four minutes to eight."

Leaning his elbow on the side of the automobile with one foot planted on the step, the great Frenchman waited, talking meanwhile with a Divisional General who had something to report.

"Yes, yes," said the Generalissimo, and then he looked at his watch again. The minute hand pointed to the hour, but Sir Douglas Haig's messenger had not come!