Part 16 (1/2)

”Maybe it would be best if you held it in your teeth,” said Tom thoughtfully; ”unless you can swim with it in your hand.”

The compa.s.s and the flashlight, which indeed were more susceptible of damage from the water than the precious gla.s.s, were encased in the other rubber glove, and the two fugitives waded out into the black, silent river.

Scarcely had their feet left the bottom when the first drop of rain fell upon Tom's head, and a chill gust of wind caught him and bore him a yard or two out of his course. He spluttered and looked about for Archer, but could see nothing in the darkness. He did not want to call for he knew how far voices carry across the water, and though the spot was isolated he would take no chances.

It rained hard and the wind, rising to a gale, lashed the black water into whitecaps. Tom strove vainly to make headway against the storm, but felt himself carried, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, he knew not where. He tried to distinguish the light beyond the Baden sh.o.r.e, which he had selected for a beacon, but he could not find it. At last he called to Archer.

”I'm going to turn back,” he said; ”come on--are you all right?”

If Archer answered his voice was drowned by the wind and rain. For a few moments Tom struggled against the elements, hoping to regain the Alsatian sh.o.r.e. His one guiding instinct in all the hubbub was the conviction that the wind smelled like an east wind and that it ought to carry him back to the nearer sh.o.r.e. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of his precious little compa.s.s now.

”Where are you?” he called again. ”The light's gone. Let the wind carry you back--it's east.”

He could hear no answer save the mocking wind and the breaking of the water. This latter sound made him think the sh.o.r.e was not far distant.

But when, after a few moments, he did not feel the bottom, his heart sank. He had been lost in the woods and as a tenderfoot he had known the feeling of panic despair. And he had been in the ocean and seen his s.h.i.+p go down with a torpedo's jagged rent in her side. But he had never been lost in the water in the sense of losing all his bearings in the darkness. For a minute it quite unnerved him and his stout heart sank within him.

Then out of the tumult came a thin, spent voice, barely audible and seeming a part of the troubled voices of the night.

”----lost----,” it said; ”----going down----”

Tom listened eagerly, his heart still, his blood cold within him.

”Keep calling,” he answered, ”so I'll know where you are. I'll get to you all right--keep your nerve.”

He listened keenly, ready to challenge the force of the storm with all his young skill and strength, and thinking of naught else now. But no guiding voice answered.

Could he have heard aright? Surely, there was no mistaking. It was a human voice that had spoken and whatever else it had said that one, tragic word had been clearly audible:

”----down----”

Archer had gone down.

CHAPTER XIX

TOM LOSES HIS FIRST CONFLICT WITH THE ENEMY

”Down!”

For the first time in Tom Slade's life a sensation of utter despair gripped him and it was not until several seconds had elapsed, while he was tossed at the mercy of the storm, that he was able to get a grip on himself. He struck out frantically and for just a brief minute was guilty of a failing which he had never yielded to--the perilous weakness of being rattled and hitting hard at nothing. In swimming, above all things, this is futile and dangerous, and presently Tom regained his mental poise and struck out calmly, swimming in the direction in which the wind bore him, for there was nothing else to do. Not that his effort helped him much, but he knew the good rule that one should never be pa.s.sive in a crisis, for inaction is as depressing to the spirit as frantic exertion is to the body. And he knew that by swimming he could keep his ”morale”--a word which he had heard a good deal lately.

His heart was sick within him and a kind of cold desperation seized him.

Archer, whom he had known away back home in America, whom he had found by chance in the German prison camp, who had trudged over the hills and through the woods with him, was lost. He would never see him again.

Archer, who was always after souvenirs....

These were not thoughts exactly, but they flitted through Tom's consciousness as he struggled to keep his head clear of the tempestuous waters. And even in his own desperate plight he recalled that their last words had been words of discord, for he knew now (generous as he was) that _he_ was to blame for this dreadful end of all their fine hopes--that Archer had been right--they should have stayed at Melotte's hovel. Amid the swirl of the waters, as he swam he knew not where, he remembered how Archer had said he ought to think of his duty to Uncle Sam and not imperil his chance to help by going after Florette Leteur.