Part 19 (1/2)

”I guess that's the trouble,” Tom began; ”my head aches----”

”Can you swim now?” Archer demanded.

”You go,” said Tom; ”my knee's too stiff.”

”If you everr say a thing like that to me again,” said Archer, his eyes snapping and his freckled face flus.h.i.+ng scarlet, ”I'll----”

”I didn't think we'd start till midnight,” Tom said, ”and I thought my knee'd be well enough by that time.”

The little boat, as they could see from the doorway, bobbed nearer and nearer and Archer could see that it contained two men.

”They've got on uniforms,” Archer said, ”but I can't see what they arre.

Let's keep inside.”

”They know we're here,” said Tom; ”they'd only shoot us if we started away.”

Closer and closer came the little boat until one of its occupants jumped out, hauling it into one of the little rocky caverns of the islet. Then both came striding up to the doorway.

As soon as they caught sight of the boys they paused aghast and seemed to be much more discomfited than either Tom or Archer. Evidently they had not come for the fugitives and the thought occurred to Archer that they might be fugitives themselves.

”Vell, vat you do here, huh?” one asked.

Archer was managing this affair and he managed it in his own sweet way.

”We're herre because we're herre,” he said, in a perfect riot of rolling R's.

”You German--no?”

”No, thank goodness! We'rre not,” Archer said recklessly. ”Are we pinched?”

”How you come here?” the German demanded in that tone of arrogant severity which seems to imply, ”I give you and the whole of the rest of the world two seconds to answer.”

Tom, whose spirits revived at this rather puzzling turn of affairs, watched the two soldiers keenly and noticed that neither had sword or firearms. And he realized with chagrin that in those few moments of ”lost morale,” he had been strangely unworthy of himself and of his scout training. And feeling so he let Archer do the talking.

”We're Americans.”

”Americans, ach! From prison you escape, huh?” the younger soldier snapped. ”You haff a peekneek here, huh?” And turning to his companion he poured a kind of guttural volley at him, which his comrade answered with a brisk return of heavy verbal fire. Archer, listening intently and using his very rudimentary knowledge of German, gathered that whoever and whatever these two were, they were themselves in the perilous business of escaping.

”They'rre in the same box as we are,” he said to Tom. ”Don't worry.”

It did not occur to the boys then, though they often thought of it afterward, when their acquaintance with the strange race of Huns had been improved, that these two soldiers manifested not the slightest interest in the experiences which the boys had gone through. Almost immediately and without condescending to any discourse with them, the two men fell to discussing how they might _use_ them, just as their masters had used Belgium and would use Switzerland and Holland if it fell in with their purpose.

After the generous interest that Frenchy and his people had shown and the lively curiosity about his adventures which British Tommies in the prison camp had displayed, Tom was unable to understand this arrogant disregard. Even a greasy, s.h.i.+fty-eyed Serbian in the prison had asked him about America and ”how it felt” to be torpedoed.

It was not just that the two soldiers regarded the boys as enemies, either. They simply were not German and therefore nothing that they did or said counted or was worth talking about.

At last the one who seemed to be the spokesman said, ”Ve make a treaty, huh?”

It was more of an announcement than a question, and Archer looked at Tom and laughed.