"Then what can we do?" demanded Jack.
Frank did not reply, for footsteps, now plainly heard above the sweep of the wind and rain, were approaching the room where the boys were standing, with automatic revolvers in their hands.
"He"s got his nerve!" Jack said. "Why doesn"t he come into the place with a bra.s.s band? Shall we sneak out of a window, or remain here and find out what he wants?"
"I"m for getting out!"
Frank leaped from the window as he spoke, and in a second Jack came piling out on top of him.
"Gee whiz!" Frank whispered. "Why don"t you knock a fellow over?"
"What are you trying to do?" demanded Jack.
"Not a thing," was the reply. "Say, but we"ll get a nice soak if we remain here."
"You"ll get a nice soak on the coco, if you don"t stop pulling me around," came back from Jack.
"Then keep your hands off me!" Frank responded.
But in a moment both boys knew that they were not struggling with each other. A brilliant flash of lightning cut the sky, and by its light they saw each other lying on the ground under the window, each with a couple of men in native costume perched on top.
Jack fired, but the pressure on his back was not lessened. Instead, he felt a snaky hand slip down his arm, seize his fingers and twist the gun away.
"Frank!" he called out. "Frank! Shoot at the heathens! I missed, and one of them has my gun."
Frank obeyed the suggestion, and three reports were heard. Jack, though not naturally bloodthirsty, was overjoyed at the sound of a groan which came from the spot where Frank lay.
"Don"t try that again, son!"
"That will be enough!"
Both sentences were spoken in English. Then the boys were carried bodily into the house and sat down against a wall. Then a lighted lantern was brought in, and the prisoners saw six sleepy-looking Chinamen grinning at them.
CHAPTER V
A COLLECTION OF WILD ANIMALS
"Well, what do you think of it?"
The voice was that of an Englishman, and the words were spoken in the room, but the struggling prisoners could not discover where the person who uttered them stood. It seemed to them that there were only the six sleepy-looking Chinamen and themselves in the apartment.
Frank ceased his useless struggling with the rope which held both feet and hands in its strong coils, and glanced along the row of stupid faces.
"What did you say?" he asked, hoping that the speaker would say something more and so locate himself.
"How do you like it?"
That was the same voice, and it was in that room, but, still, there were only the six Chinamen and Jack in sight. Frank looked at his chum with a smile on his face. In that moment he resolved to meet whatever Fate might have in store for him with a cheerful heart. He had little doubt that both Ned and Jimmie had been caught in the trap into which Jack and himself had fallen.
There was no knowing what the fate of himself and his friends would be, but whatever had been planned for them by their enemies, there would be no relief in sighs and pleas for pity. They were alone in the land of mystery. Owing to the necessity for secrecy regarding their movements, no one with whom they had been a.s.sociated in the Secret Service work knew of their whereabouts, save only Lieutenant Scott, who had sent them on to Taku, and who had failed to keep his promises to them.
And Lieutenant Scott? Frank believed him dead or in the clutches of the conspirators.
Otherwise, he would have kept his appointment at the old house on the water front. The view ahead was not a long one, as the boy considered the matter, nor a smooth one, but he decided that nothing was to be gained by subserviency.
"I like it!" was Jack"s quick reply. "Who is it that is doing the talking?"
"One of the six in front of you," came the answer in English.
Jack cast his eyes quickly along the row of faces, but failed to catch the movement of a lip, the twinkle of an eye.
"You"re a funny bloke," Jack went on. "How much will you take for a month in vaudeville?"
"He"d make a fine spirit medium," Frank cut in. "Can you make the talk come from behind me?" he added, with a grin.
"Of course I can!"
Although the boys watched closely, there were no signs of motion in any one of the six yellow, foxy faces, still the words seemed to come from the wall directly back of Jack"s head.
"If I had you on the Bowery," Jack continued, "I"d give you a hundred a month. Come on over and get busy in the little old United States!"
"I think I"ll wait until the boys bring in the other two wild animals,"
replied the unknown speaker. "I rather want to see the finish of you Wolves and Black Bears before I see the Bowery again."
"You"ll find more wild animals of our stripe on the Bowery than you will want to meet," Jack replied, "especially when it is known that you"ve been mixed up with Boy Scouts, to their harm, in China."
"I"ll take my chances on that," was the reply. "You have been very successful, you wild beasts, in b.u.t.ting into the business of other people, and getting out again uninjured, but it is going to be different now. There are two black Bears and two Wolves that I know of who will never get back to New York again."
"All right," Frank said. "We"ve had fun enough out of the Secret Service work we have done to pay for whatever trouble we have now. Ned will be along presently, and then you"ll have another think coming."
"Sure, he"ll be along directly," was the reply. "In fact, he"s right here now!"
But it was not Ned who was pushed, bound hand and foot, into the circle of light in the room. The little fellow came near falling as he was thrust forward, but he regained his equilibrium, and turned around to face his tormentor.
"You"re a cheap skate!" he said. "If I had you on Chatham Square I"d change your face good and plenty!"
Then he saw that he was speaking to empty air. There was no one in the doorway. The person who had brought him there and hustled him into the room had disappeared.
"Now, what do you know about that?"
Jimmie chuckled as he asked the question of the six silent figures ranged along the wall. As yet his eyes had not fallen on the figures of Frank and Jack, farther back in the shadows.
There was, of course, no answer to his question, and the boy leaned forward, a grin on his freckled face.