"I SEEN IT--A SUBMARINE!"
When Johnny realized that it was Jerry the Rat who was whispering at the keyhole he admitted him at once.
"I seen it! I seen it; a submarine! A German submarine in the river!"
the Rat whispered excitedly. "I seen dose blokes wid me own eyes. Dey wuz packin" a skirt thru de hatch. Den dey dropped in too. Den dey let down the hatch, an" swush-swuey, down she went, an" all dey left was a splash in de ol" Chicago!"
"A submarine!" Johnny exclaimed. "That doesn"t sound possible; not a German submarine surely!"
"The same," insisted Jerry. "Some old tub. Saw her over by the Munic.i.p.al Pier, er one like her. Some old fish!"
Johnny sat in silent thought. Hanada was gazing out of the window.
Suddenly the j.a.p exclaimed in surprise:
"Did you see that? There it goes again! Lights flashing beneath the water. It"s the "sub" for sure. Couldn"t be anything else."
"I have seen such lights before," said Johnny, striving hard to maintain a sane judgment in this time of great crisis, "but I attributed it to phosphorus on the water."
"Couldn"t be!" declared Hanada. "Couldn"t make a flicker and flash like that. I tell you, it"s a submarine, and the home of the Radicals. That"s why we couldn"t find them. That"s where our Russian disappeared to that night on the bridge. That"s where the shots came from. Remember right from the center of the river? That"s where your four a.s.sailants went to when they vanished from that deserted building. It"s the Radicals.
C"mon! We may not be too late yet. We"ll get them before the police get us."
Together the three rushed from the room.
"Did you say they were carrying a woman?" Johnny asked Jerry, as they hastened down the stairs.
"Yes, a skirt; a swell-looking skirt. Mouth gagged, hands tied, but dressed to kill, opry coat and everything!"
"Some more of their dirty work," Johnny grumbled, "but we"ll get them this time. If we can convince the police that they"re there they"ll drag the river and haul "em out like a dead rat."
At the moment when the three men were hurrying down the stairs which led from Johnny"s room to the street, Mazie sat silently searching the faces of the men about her. Wild questions raced through her brain. Who were these men? Why had they kidnapped her? What did they want? What would they do to her? She shivered a little at the last question.
That they were criminals she had not the least doubt. Only criminals could do such a thing. But what type of criminal were they? In her research courses at the University she had visited court rooms, jails and reformatories. Criminals were not new to her. But these men lacked utterly the markings of the average city criminal. Their eyes lacked the keen alertness, their fingers the slim tapering points of the professional crook. Suddenly, as she pondered, there came to her mind a paragraph from one of her text-books on crime:
"There are two types of law-breakers. The one believes that the hand of organized society is lifted against him; the other that he is bound to lift his hand against organized society. The first cla.s.s are the common crooks of the street, and are ofttimes more to be pitied than blamed, for after all, environment has been a great factor in their undoing. The second group are those men who are opposed to all forms of organized society. They are commonly known as Radicals. There is little to be said in their favor. Reared, more often than not, in the lap of a society organized for the welfare of all, they turn ungratefully against the mother who nurtured and protected them."
As she recalled this, Mazie realized that this group must be a band of Radicals. Radicals? And one of them had promised to take her to her friend, Johnny Thompson. Could it be that in Russia, that hotbed of radicalism, Johnny had had his head turned and was at that moment a member of this band? It did not seem possible. She would not for a moment believe it.
She was soon to see, for a man of distinctly Russian type, a short man with broad shoulders, sharp chin and frowning brow, approached her, and in a suave manner began to speak to her.
"You have nothing to fear from us, Miss," he began. "We are gentlemen of the finest type. No harm will come to you during your brief stay with us; and I trust it may be very brief."
Mazie heaved a sigh of relief. Perhaps there was going to be nothing so very terrible about the affair after all.
"We only ask a little service of you," the Russian continued as he let down a swinging table from the wall, and drawing a chair to it, motioned her to be seated. He next placed pen, ink and paper on the table.
"You cannot know," he said with a smile, "that your friend, Johnny Thompson, has been causing me a very great deal of trouble of late."
Mazie felt a great desire to shout on hearing this, for it told her plainly that Johnny was no friend of this crowd.
"No, of course you could not know," the man went on, "since you have not seen him. I may say frankly that your friend is clever, and has a way, quite a way, of using his hands."
Mazie did not need to be told that.
"But it is not that of which I wish to speak." The Russian took a step nearer. Mazie, feeling his hot breath on her cheek, shrank back. "Your friend, as I say, has been troubling us a great deal, and in this he has been misled, sadly misled. He does not understand our high and lofty purpose; our desire to free all mankind from the bonds of organized society. If he knew he would act far differently. Of course, you cannot explain all this to him, but you can write him a note, just a little note. You will write it now, in just another moment. First, I will tell you what to say. Say to him that you are in great trouble and danger.
Say that you may be killed, or worse things may happen to you, unless he does precisely as you tell him to do. Say that he is to leave a certain package, about which he knows well enough, at the Pendergast Hotel, to be given to M. Kriskie. Say that he is, after that, to leave Chicago at once and is not to return for sixty days.
"See?" He attempted another smile. "It is little that we ask of you; little that we ask of him--virtually nothing."
Mazie"s heart was beating wildly. So that was the game? She was to be a decoy. She knew nothing of Johnny"s actions, but knew they were for the good of his country. How could she ask him to abandon them for her sake?
As her eyes roamed about the room they fell upon the little j.a.p girl. In her face Mazie read black rage for the Russian, and a deep compa.s.sion for herself.
"Come," said the Russian; "we are wasting time. Is it not so? You must write. You should begin now. So, it will be better for all."
For answer, Mazie took the paper in her white, delicate fingers and tore it across twice. Then she threw it on the floor.
Quickly the man"s att.i.tude changed to wild rage.
"So!" he roared. "You will not write? You will not? We shall see!"
He seized her arm and gripped it until the blood rushed from her face, and she was obliged to bite her lips to suppress a scream.
"So!" he raged. "We shall see what happens to young women like you.
First, we will kill your young friend, Johnny Thompson; then what good will your refusal have done? After that, we shall see what will happen to you. We Radicals will win by fair means or foul. What does it matter what means we take, so long as the point has been won?"
Roughly he pulled her from the chair and flung her from him.
Then the little j.a.panese girl was dragged to the chair. A j.a.panese man, whom Mazie had not before noticed, came forward. From his words and gestures Mazie concluded that he was going through, in the j.a.panese language, the same program which the Russian had just finished.
The results were apparently the same, for at the close the girl threw the paper cm the floor and stamped upon it. At that the Russian"s rage knew no bounds. With an imprecation, he sprang at the j.a.panese girl. As Mazie looked on in speechless horror, she fancied she caught the gleam of a knife in the girl"s hand.
But at that instant the attention of all was drawn to a man, who, after peering through some form of a periscope for a moment, had uttered a surprised exclamation. Instantly the j.a.panese man sprang to a strangely built rifle which lay against the wall. This he fitted into a frame beside the periscope and thrust its long barrel apparently through the ceiling of the compartment and into the water above. Adjusting a lever here, and another there, he appeared to sight through a hollow tube that ran along the barrel.
"Now," said the Russian, a cruel gleam in his eye, "we shall kill your two friends whom you so blindly refused to protect. Providence has thrown them within our power. They are on the bridge at this moment. The rifle, you see, protrudes quite through the water. Our friend"s aim is true."
The j.a.panese girl, seeming to grasp the import of this, sprang at her fellow countryman. But she was too late. There came the report of two explosions in quick succession. Through the periscope, Mazie caught a glimpse of two bodies falling on the bridge. Then she closed her eyes.
Her senses reeled.
This lasted but a moment. Then her eyes were on the little j.a.p girl.
She had dropped to the floor, as if crushed; but there was a dark gleam of unutterable hate in her eyes. She was looking at the j.a.panese man, who, after firing the rifle, had turned and was going through a door into a rear compartment.
Like a flash, the j.a.p girl sprang after him. With a cry that died on her lips, Mazie followed, and as she entered the compartment slamming the heavy metal door, she threw down the iron clamps which held it.
They were now two to one, but that one was a man. However, there was no call for effort on her part. Like a tigress the j.a.panese girl, Cio-Cio-San, sprang at the man of her own country.
"You traitor!" she gasped. "You have betrayed me, your fellow-countryman, and murdered my friend!" and she drove her dagger into his breast to the hilt.