The Great Airship: A Tale of Adventure.

"This beats me hollow," that young gentleman grumbled. "What's the matter with me, or – er – with those jolly beggars? Surely it can't be that they're – jingo! it looks it. What did that officer say?"

His mind went back to the encounter he had some little time before and to the manner in which his assailant had accosted him. He recollected that Adrianople was then being fiercely assaulted. If he had been inclined to forget that fact there was the firing to tell him, that and the roar of shells raining round the city. Yes, he could hear the battle ebbing and flowing in the distance about the outlying forts which protected all approaches to Adrianople.

"Got it!" he cried. "What have the papers said? Let's see. Little enough, for correspondents have been barred and news sent by some of them at least has been secondhand information written up in a house perhaps a hundred miles from the fighting. But there's been awful disorganization amongst the Turkish battalions. Men have been anywhere at times except where they were wanted. Officers have lost their commands, while, what with hardship, fear of wounds or worse, and starvation, soldiers have strayed from their ranks or actually deserted. Jingo! That's it. The fellows who have been scared of me are shirkers. Lor! there seem to be a good many of 'em. That don't say much for the chances of the defenders."

In any case the discovery he had made was of little moment and gave him no help in his search. But it did put a little more dash and swagger into our hero.

"If they don't see anything wrong about me and get scared so easily, why, others'll be the same," Dick told himself with a grin. "I'll cut a dash next time I meet a soldier. A bit of bounce'll help to deceive 'em."

He carried the plan out in a manner which would have made Alec scream with laughing, for Dick was really too bold for anything. Meeting a squad of men some few minutes later escorting an ammunition cart along one of the streets he clanked his sword loudly, squared his shoulders, and took their salute without a falter.

"My word! That's better," he grinned. "I'll be ordering 'em about before I've done with this business. Hallo! A guard-house, eh? Yes, sentry posted outside. Jingo, call him a sentry! Of course, I know the poor beggar's been more than half starved for weeks past. But, what a figure!"

The wretchedly ragged fellow outside this guard house did indeed cut anything but a soldierly figure. He lolled against the post, his face drawn and thin and vacant, and innocent of soap and water for days past. And when, seeing an officer draw near, he shouldered his rifle, it was in an uncouth and distinctly unmilitary manner.

"Like to see one of our tars give a salute like that," said Dick bridling. "If the Turks are all like him, which I doubt, it ain't surprising that those jolly Bulgarians and their allies have made such a running. But let's get on. That's completed the round of the mosque. Now we enter and see what's doing."

Unabashed by the presence of a sentry at the door of the mosque, Dick marched boldly up to him and once more acknowledged a salute. Then he donned a pair of shoes lying in the doorway and entered without hesitation.

"It is empty," said the man over his shoulder. "I have orders to keep all people from entering, all save those who command."

Dick nodded curtly. He wondered whether he ought to make some reply; but fearing that the man would suspect him at once he went on without halting.

"Though I've got to chance it some time," he said. "I've got to ask questions so as to get information. Lor! why didn't I think of it before? I'll be a foreign officer serving with the Turks. It's said that there are something approaching a hundred German officers here in Adrianople. Right! I ain't over particular which sort of a country it is I come from. But I'm foreign. That's why I can't talk the lingo perfectly. Now we take a look round and then come back to gather information."

His tour of the mosque proved it to be much the same as others, except that this was huge and more brilliantly decorated than those Dick was accustomed to. It was deserted, without a doubt, not even a mullah being present.

"They are gone in fear lest shells should strike the building," explained the sentry at the door when Dick questioned him. "Pardon, your papers, please."

"Papers? Eh?" gasped Dick.

"All foreign officers carry papers to prove their identity. I took you for one of our own nationality at first, but now that you speak, though better than the majority, I see that you are foreign. Your papers, please."

It was an awkward moment, and perhaps few others would have escaped from it as did the light-hearted Dick. He gazed at the man in amazement. He stamped his feet with seeming rage and fumed and growled loudly.

"What! You ask for papers while shells fall into the city and there is fighting! You expect me to take such things into the trenches, then? What next! I keep such things in my quarters where you can see them if you come with me."

"Ah! Pardon, I did not think," the sentry answered abjectly. "Of course, it is not the time to make such a demand."

"As if one could enter or leave the city!" growled Dick, pretending to be only half appeased. "But there! let it pass. Tell me for what reason is there a guard-house yonder?"

"To house the patrols who police the streets. In times of peace the place is unoccupied."

"And now?" asked Dick curiously.

"There are a few men there. I myself shall be relieved by one of them."

"And prisoners?"

The sentry looked astonished. "Prisoners?" he asked, looking suspiciously at Dick.

"Yes, prisoners," declared that young fellow without a falter. The high hand he had played already had served his purpose wonderfully. Then why not continue? "Did I not say prisoners plainly?" he asked curtly, at which the man nodded abjectly. "Then why this surprise?"

"But – but pardon, sir, you asked as if it were not merely curiosity. It seemed as if you might be interested in some other way," said the sentry, emboldened for the moment and again surveying Dick in a manner which, if it did not show suspicion, at least told of his dislike of all foreigners. As for the midshipman, his interest was stimulated by the curious stubbornness of the man. Dick recollected that he was in search of Major Harvey, and that the latter had disappeared, had failed to signal to the airship, and was lost for the moment. Supposing there were prisoners yonder? Supposing this fellow and his mates placed in the guard-house to police the neighbourhood of the mosque had seized upon the Major and were holding him a prisoner? Was it likely that they had reported their action? Hardly at such a time when the allies were pressing an attack, and if they had sent in a report a day before, no doubt in the hurry and bustle of hastening troops to meet that expected assault the matter had been forgotten. However, this was all guesswork. Dick had yet no certain information that prisoners were located in the guard-house, though he had his suspicions.

"And I'm pretty sure that this fellow is trying to throw dust in my eyes," he told himself. "It ain't difficult either to see why he's so stubborn and sly. I'm a foreign officer attached to the Turkish army. Half a mo'; I ain't. But that's what he takes me to be. Well, then, supposing he and his fellows had bagged the Major, they'd expect me to kick up a shindy and – "

In one instant he saw it all, and his suspicions were heightened.

"You have prisoners in the guard-house," he said severely. "Foreign prisoners. I will see them. Stay here, man; have a care what you do and say. Tell me, you reported the taking of these men?"

The sentry stood to attention, looking shamefaced and frightened.

"We could not," he excused himself. "No officer has visited us for two days now. There is heavy fighting."

"Ah!" Dick regarded him severely. "You dared to neglect to report," he cried angrily. "You took these men prisoner, careless whether they were friends of your army or not. There will be more said upon this matter, for learn this, idiot that you are. These men are wanted by His Highness Shukri Pasha himself. Yes, by the general in command of the defenders."

Dick positively blushed at his own assurance and cheek, while the unhappy sentry actually trembled. For this foreign officer was without doubt very angry and filled with indignation.

"I – we," he began in an effort to excuse himself.

"March down to the guard-house with me," commanded Dick. "You shall be relieved instantly, and shall yourself conduct me to these prisoners. A more disgraceful and high-handed proceeding I never experienced, and His Highness shall hear of it. To think that he is waiting for these men, these foreigners, while you, you fools, sitting here near the guard-house, hold them as prisoners."

Dick ought to have been an actor, for he stamped and raved at the unfortunate fellow, and altogether impressed him so much with the heinousness of the act he had committed that the sentry was ready to sink into the ground or do anything to repair his blunder. He was a very humble individual as he shambled down to the guard-house in front of Dick and surlily bade his comrade make for the mosque and there relieve him.

"Now, take me to these men," commanded Dick. "There are two?"

"No – three, sir," came the answer.

"Three!" Dick's hopes fell of a sudden. This statement that there were three prisoners took the wind entirely out of his sails and robbed him for the moment of his high-handed assurance. "Three!" he muttered. "I've been groping in the dark all this while, guessing wildly. But I've also been putting two and two together, and seeing that the Major was to make for the surroundings of the great mosque and expected to meet his friend there, why, when I gathered that this fellow and his comrades had made prisoners of foreigners I made sure there must be two. If it had been one that might still have been the Major taken prisoner before he had met this Charlie. But three! That's a stunner!"

For a little while he stood watching the shambling figure of the man going to take post at the door of the mosque. And then, roused by the detonation of a shell in an adjacent place, he turned sharply upon the fellow who stood before him.

"Three prisoners whom you have dared to hold without reporting!" he cried. "Lead on, man; this is monstrous. Take me to them."

Thoroughly scared now by the anger of the foreign officer, whom he imagined to be doing service with the Turkish army, and conscious that by making captures and failing to report he had been guilty of a serious offence, the man upon whom Dick, with his unblushing cheek and wonderful assurance and resource, had so completely turned the tables proceeded to obey his orders with a meekness which was apparent. In fact, he was obviously anxious to appease the anger of this officer, and so escape punishment for his remissness.

"Follow, sir," he said. "There are three prisoners as I have told you, and it may be that when you see how ready I am to act on your orders, you will forget the fact that I failed to send a report, remembering too, that the times are very unsettled."

They were that without a doubt, for all this while the distant rattle of musketry could be heard, rolling round the defences, now breaking out here with a severity which showed that an attack was probably being forced home, perhaps even at the point of the bayonet, and then dying down quite suddenly only to break out with virulence in another direction. And every now and again, sometimes very frequently, at others after quite a lull, heavy guns would open, shells would scream through the air, and rarely now one of the monsters would drop into the streets of the city or plunge amongst the houses, when the succeeding explosion would be followed by heartrending shrieks, by piercing cries, by the anguished calls of the helpless and defenceless.

Yes, the times were unsettled enough; Dick had his own troubles and could therefore sympathize. He bade the man hasten, and followed into the guard-house.

"And there was good reason for making these men prisoners," said the Turk, pushing his fez to the back of his head and turning to our hero, still with the hope that he might excuse his own breach of the standing orders of the army. "I will tell you. One, a big man – "

"Yes, a big man," said Dick eagerly. "The Major without a doubt," he told himself.

"A big man, and fat, very."

"Ah! Fat! Then that cannot be the Major. Get along with it," cried Dick peevishly, his hopes wrecked in a moment.

"Fat and big," went on the man. "We saw him in converse with some of the stragglers who had left the lines of trenches. He was inciting them to stay away."

"Or to return to their duty, which?" asked Dick curtly.

"The former, we thought," came the answer. "We arrested him. He was angry and shouted and threatened; but since he could speak only a few words of our language we could not understand the cause of his anger. Then there were two others, foreigners."

"Ah! Describe them," Dick almost shouted. It was hard indeed at this moment to restrain his eagerness.

"One, tall, and spare, and like a soldier."

"The Major," Dick told himself. "Hooray! Things are going to come right."

"And the other older, getting grey, also tall, and spare, and soldierly."

"Lead me to them at once," demanded Dick. "They are the men whom His Highness desires to interview. Come, lead quickly; there will be trouble about this matter."

That set the sentry shivering with apprehension, and made him still more eager to appease the officer who had accosted him. Leading the way towards the back of the guard-house, he took down a bunch of keys strung to a hook on the wall and with their help opened a cell. Dick looked in. An ill-kempt, unwieldy man dressed in the uniform of an officer was seated on a stone bench and scowled as the two appeared. And then, recognizing Dick as an officer he burst into a torrent of abuse, expressed in a language of which the midshipman was ignorant.

"Not my bird at any rate," he told himself. "My! Listen to the fellow. I'm sorry for him, awfully. But I can't get mixing myself up in his affairs. Now, let us see the others," he demanded of the Turk.

A minute later they were peering into an adjacent cell, in which Dick instantly recognized the Major. As for the latter, though he looked at our hero very hard and with suspicion, there was no recognition until Dick spoke.

"Major," he said. "Please be careful as I am disguised as a Turkish officer. I have come to demand your release."

"Demand my release! Turkish officer! Why, it's – it's Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw."

"Present, sir," grinned that young gentleman, saluting. "You see," he said, swinging round upon the soldier. "He recognizes me, and so does the other officer. Ah! There will be bad trouble over this, when Shukri Pasha gets to hear of it. Yes, trouble which – "

A groan escaped the wretched sentry. Ever since he had exchanged words with Dick, he had been conjuring up all sorts of pains and penalties as a consequence of his rashness. His knees positively knocked together as he besought this officer to spare him and forget the matter.

"Release them at once," cried Dick peremptorily. "Now, listen. If His Highness asks no questions, well and good. Perhaps we shall not be too late for this discussion even now, that is if you hasten. As to the third officer, hold him till you receive a written order, or till an hour has passed. Now, stand aside. Major, please follow."

"But – but you don't mean to tell me that you have obtained our release?" cried that astonished officer. "How? And where are we to go?"

"Please follow as if you had every right to be at liberty," answered Dick. "I'll tell you later how I've worked it. But come at once, for there is no saying when other soldiers may turn up, with perhaps an officer."

He stalked before them out of the guard-house and led the way into the streets of Adrianople, streets for the most part still untenanted. For civilians lay at home shivering beneath the cruel bombardment, and fearful of those dreadful shells. They were coming again into the city, and more than once Dick and the two who followed had to dodge behind some building to escape the bursting of a bomb.

"And now, perhaps, you'll tell us where we are going," said the Major, when they had gained a smaller street. "To the airship? Impossible. She would never dare to come here in daylight. Then where?"

"To join Commander Jackson and Alec," answered Dick. "We entered the city last night in search of you both. But – hush! Lookout! Let's hurry. If that isn't the very fellow I most wanted to avoid."

A figure had dived into the street immediately behind them, a figure strangely familiar. Dick eyed him suspiciously, and then recognized him with a start. For this man's head was swathed in bandages which left his face fully exposed, and that face was young, and smooth, and hairless. In fact, it was the very officer against whom he had collided on the previous night.

"Had he been back to his house and there discovered Alec and the Commander? Or was he now on his way?"

Dick asked himself those urgent questions, and then, spurred on by fear and dreadful foreboding hastened along the street, the Major and his friend close beside him, and the inquisitive officer in rear. Soon they turned into the street in which that house they sought was located, and for a moment the follower was out of sight.

"Run!" cried Dick, and took to his heels. "Now, into this house. Alec!" he called.

"Here," came back a jovial call. "And the Commander, both of us getting a bit anxious about you."

"Shut the door and bolt it," commanded Dick, careless of the presence of his seniors. "Now, peep through the windows. The owner of this house was following us a moment ago. If he tries to enter, keep perfectly quiet. I'm going to see how we can manage to get out of what may prove to be a trap."

If they had any doubts of that follower, these were cleared on the instant. There came the sound of steps on the cobbles, and then a heavy blow upon the door.

"Open – open in the name of the Sultan!"

Not one of those within answered. They stood back from the window waiting and watching. "Open!" they heard the command repeated, and then there followed a shrill whistle.

"Look, men are running across from a house almost opposite," whispered Major Harvey, peering through the window. "This begins to look ugly, and I'm not so sure that we should not be better off in our prison. Listen to them, and see that fellow carrying a huge hammer."

There came a crashing blow upon the door an instant later, a blow that almost shattered the lock. It was clear that within a few minutes the irate individual outside and his helpers would force an entrance. The Major turned in bewilderment to the Commander, for he could not quite understand this new situation. Then Dick burst in upon them.

"Come along," he said. "Let's sling it. There's a way out at the back, and I know a place that'll shelter us. Quick! Those chaps will be in in a moment."

They did not wait to argue or discuss the matter with him but followed at once. Stealthily departing by a door in rear of the building they dived into a narrow alley, and from that place heard a crash as the door of the house was beaten in. Then they turned and fled through the streets of Adrianople with a dozen Turks hotfoot after them.

CHAPTER X

A Thrilling Rescue

Perhaps no quainter or more exciting situation could be imagined than that which found Dick Hamshaw and his little party scuttling down the dark streets of Adrianople. For there he was, leading surely a strange following.

"Enough to make the people open their eyes and rub 'em hard," he told himself with a grin, for Dicky was not the one to be scared easily or disheartened. "Here we are, led by a Turkish officer, that's me; followed by a British naval officer, in uniform too, that's the Commander, and jolly groggy he seems to be after that wound of his. Then there's Alec – well, nothing out of the ordinary – while behind come the Major, almost a stranger, though we know all about him, and then 'Charlie', dear old Charlie."

"Where away? Where are you leading to?" suddenly came from the Major. "We've gained on those beggars. Hadn't we better stop a moment and discuss matters?"

Discuss matters when they were almost blown, and when the Turks were rushing pell-mell after them!

"Good idea," cried Dick cheerily. "In here! Come along. Now, bang the door. Jingo! Hope there ain't other people to kick up a rumpus."

Really his cheek and coolness were amazing, for hardly had the Major finished calling when Dick halted at a doorway leading into a small dwelling, threw it open, and beckoned them to enter. Then he banged the door to, and leaving his friends went off on a tour of inspection.

"All bright-o!" he whispered, reappearing. "Place empty. No one here for a long while and not a scrap of food. I squinted into what must be their larder."

"H – hush! There they are. Foiled for the moment," whispered the Major, peering through a narrow window. "Wait! They've halted and are looking about them. One of the men is pointing up the street, and let's hope they'll make off in that direction. Good! There they go as if the old gentleman himself were behind them. Now; what's the meaning of all this bother, and how comes it that you are masquerading in Turkish uniform? Dick, my boy, you've a heap to answer for. Seriously, though, I'm eternally obliged to you for liberating us from that prison. That reminds me. I haven't so far had an opportunity of making formal presentations. Commander Jackson, let me introduce Colonel Steven, Intelligence Department, War Office, the 'Charlie' we've come after. Colonel, my excellent friends and comrades Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw and Alec Jardine. Now you all know one another."

Cordial hand-grips were exchanged all round, and here again one may say that seldom before was there such a curious meeting. As for "Charlie", the gallant Colonel Steven, Dick and his friends liked his looks immensely. He smiled at them all, not in the least ruffled by what had been passing.

"'Pon my word, gentlemen," he said, "but it needs an active man to keep touch with your movements. First I come most miraculously in contact with my friend, the Major, who descends actually and really from the sky. Then, when I am reclining comfortably in a prison where the circumstances of the bombardment, the breakdown of all discipline, and the natural hate of an Ottoman made it likely enough that I and the Major might have our throats slit, there appears upon the scene a Turkish officer, who is not a Turkish officer, but a midshipman from our own fleet, and who likewise has descended from the sky. Lastly, I am taken to a place of refuge which is no place of refuge, and from which I am bundled before even I have time to be formally acquainted with other gentlemen, birds of the same feather as my friend the Major. Really, this is almost enough for one long day."

Cool! Of course he was cool. His pleasant satire showed that, while his easy smile, his jaunty manner, the knowledge that he had been engaged on an important and doubtless dangerous enterprise made Dick and his friends take to the Colonel promptly. And naturally enough, though the midshipman was not easily abashed, he now waited for his seniors to give a lead. Not that the Commander was capable of doing so.

"I've a head that feels as big as a football and heavier than lead," he told them, sitting down of a sudden and looking faint. "Carry on without me; I'll be better in a twinkling."

"Then we turn to Dick. The Navy commands here," smiled Colonel Steven, while the Major nodded. "Have the goodness, Mr. Dick, to issue your orders. Really, though, lad, you have the situation at your finger tips. Do we stay here, or do we issue out again and seek some other residence?"

Dick removed his fez and scratched his head. It was not, perhaps, a very refined operation, but it seemed to help.

"You see," he began, "I'm thinking about the airship and how we are to rejoin her. Supposing we hide here and send up a flare to-night. Well, these johnnies may catch sight of the flame and rush us before we can board the lift. Awkward that, very."

"Then let us suppose that we change our quarters. Are we better off?" asked the Colonel.