"Now stop!" boomed the voice-directly in front of him! "Not a step further! Begin to count aloud. But do not shout!"
"Ein, zwei, drei, vier-" began the German, obediently.
And Fred, half choking with suppressed laughter, slipped behind the screened entrance of the secret passageway, while the soldier's back was still turned. He did not quite close the door, but waited to make sure that the German's curiosity did not get the better of his fright, which had certainly been real enough. But it was all right. The man counted right up to a hundred, and once or twice, to Fred's huge amusement, when he stammered, and lost track of his numbers, he went back and counted several of them over again! But he finished at last, and Fred heard him come stumbling down the gully. He seemed to hesitate then.
"May I really go now?" he asked. "I did not know there was a spirit here, or I would not have come."
"Yes. Go, and quickly!" said Fred, throwing his voice out so it came from far above the soldier.
He heard the soldier running then, and in a moment closed the door behind him, and began retracing his steps along the secret tunnel.
"Gee! That was a close call!" he said to himself. "Serves me good and right, too, for doing more than I was told! I might have spoiled everything by not waiting until I knew more about the place. If that soldier hadn't been ready to see a ghost in anything he didn't have some reason to expect to meet, I'd be in a lot of trouble now. And yet I'll bet he's brave enough, too. If he had an enemy he could see and touch, he'd fight all right."
But Fred had more to think about now than what had happened, or what might have happened, either. He was more interested in what was to come next. He went along, flashing his torch. There was no sound at the thin wall, where he stopped, when he reached it, to listen for the sound of voices in the great hall. That encouraged him. He decided that if any soldiers had been left on guard in the place, they would have been in there. And when he came near to the panel by which he had entered, when he let his torch wink out he saw that there was a light ahead of him.
For a moment he caught his breath, wondering if some enemy had discovered the secret, and was waiting to pounce on him. But he went on, because he decided that if anyone were waiting they must know already that he was in the tunnel. And in a moment he came face to face with old Vladimir.
"The coast is clear, excellency," said the old Russian. "All the Germans have gone-a curse upon them! My master has told me to treat you as if you stood in his place until he returns. I have the things that Ivan brought. Is it your pleasure that I should deliver them to you?"
Fred was puzzled for a moment. Then he remembered the wireless.
"Oh, yes, by all means!" he said. "And show me the room where the wireless is. You know all about that, Vladimir?"
"I know where it is. I do not understand such devil's work, but I am an old man, and stupid."
Fred laughed.
"Perhaps it's devil's work, but if we have any luck it will be pretty useful to us," he said. "Come on, if it's safe for me to come out. There's a lot for me to do."
Vladimir led the way to the top of the house. On the roof, like a pent-house, there was a little room or cupola, and in this was a partially dismantled wireless installation. Fred was left there alone while Vladimir went off to get the things that Ivan had given to him for safekeeping, and he studied the installation closely. It was different from any that he had ever seen, but its leading principle, of course, was familiar to him. At first it surprised him to find that it was supplied with power by weak batteries, which the Germans had ruined.
"You couldn't send more than twenty miles with those batteries!" he said to himself.
But when Vladimir returned that was explained. For he removed a picture that hung on the wall and disclosed a number of wires.
"I do not understand," he said. "But my master and Ivan have told me that those wires that you see run down to a place far below the cellar, where there is a great engine that moves when petrol is put into it-"
"Oh, I see, a dynamo run by a Diesel engine, probably!" said Fred, suddenly enlightened. "That's a fine idea! They can develop power without steam! Costs a lot-but it's worth it, of course! I'll just try that out!"
Quickly he connected up the wires, tried out his key, after replacing the parts that had been taken away, and in a moment got a powerful spark.
"That's great!" he said, to himself, ignoring old Vladimir, who watched him in fascinated wonder. "I can send a long distance with that spark!"
Then he pounced on something he had overlooked before,-a little book bound in black leather. As he opened it, he gave an exclamation of joy. It was a code book, as he saw at once, and on the inside of the cover was a list of wireless stations, with their calls. There was one at Virballen, he saw, and a dozen other places just over the border, and running quite a distance into Russian territory, including one at Augustowo, were named.
"Ivan told me to guard that book as if it were my life," said Vladimir. "He said to put it in a safe place, and to destroy it if the Germans found it, even if they killed me for doing it."
"He was right," said Fred, soberly. "If the Germans got that book, it would be as valuable to them as a whole army, Vladimir."
"It is very strange," said the old man. "I do not understand, but I am old and stupid, and it is not for me to question my betters."
Fred sat down and studied the code for a few moments. More than ever he was glad now that his mother had always insisted that he must be able to read and speak her Russian tongue. He would have to send in Morse, instead of in the somewhat simpler Continental code, but that, he thought, would make little difference. Some operator would be certain to understand his sending.
And now he sat down and began calling Suwalki. He would have liked to call Virballen, which was nearer, but he was not sure that the Russians were still in possession of their station there, since he remembered that the Germans had had the superior force there on the Saturday night when the war broke out-a night that seemed to lie a century in the past now!
For a long minute he hammered out his call. And then through the air, over miles of hostile country, came a welcome whisper in his ear-the whisper of the answering call from Suwalki! He was in touch with Russia! CHAPTER VIII
WITHIN THE ENEMY'S LINES
For many reasons Fred did not want to hold a long talk with the Suwalki operator. German wireless stations were undoubtedly at work in the surrounding country, and, though there was no great danger that his messages might be intercepted and read, it was not advisable, of course, to let the Germans, who were sure to be watchful, know that there was a private Russian station somewhere within German limits. The instruments here were tuned to a certain wave length, and he guessed that this was standard for all Russian military stations, and different from that of the Germans. But when he held his circuit to listen he got whisperings that sounded almost like static electricity. It was evident that a good many stations were sending, and that the air all about was full of the waves.
So he contented himself with a brief and direct report of what had happened, explaining why Boris was not himself present to make this report. He asked for information as to the movements of the Russian army, but got no satisfaction.
"We don't know ourselves," said the Suwalki operator. "Things are moving very fast, but absolutely no news is being given out. I know that our cavalry-Cossacks, chiefly-have crossed the border at half a dozen different points. The Germans and the Austrians have invaded Poland, and our troops have all been withdrawn from that region. The concentration there is going on at Brest-Litovsky, and behind the line of Warsaw-Novo Georgevsk. But here there are a good many troops. There may be Cossacks within a few miles of you. They are raiding. Here it is said that our first move will be to try to cut the German railways."
That was all he could find out. He arranged for word of Boris's seizure to be sent to his father, and then closed his circuit and went below, in search of old Vladimir.
By now it was afternoon, and Fred began to think that if Boris had been coming back that day he would have arrived already. Plainly, it seemed to him, Colonel Goldapp must have decided to retain him as a prisoner. He wanted to get down near the parsonage again, but he was afraid to venture out by the secret passage. He didn't know how thoroughly he had frightened the soldier who had so nearly caught him. If the man had recovered his wits and decided that it was no ghost, but a very substantial and real person who had bowled him over, there would doubtless be a guard in the hollow, by the outer entrance of the tunnel. And, in any case, it was too risky to seek egress by that means again in broad daylight.
"Vladimir," he said, when he found the old servant, "I want you to make me look like a German, if you can. Disguise me, so that I may go down toward the village safely. Is it possible?"
Vladimir studied him for a moment.
"I think so," he said. "There are plenty of clothes here, and there is a man who has often helped when there were to be private theatricals."
The transformation was soon completed, and when he looked at himself in a glass Fred had to laugh. His clothes were those of a Prussian peasant, and a few very slight changes in his appearance had been made by the man to whom Vladimir had spoken. They worked wonders, and Fred decided that he could go anywhere in Prussia now with impunity.
"Is it safe for you to leave the house?" he asked Vladimir.
"Yes, for they think that I am harmless," said the old man.
"I wish to know how to open the door of the tunnel from the outside," said Fred. "But I think it would be unsafe to go there directly. It will be better for you to start out and get there as if you had gone by chance. It is near the parsonage where my cousin is, and if anyone questions you, you could say, I should think, that you wanted to be near your master."
"Yes," said Vladimir. "That would be safe."
"Then do you go there and stay, unless they drive you away. I will go there, too, if I can, and if the coast is clear and no one is watching, you can show me. Unless, indeed, you can tell me now?"
"It will be better for me to show you," said Vladimir. "The looks of the outside change constantly. A storm will destroy a bush, or some other landmark there, and, though I could touch the proper spot in the darkness myself, I would find it hard to describe it to you. I will start at once?"
"Yes. And I will come to you, if it is safe, as soon as I can. I should not be more than ten minutes behind you in reaching the hollow."
Nothing about the whole adventure upon which he had embarked so strangely, and with so little intention on his own part, impressed Fred more than the unquestioning obedience old Vladimir yielded to him. More than ever before, he realized that the Suvaroffs must indeed be as great a family as his mother had declared. Though she had become a true American, Mrs. Waring had never ceased to love the land of her birth, and she had always tried to impress Fred with her own feeling for the great house to which she had belonged.
"Such families as the Suvaroffs can do much harm to themselves and to others," she had said. "But they can also be of great service to those of their blood, to those who are dependent upon them, and to their country."
The truth of this was constantly being impressed anew upon Fred at this time. He was struck especially by the difference between the way that the people of this house treated Boris and himself, and the attitude that had been noticeable in those who had served his uncle, Mikail Suvaroff. Mikail was decidedly a greater figure than Boris's father. Yet it was not devotion that he seemed to inspire. He won obedience, not because his people were devoted to him, but because he had filled them with fear, and because they knew the consequences that would certainly follow if he were displeased in any way.
It was still light when Fred left the house. He went out by a side entrance, reaching the road from the garden. Vladimir had gone down the hill before him. It was understood that he would manufacture some errand as an excuse for his appearance in the village. A number of the people of the village were in the road near the great house; they stared at it curiously, and with hostile murmurs. They paid no attention to Fred, however, and this convinced him that his disguise was good. He passed near them, and he breathed more freely when he had gone by.
At the foot of the hill he turned away from the village. Here he remembered something that both amused and annoyed him. He had not asked just where the parsonage was. He knew its location with reference to the outer portal of the tunnel, to be sure, but he had come to that underground. However, he remembered where the sun had been when he had emerged into the open air before, and, after some profitless scouting about, a passing motorcycle set him on the right track. It set him thinking, too.
"There are an awful lot of these fellows with dispatches running about," he said to himself. "It seems to me that this place is more than a colonel's headquarters. A colonel has just one regiment under him, and he certainly wouldn't need so many riders to carry his orders about-unless he were in command of a detached fort or position, and Colonel Goldapp isn't. I guess he's there, right enough, but I've an idea there's someone more important, as well. It might be worth while to find out just what is going on around here."
But that could wait. For the moment his task was to meet Vladimir and then to spy out the parsonage. Meeting Vladimir proved easier than he had hoped. He followed the trail of the man on the motorcycle until he was within sight of the grey stone parsonage, and then had his bearings exactly. He approached the hollow cautiously, but no one was around. The ground was fairly soft; there had been rain within the last three or four days. And so, as he approached the spot of his encounter with the superstitious soldier, Fred was able to tell that no visitation had been made to the hollow. He marked the footsteps of the soldier; the man had evidently run from the place.
Looking around cautiously, he saw that everything was clear, and dropped down on hands and knees as he reached the gully. Vladimir was waiting, and in less than a minute explained the secret of the door.
"All right," said Fred. "Now you get back to the house, and either be near the entrance to the passage yourself, or keep someone stationed there. I don't know what's going to happen, so I can't tell you, but I think that maybe I shall get Boris away from the parsonage."
Vladimir's eyes gleamed.
"I am an old man," he said, "and I fear that I am useless. But if I can help to rescue him-"
"If you can help, I'll let you know," said Fred. "But I don't know yet even how I shall set about it. And I think it's more important for someone we can trust absolutely to be in the house. There may be nothing for you to do there, and yet, if anything does come up, you will be needed there very quickly. Shall you go back through the tunnel?"
"No. They may have watched me as I came out, and it will be better for them to see me return. No one suspects the tunnel yet, but some of these Germans are clever."