CHAPTER XXV THE BOYS GET WORRIED OVER NED

It was about half-past eleven when Alan, nervously pacing the outside runways of the _Ocean Flyer_ there on the Prater, heard Buck Stewart’s welcome voice greet him cheerily from the darkness.

“Are the others back here yet?” asked the reporter.

“What! Aren’t they with you?” exclaimed Alan, peering through the gloom. “Where on earth have you fellows been all night? I got as nervous as a girl thinking that something might have happened to you.”

“Well,” drawled Buck, enjoying Alan’s impatient curiosity, “we did bump into a little adventure.”

Then he went on to give Alan the details of their chance discovery of the plot to assassinate the aged Emperor Franz Joseph on the following evening.

“Bob followed one man, Ned another, and I the third--a gigantic chap who could almost pulverize me with a single blow. I followed him about for an hour or more, going to first one low dive and then to another, but always in the poorer, more squalid sections of the city where there were few street lamps and where the second stories of ramshackle old houses nearly met overhead. The smells were awful, and every street corner had its individual knot of evil-looking loafers being harangued by wild-eyed, long-haired chaps, looking as if they would cut one’s throat for a nickel. Each demagogue was working his little gang of listeners up to a point of frenzy. Some of the orators were preaching socialism, others a reversion to pious living. Some waved their arms in an impassioned plea for absolute anarchy; still others stood on old soap boxes, with thin lips that alternately sneered or snarled, preaching atheism, revolution, murder.

“You may well believe that I wasn’t at all at ease passing through throngs of that sort all the while and having to stop every now and then because Black-beard’s taxi did, while he leaned out of the window to note the attitude of the rabble. Once in a while he would be recognized by persons loitering in the street-corner aggregations. Several times men sidled slyly up to his taxicab and seemed to be making reports or getting fresh instructions from him.

“I followed my man around that way for more than two hours without anything in particular happening, and finally trailed him to bed at a middle-class boarding house in the Neyban district. Then I came on back here.”

The last words were hardly out of his mouth before Bob Russell joined them, his manner triumphant.

“Hello, boys!” cried he. “I don’t know what luck you may have had, but I ran my little fat man to ground and have found out enough about him to hang him higher than Haman.”

“Tell us about it,” both boys said.

Bob continued:

“It turned out that the man I followed was so eminent a dignitary of the realm that I myself now can hardly believe it to be true. The chase in the taxicab led me straight into the ‘Inner Town’ and to the very steps of the Hofburg itself. My man paid off his chauffeur and went on up the grand stairway with all the assurance of proprietorship. Liveried lackeys saluted him respectfully on all sides, but the gorgeously uniformed guards at the entrance stopped me when I tried to follow him.

“‘It’s all right, my man,’ I tried to explain, in my best Austrian, ‘I am with--’ pointing after the vanishing figure--‘him.’

“The guardsman raised his eyebrows in polite disbelief.

“‘But His Excellency the Chancellor did not tell us that you were accompanying him.’

“‘_His Excellency the Chancellor?_’ I nearly fell over backwards when I heard that this arch-conspirator was _he_. Then in reckless spirit of bravado and with a fine assumption of haughtiness, I said:

“Go ask him. Bring him back here, and mind that you do not keep me waiting long either!”

“Impressed by my tone, one of the guardsmen went in after my quarry, who came back with a face that was like a mask.

“‘You wished to see me, sir?’ he queried, taking me in from head to foot at a single glance.

“‘No,’ said I, ‘you forget that I am with you.’

“‘Ah!’ said he, without exhibiting the slightest interest. ‘I have indeed forgotten. Will you not enter with me? His Imperial Highness is waiting now.’

“‘No, I must leave you now,’ I told him. ‘We shall see the Emperor again _to-morrow night_, I think.’

“For a brief second his brows knit in a puzzled frown. Then his face cleared and he bowed very graciously.

“‘Until then, good friend,’ he murmured.

“‘Until then, your Excellency,’ I parroted and, turning, descended the steps with all of the dignity that I could muster. So here I am again.”

“Well, of all the unmitigated nerve!” Alan burst forth. “Now I see how it is that you newspaper men get your ‘stories.’ It’s a wonder that he didn’t either have you kicked downstairs or thrown into prison on general principles!”

“He was suspicious all right,” grinned Bob, who was highly pleased with himself, “but he didn’t dare risk forcing my hand too strongly there with all of the servants standing about. Believe me, though, I’ve given him something to think about!”

“I can’t understand why Ned doesn’t show up,” broke in Bob. “It’s past sunrise now. What can be delaying him?”

The anxiety in Bob’s tone was reflected in the faces of the other two boys.

The hours dragged slowly by. Broad daylight came and wore on to noon. Still no sign of Ned. Late afternoon found his chums pacing restlessly up and down the area about the _Ocean Flyer_. No one of them dared voice his fears to the others. The sun’s rays became more slanting; the shadows longer and heavier. And still no Ned.

* * * * *

The man with the cloak, Count Polnychek, whirled his captive around facing him with a heavy grip on his shoulder.

“So?” cried he, “I know you now! You sat with two others at an adjacent table there in the _tanzenhaus_! You are a spy then? You were eavesdropping on our conversation. Did it interest you so much that you were constrained to follow me all this distance?”

“It interested me,” said Ned shortly, meeting his glare coolly, eye to eye. His calmness enraged the old count still more.

“And what did you hear, you snake?” he growled, stepping closer and thrusting his bearded face close to that of the undaunted boy. “Quick now! Tell me what you overheard!”

“It would be no news to you, Count Polnychek, of Budapest,” said Ned.

“Donnerwetter! You even know my name then! You show your teeth to me, do you? Are you aware that your life is wholly at my mercy?”

Ned disdained to answer him.

“Will you tell me how much you know?”

Silence.

“Marya!”

The distracted girl jumped with fright at the explosive force of the command.

“Marya, heat your poker in the flames of the fireplace and then bring it here to me!”

“Oh, father--dear father, no! no! no! Not that! You wouldn’t torture this poor boy?” she pleaded.

The old wretch snarled savagely at her as he ripped open the bosom of Ned’s shirt, showing the soft, white skin underneath.

“Did you hear me, Marya!”

Trembling violently, the girl did his bidding. Shortly the white-hot iron was glowing in his threatening hand. He held it so close to Ned’s shrinking flesh that the heat it gave off was almost intolerable.

“Now will you tell?”

The boy shut his eyes and with gritted teeth awaited the scorching touch upon his chest. But it never came. A harsh voice that one would never have recognized as that of the girl who a few minutes before had cowered in terror, said:

“Father, throw up your hands, or, as there is a hereafter, I will shoot you with your own revolver!”

Marya Racoszky stood with one arm steadily pointing a huge revolver at her parent’s head.

“Drop that poker!”

He did so. The iron fell into the thick woof of the carpet, sizzling and causing a vile odor.

Still covering the astounded old wretch with her weapon, the girl sidled over to Ned and slashed the rope from off his arms with a penknife. Instantly she shoved the revolver into the boy’s hands and collapsed swooning into the nearest chair. Ned kicked the smoking poker over into the fireplace. A grim smile edged his lips.

“Now will _you_ tell _me_ the things that you know are planned for to-morrow night out at the Schoenbrunn chateau where Franz Joseph will spend the night?” he asked sternly.

“_No!_ Shoot if you wish, but I never desert my comrades. I am a man of honor.”

“‘A man of _honor_?’ You, who in cold blood contemplate the assassination of your sovereign--a poor old man, already shattered in health and spirit over the miseries of his country? You are a disgrace to the ancient name you bear!”

Old Count Polnychek winced under the scathing scorn in the boy’s voice. The red blood suffused his deeply lined face.

“You would not dare insult me in this way were I not unarmed and at your mercy.”

“How about when you threatened to scar me with that hot poker? Count, you are--_keep away from that bell or I fire!_--are going to do my will this time. Let us sit down while you tell me all about it.”

“_Tausend Teufeln_, no!”

“I said _sit_!”

The Count plumped down abjectly into the depths of a big easy chair. Ned likewise seated himself, with the ugly-looking revolver still ready.

“Now, Count,” said he evenly.

“N--no!”

“Now!”

Old Count Polnychek shrank before the rising black muzzle not two yards away.

“Well, a curtained limousine is to call here for me at ten to-night. The chauffeur understands that he is to drive me to Spvodka, ten minutes’ walk from the chateau where the Emperor is to sleep. All ten of us who head the plot are to meet there at eleven. Then we are to ...”