*CHAPTER XIX*
*THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP*
Patiently, now, the two Englishmen waited for the dawn. Till then itwould not be safe to move in any direction. As they lay in the longbracken and ferns, however, they were able to converse quietly, and todiscuss their plans for the coming day. The spot they had come so farto seek was now before them. The live wires, just a few feet ahead ofthem, had been duly located, and now that the danger was known, it wasnot insuperable. It was an added mystery to them, nevertheless, howthis wizard secured sufficient voltage to make these wires so deadly.They assumed, however, that powerful dynamos, worked by this same silentenergy that propelled the aeroplane, were at work somewhere near thisspot.
Dawn came at last; a faint yellow streak lit up the horizon away to theeast. Then a crimson flush revealed the distant tree-tops, and the moonand stars faded away. A hundred songsters awoke the stillness of theforest, for another day had dawned, and the sable curtain of nightrolled westward.
"See, there is a clearing fifty yards ahead," were Keane's first wordsto his companion.
"It is the aerodrome, the secret aerodrome!" replied Sharpe, peeringthrough the trees.
"Let us work round a little way and find the workshop or hangar. Ifancy we shall find it on the other side of the glade."
"Mind those beastly wires, then!" replied Sharpe, as he began to crawlthrough the dense undergrowth after his companion, who had alreadystarted to make a circuit of the outer defences on his hands and knees.
The next half-hour was spent in cautious creeping and crawling justoutside those death-dealing wires. At the end of that time, however,Keane made a discovery. He had completed about half the circuit, when,peering carefully through the trees, he fancied he could make out thecamouflaged fabric which covered some temporary building. So carefullywas this place hidden amongst the trees that he had to look twice orthree times before he could make up his mind that he was not mistaken.At last he convinced himself that he had located the workshop, else, whyshould the place have been so carefully hidden. Waiting for hiscompanion to reach him, he pointed to the object and whispered, "Thereit is, not thirty yards away!"
"Shall we get over these wires, and rush the place?" asked Sharpe.
"No. Let us continue our journey until we have completed the circuit.We may make another discovery yet. Come along; fortune favours thebrave."
They had scarcely crept another hundred yards, however, when a rustlingin the leaves, accompanied by a snort, revealed the presence of anotherwild boar, which had evidently scented their presence.
"Confound the pig!" muttered Sharpe, who was afraid the sounds mightlead to their premature discovery. But Keane thought otherwise, for, tohis quick mind and instructive genius, this trifling event seemedprovidential.
"The pig!" he whispered, pointing to the spot whence came the occasionalsnorts of the angry, disturbed creature.
"What of it?" queried Sharpe.
"Let's get to the other side of the beast and drive it against thewires."
"And roast the brute alive for the benefit of their breakfast, Isuppose."
Keane laughed silently, and wondered how far the conspirators used thislive wire to keep themselves supplied with food. He knew, however, thata wild boar on the live wires would soon bring out the inmates of thatmysterious house in the woods, and would sufficiently distract theirattention to give the airmen their opportunity.
The next moment, having made a sufficiently extensive circuit, so as toget the wild boar between them and the wires, they began closing in onthe beast, an operation not devoid of peril, should the boar decide toattack them. Fortune favoured them, however. The angry beast, notingthe approach of some unseen enemy, by the movements of the tangledundergrowth, half frightened and half infuriated, made off in thedirection of the clearing, uttering further snorts. The next moment hehad touched the first of those deadly wires, and, with a wild screamwhich rang through the forest, he leapt into the air, then fell backquivering but dead across that fatal grill.
"Back--back for your life!" hissed Keane, as he made haste back to thespot where they had sheltered, close to the camouflaged hangar.
The next instant the watchers saw the professor and his assistant rushout of the little building, towards the place where the animal lay rightacross the first four wires. In their excitement they both seemed tohave forgotten the presence of the two Englishmen in the woods duringthe previous evening, for they were both unarmed. Or perhaps it wasthat they imagined them to be the present victims of their cunning.
"Hoch! Another royal boar for the larder, Fritz!" exclaimed theprofessor. "We shall have the winter's supply complete very soon."
"Gut, mein herr!" came the answer.
"Better go back and switch off the current, so that we can take itaway," urged the chief, and, staying but a second to see the royalvictim, the assistant complied.
This was what the two Englishmen had been waiting for. The moment ofaction had come at last. Gripping their pistols, they made ready toadvance and take possession of the hangar during the absence of theinmates.
"Sind Sie fertig, Friedrich?" called the professor.
"Ja, das bin ich!" replied the other, as he left the workshop, andrejoined his companion.
"Come along, the wires are dead now," whispered Keane, and, keeping wellwithin the shadows of the trees, the two men crept forward, gained therear of the structure, then cautiously worked their way round andentered the hangar unobserved.
One glance about the well-fitted workshop sufficed. There were nofurther occupants, and they lowered their pistols. Sharpe at oncesprang to the lever which regulated the powerful electrical current andclutched it. In another instant the two men without would have paid theextreme penalty, for they would have been instantly killed by their ownevil device, but Keane stopped him:--
"Don't!" he said. "We have much to learn. The professor at least mustbe taken alive, if possible. The secret he holds is too precious to belost. Let us hide!"
"Where can we hide?" asked the other, somewhat disappointed, and amazedat the further risks which his companion appeared willing to take inorder to gratify an insatiable curiosity. "The tables may be quicklyturned upon us."
"We can shoot them as a last resort, if that is necessary," urged Keane,who knew the priceless value of the secrets which this place contained.
"Hist! They are coming."
"This way!" whispered Keane, and he drew his companion into a littlerecess, which had evidently been curtained off for the mechanic'ssleeping berth.
They had barely withdrawn themselves into this narrow apartment when thetwo men entered, dragging the carcase of the wild boar with them.
"Leave it there for a moment, Strauss. The message from the Rittmeisteris due. I must also send him that other message again, as the first hasnot been acknowledged," were the professor's first words.
"Yes, sir. Shall I start the dynamos again?" asked the assistant.
"Perhaps you'd better, but first hand me that message book and thesecret code."
The next moment the professor was busy at the wireless keys,transmitting some message to the far deserts of Arabia.
"By all the saints," gasped Keane, "he's sending a message to theraider, the _Scorpion_, as he calls it. I must have that secret code atall hazards. I wonder what he is saying?"
For some time the chief conspirator was engaged coding and decodingmessages at the little table where the aerials, carefully hidden amongstthe trees without, had their terminus. And in that moment Keane thankedhis stars that he had waited for this, for he saw new possibilitiesopening out before him. Once in possession of this mechanism and thenecessary codes, he could communicate at will with the distant raider,who was threatening the whole civilised world by his almost superhumanpowers of brigandage. He could recall the raider also, and make hiscapture certain, once he could secure absolute possession of this littlecitadel.
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p; For the present he could do nothing but wait, however, and see howmatters developed. Once, the assistant came quite close to theirhiding-place, and both men again gripped their Webleys. At this momenteven to breathe seemed fraught with danger. If the man should enter thelittle apartment, he must die, and the professor must be immediatelythreatened with the same penalty unless he surrendered.
"Ha! So far so good!" gasped Keane, as the mechanic recrossed theworkshop without actually entering their hiding-place.
"Teufel!" spluttered the professor. "Here is that fool Tempest tryingto communicate with those two _verdammt_ Englishmen who are stillroaming about in the Schwarzwald. He little knows that we possess hissecret code."
"Himmel! What does he say?" asked the other.
"Wants them to report progress at once, and let him know how mattersstand," said Weissmann in a mocking tone. "He says he will come overhimself, if necessary."
"Donnerwetter! Ask him to come, Professor. He might as well grill withhis accomplices on the live wires, for that's where they'll be beforethe day is out, unless they abandon their futile search," repliedStrauss.
"This fiend is a perfect wizard!" thought Keane, and his glancesignified as much to Sharpe. "How he manages to get hold of thesesecrets is beyond me. And yet, there is a defect in his mad science,for he does not know that we're here, and that his own life is in ourhands. Fool that he is, he will soon learn that the wit of anEnglishman is more than a match for his boasted knowledge," and here thesenior airman carefully withdrew a cartridge from his Webley andinserted another, silently--a cartridge that had a specific mission.His companion watched him and repeated the action with his own weapon,for he understood.
"Blitz! but I've half a mind to send for Tempest," mused the professor,who was still toying with the keys of the wireless instrument.
"Send for him, Professor," urged his accomplice. "Those Englishmen aregetting too close to be pleasant. The British army of occupation willbe carrying out a thorough search of the Schwarzwald if these men getaway, and then where shall we be?"
"We are in the neutral zone, though," replied the other.
"But we're contravening the Peace Regulations, sir, and the English willnot stand upon ceremony. It will be too late should these men getaway."
"Donner und Teufel!" rasped out the angry professor. "Don't speak to meof the Peace Regulations. There will be no peace till Germany regainsall and more than all she has lost. I will send for this Commissionerof Aerial Police, for I believe that he and his two accomplices, Keaneand Sharpe, are the only ones so far who know anything that mattersabout the secret of the Schwarzwald," and he began to tap the keys,reeling out the words as he sent them.
Keane listened acutely for the cyphers of the code. They were:--
"Z--X--B--T--V--O--P..."
and he understood that Tempest was to come at once, make for Mulhausenaerodrome, then take a bee-line, east-north-east over the Schwarzwalduntil he saw a smoke column, where a suitable landing-ground would befound, and his accomplices would await him.
"Ach!" shrieked the professor, with a fiendish laugh. "The smoke columnwill mark his last resting-place. They shall all be buried together,these mad Englishmen. We will have more live wires stretched across hislanding-ground, and as the wild boar died, so will these men die whodared to follow me into the Schwarzwald."
"The wild boar! Hoch! Hoch!" exclaimed his companion. "It is afitting tribute for the English are swine!"
"And the _Scorpion_ shall witness the inglorious end of these men,"cried the professor, as a sudden idea came into his mind.
"Der _Scorpion_?" queried Fritz, looking up amazed from his task. "Whatdo you mean, Professor?"
"Why, the Rittmeister will have finished his work in the Hamadian Desertthis afternoon. His instructions are to resign the Sultanate of thoseregions for the present, for the skies will be thick with British scoutsby to-morrow."
"But then he goes to Ireland to work with the revolutionists there, doeshe not, mein herr?"
"Ja! ja! but I will ask him to call here for a day or two before heproceeds. He will have much to tell us, and Spitzer, Carl and Max wouldlike to see these dangerous opponents safely out of the way, for atpresent they are the only enemies to be considered."
"Gut!" ejaculated Strauss, catching something of the professor'senthusiasm.
Keane would have intervened before this, for he had noted Sharpe'simpatience, but he intimated as well as he could by mute signs andotherwise, that the fiend was doing their work for them.
"Let him send this message first," he whispered in his companion's ears,"and then----" But the sentence was completed by further cabalisticsigns.
Again the professor turned to the keys, and sent his last instructionsthrough the ether waves to his confederate, the brigand of the easternskies.