CHAPTER XXII
THE PART OF ABERCROMBIE, R.N.
"Come, girl, you must go!" commanded Millard, harshly.
"I will not," she replied, coldly, "until my escort is ready to go withme."
"He will not go with you," replied Millard, significantly. "And youmust not remain. What is to be done here is no thing for a dainty womanto see."
"Mr. Benson," appealed the girl, "will you enter the cab first?"
"If he does, the cab will not leave," sneered Millard.
All this while the four men who had just come from the house werestealthily grouping themselves. Jack watched them alertly. He did notintend to be taken unawares, yet he hesitated to draw his pistol whileMiss Huston was there.
"Go, girl!" Millard ordered again.
"I have told you, already, that I shall go only when Mr. Benson givesthe word and accompanies me," replied the girl, white but courageous.
"Then we won't waste more time," laughed the wretch, harshly. "Sinceyou will stay, then you must be a witness of what you have brought onmy worst foe! Close in, men--get him!"
As the men sprang to obey, and Jack dodged nimbly back, Daisy Hustonuttered a piercing scream. The next thing she did was wholly natural.Under the intense strain of her feelings the girl fainted.
"Take her!" nodded Millard, to the driver, who was plainly one of thedesperate lot. "Take her from here as fast as you can."
The driver, ready for his work, snatched up the girl's light form.
"Have a care what you do--all of you!" cried Jack Benson, warningly,and now, in his hand, the revolver gleamed.
But one of the wretches, darting in at Jack's right, from behind, aimeda blow with a cudgel at the weapon. He struck it from the younglieutenant's hand.
Down to the ground it fell, but Lieutenant Benson was as quick asthought, now.
He bent over, snatching up the weapon, then ducked away from a follow-upblow at his own head, and sprang back.
"You first, then, Millard!" cried the young acting naval officer.
Full of purpose, Lieutenant Jack pressed the trigger. It stuck. Noreport followed. That blow from the cudgel had jammed the cylinder.
Having dropped the senseless form of Daisy Huston in the cab the driversprang to the box, lashing the horses, just as Lieutenant Bensondiscovered the uselessness of his weapon as a firearm.
Then, indeed, young Benson knew that this must be a fight to the verydeath. Yet he was a naval officer at heart, as much as by specialappointment. At a time like this he held life cheaply.
The first man to get within reach was laid flat by a blow with the buttof Jack's revolver.
Instantly young Benson wheeled, to strike at another pressing foe.Instead, he received a glancing though painful blow on his own leftshoulder. Ere the assailant could recover, however, Benson leaped athim and would have felled him had not Millard himself leaped in,striking up the young naval officer's arm.
Once more Lieutenant Jack leaped back. His whole body was alert, nervesand muscles responding magnificently. He fairly vibrated defense.
"Close in on him, men--surround him!" snarled Millard. "You've got toget him! We haven't many minutes left. We don't know at what instantto look for interference."
Jack landed effectively on another of the rascals. Just as he waswheeling, however, to ward off the attack of another, a stick landedagainst his left knee, partly crippling him.
In moving backward Benson almost stumbled over a stone half the size ofhis head.
Right there, in the same movement with which he thrust the revolver intoone of his pockets, he bent down, snatched up the heavy stone, and heldit poised over his head.
"Now, come on! Now, close in!" cried Jack Benson, exulting. "The firstman who gets too close has his head split open! Who wants it?"
His usually, good-humored face was transformed by the fiery rage ofbattle.
Surely there was some of the old Norseman streak left in Jack Benson'smake-up.
As he stood there, keenly alert, ready to heave the rock, he looked likea young Thor armed with massive stone hammer.
"Spread! Get in back of him!" yelled Millard, hoarsely. "I'll takethe position of attack in front. Down him!"
"Guess which way I'm going to heave this stone!" cried Jack, tauntingly,as he half wheeled, so as to watch those trying to steal a march inhis rear.
"Bosh! You can soon stop that, men!" jeered Millard, suddenly. "Fallback and get a fistful of stones. Rain them in on the youngster at asafe distance. One of you will soon hit him and send him down!"
Young Benson gasped inwardly with dismay, though his face did notblanch. Millard's followers drew back to obey.
Yes! These fellows could throw small stones from a much greater distancethan the young lieutenant could hurl the large one. They had but tokeep up this fire for a few seconds when one of them was certain to hithim in the head, putting him out of the fight.
Jack Benson dropped the big stone, though he stood over it. Like aflash his revolver came out again. Aiming at Millard, the young navalofficer made frantic efforts to make the cylinder revolve. But theweapon proved to be hopelessly jammed.
"Now, keep on volleying the youngster with until you have him down andwholly out!" yelled Millard, hoarsely.
The air seemed filled with stones. Jack hopped about as nimbly aspossible, dodging all he could. Yet one part of his body after anotherwas hit.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant whenit grew in volume. Then a horseman rode into the yard at a charge.
"One down!" yelled the rider, with savage glee, as he drove his mountsquarely against one of the wretches, bowling him over and underfoot.
Hardly seeming to veer, the rider made for another fellow, and barelymissed him.
Just a second later, so it seemed, this valiant rider hauled the horseon its haunches, and swung back, heading for another wretch.
Millard leaped at the horseman, a stone in his uplifted fist.
But Jack Benson saw him, and a well-planted blow sent Millard to theground.
"Bully good of you, Benson, old chap!" called a hearty voice. Then thehorseman spurred forward, running down another of Benson's lateassailants. The two remaining bolted as fast as they could, go.
"Mr. Abercrombie!" cried Lieutenant Jack.
"Yes, it's I: and jolly glad I got here in good time," laughed theBritish naval officer, whom this brief rollicking battle had made asgleeful as a boy.
"But how on earth did you happen to turn up?" asked Jack, a feeling ofmystery coming over him after he had glanced at Millard and had madesure that the latter would "sleep" for some time to come.
"Why, I was out for my afternoon canter, dear old fellow," bubbledLieutenant Abercrombie, R.N. "I was coming down the road at a hardtrot, don't you know, when a cab rolled by. A young woman--and adeuced pretty one--thrust her head out and shrieked at me. Whatcould I do? It was deuced extraordinary, and I had to do somethingquickly, so I rode alongside the cab and told the driver to hold up.I must have looked unusually menacing, don't you know, for, by Jove,the fellow obeyed me. Then I reached up and yanked him down off thecab. The fellow really started to blackguard me, while the youngwoman was shouting something at me at the same time I had to silencethe fellow, don't you know, so I could understand the young lady.So I struck him over the head with the butt of my riding whip. Myword, I must have hit the blackguard hard, for he just curled up andlay down. The young lady sprang out of the cab and begged me to hurrydown here. She looked able to take care of herself, so I just left myrevolver with her, and, by Jove, here I am--and deuced glad of it.Upon my word, Benson, dear old fellow, all the luck seemed to berunning against you."
"It was," Jack admitted, dryly. "But now I've got the man I came after.I've got to keep him, too," added Lieutenant Benson, gravely.
As he spoke, the submarine boy drew a pair of handcuffs from an innerpocket.
"By Jove, do naval youngsters in this
country carry such jewelry?"murmured Lieutenant Abercrombie, R.N.
"They do, I guess, when they're engaged on work like mine at present,"smiled Lieutenant Jack, United States Navy.
"Now, then, by Jove, I think I'd better go back to the young lady,"suddenly decided Abercrombie, for Millard still showed no signs ofrecovering his senses. One of the other two men who had been riddendown now recovered enough to begin to crawl away furtively.
"Do you want that chap?" asked Abercrombie.
"I have no facilities for keeping him a prisoner," Jack answered."For that matter, I guess he's nothing but a hired tough. TheWashington police can find and take care of him at their convenience."
"Good enough," nodded the British lieutenant. "And now--"
"Would you mind if I go to her, instead?" inquired Benson, hastily.
"Not in the least, dear old fellow. And, while you're gone, I'llconstitute myself a special 'bobby' to look after this chap of yoursin the bracelets."
So Jack hurried off up the road, wondering how Daisy Huston faredwith a revolver and a hostile cabman.