The Submarine Boys for the Flag Part 37

"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 were stealthily grouping themselves. Jack watched them alertly. He did not intend to be taken unawares, yet he hesitated to draw his pistol while Miss Huston was there.

"Go, girl!" Millard ordered again.

"I have told you, already, that I shall go only when Mr. Benson gives the word and accompanies me," replied the girl, white but courageous.

"Then we won't waste more time," laughed the wretch, harshly. "Since you will stay, then you must be a witness of what you have brought on my worst foe! Close in, men--get him!"

As the men sprang to obey, and Jack dodged nimbly back, Daisy Huston uttered 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 the desperate lot. "Take her from here as fast as you can."

The driver, ready for his work, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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, aimed a blow with a cudgel at the weapon. He struck it from the young lieutenant's hand.

Down to the ground it fell, but Lieutenant Benson was as quick as thought, now.

He bent over, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the weapon, then ducked away from a follow-up blow 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. No report followed. That blow from the cudgel had jammed the cylinder.

Having dropped the senseless form of Daisy Huston in the cab the driver sprang to the box, las.h.i.+ng the horses, just as Lieutenant Benson discovered the uselessness of his weapon as a firearm.

Then, indeed, young Benson knew that this must be a fight to the very death. Yet he was a naval officer at heart, as much as by special appointment. At a time like this he held life cheaply.

The first man to get within reach was laid flat by a blow with the b.u.t.t of Jack's revolver.

Instantly young Benson wheeled, to strike at another pressing foe.

Instead, he received a glancing though painful blow on his own left shoulder. Ere the a.s.sailant could recover, however, Benson leaped at him 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, nerves and muscles responding magnificently. He fairly vibrated defense.

"Close in on him, men--surround him!" snarled Millard. "You've got to get him! We haven't many minutes left. We don't know at what instant to look for interference."

Jack landed effectively on another of the rascals. Just as he was wheeling, however, to ward off the attack of another, a stick landed against his left knee, partly crippling him.

In moving backward Benson almost stumbled over a stone half the size of his head.

Right there, in the same movement with which he thrust the revolver into one of his pockets, he bent down, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the heavy stone, and held it poised over his head.

"Now, come on! Now, close in!" cried Jack Benson, exulting. "The first man who gets too close has his head split open! Who wants it?"

His usually, good-humored face was transformed by the fiery rage of battle.

Surely there was some of the old Norseman streak left in Jack Benson's make-up.

As he stood there, keenly alert, ready to heave the rock, he looked like a young Thor armed with ma.s.sive stone hammer.

"Spread! Get in back of him!" yelled Millard, hoa.r.s.ely. "I'll take the 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 in his rear.

"Bos.h.!.+ You can soon stop that, men!" jeered Millard, suddenly. "Fall back and get a fistful of stones. Rain them in on the youngster at a safe distance. One of you will soon hit him and send him down!"

Young Benson gasped inwardly with dismay, though his face did not blanch. Millard's followers drew back to obey.

Yes! These fellows could throw small stones from a much greater distance than the young lieutenant could hurl the large one. They had but to keep up this fire for a few seconds when one of them was certain to hit him in the head, putting him out of the fight.

Jack Benson dropped the big stone, though he stood over it. Like a flash his revolver came out again. Aiming at Millard, the young naval officer made frantic efforts to make the cylinder revolve. But the weapon proved to be hopelessly jammed.

"Now, keep on volleying the youngster with until you have him down and wholly out!" yelled Millard, hoa.r.s.ely.

The air seemed filled with stones. Jack hopped about as nimbly as possible, dodging all he could. Yet one part of his body after another was. .h.i.t.

Rat-a-tat-tat! Jack hardly comprehended what this new noise meant when it 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 mount squarely against one of the wretches, bowling him over and underfoot.

Hardly seeming to veer, the rider made for another fellow, and barely missed him.

Just a second later, so it seemed, this valiant rider hauled the horse on 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 the ground.

"Bully good of you, Benson, old chap!" called a hearty voice. Then the horseman spurred forward, running down another of Benson's late a.s.sailants. 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 the British naval officer, whom this brief rollicking battle had made as gleeful as a boy.

"But how on earth did you happen to turn up?" asked Jack, a feeling of mystery coming over him after he had glanced at Millard and had made sure that the latter would "sleep" for some time to come.

"Why, I was out for my afternoon canter, dear old fellow," bubbled Lieutenant Abercrombie, R.N. "I was coming down the road at a hard trot, don't you know, when a cab rolled by. A young woman--and a deuced pretty one--thrust her head out and shrieked at me. What could I do? It was deuced extraordinary, and I had to do something quickly, 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 the cab. The fellow really started to blackguard me, while the young woman was shouting something at me at the same time I had to silence the fellow, don't you know, so I could understand the young lady.

So I struck him over the head with the b.u.t.t of my riding whip. My word, I must have hit the blackguard hard, for he just curled up and lay down. The young lady sprang out of the cab and begged me to hurry down here. She looked able to take care of herself, so I just left my revolver 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 be running against you."

"It was," Jack admitted, dryly. "But now I've got the man I came after.