CHAPTER XV.
INTO AUSTRIA.
"Any time," said the ambassador gently, "that you are ready to give me your parole, I shall have your bonds removed."
"I wouldn't give my parole to you or any other of your kind," declared
Chester grimly.
"I'm sorry you feel that way about it," declared the ambassador, with a deprecating gesture. "I assure you, I shall see that you are given safe conduct back to Italy. But in the meantime, I can take no chances upon your escaping."
"Do as you please," said Chester.
Again a captive, Chester left Venice.
In a first class compartment of the special train that was bearing the Austrian ambassador and his staff rapidly toward Trieste was also Chester, nursing a sore head, the result of trying to vanquish the ambassador and the two other Austrians when the diplomat had ordered him seized. The lad put up such a battle that one of his opponents had found it necessary to tap him gently on top of the head with the butt of his revolver. That had settled the argument, and when Chester returned to consciousness he was aboard the special train, bound, and seated across from the ambassador.
"Sorry we had to give you that crack on the head," the ambassador continued, "but you wouldn't behave without it. Does it pain you much?"
"Not so much as the fact that you are a race lacking in all sense of gratitude," replied Chester. "I wish now I had let you lie where you were. The next time I shall keep my mouth shut, you can bet on that."
"Well, anyhow, here you are," said the ambassador, "and I promise that you shall remain with me until I see the emperor in Vienna, if I have to drug you. After that, I promise you safe conduct to the Italian border. Come, why not be sensible?"
But Chester was in no mood to be sensible, and there is little wonder. Twice he had almost regained his liberty, and a third time, after he had come to the assistance of the ambassador, he felt certain he would be set free. He was far from cheerful now.
"We are now in Austria," said the ambassador, an hour later.
"It won't be so long before it will be Italy, I guess," said Chester, with something like a sneer in his voice.
"Come, come, my friend," said the ambassador. "Don't let your feelings run away with you. You are simply talking to hear yourself talk."
"Don't you believe it," declared Chester. "I know what I am talking about. Say! You fellows don't think you can whip the world, do you?"
"Well, we seem to have been whipping a pretty good part of it," replied the ambassador sententiously.
"That's it! That's it!" cried Chester. "That's your Teutonic air of conquerors. Don't forget that some of these days, however, you will be sorry for all this trouble and bloodshed you have caused."
"We have caused?" echoed the ambassador. "You mean that England has caused."
"No, I don't mean England," replied Chester.
"Why," exclaimed the ambassador, "if it had not been for England, this war would never have happened."
Chester looked at the ambassador sharply for a moment.
"Good night," he said at last, and fell back in his seat.
It was dusk when the train pulled into Trieste, and the party alighted.
"We shall spend the night here," the ambassador decided. "I have some work to do."
"One place suits me as well as another, if I have to stay in this kind of a country," said Chester.
At a hotel where they were driven in a taxi, Chester was locked in a room on the fifth floor. It was a handsomely appointed room, and Chester would have been content to spend the night there had he been in other circumstances. But right now he wasn't content to spend the night in Austria, no matter how well he was treated.
"I want to get out of this country," he told himself repeatedly. "I guess it's a good enough country, so far as it goes, but I can plainly see it's no place for me."
Left alone, Chester made a tour of inspection. The door was heavily barred. He looked out the window.
"A long way to the ground," he muttered.
There was no other means of egress.
"Looks like I was safe enough," he muttered.
Again he examined the window carefully. A slight whistle escaped him.
"A little risky," he told himself, "but I believe it can be done."
He walked to the door, laid his ear against it and listened intently. No sound came from without.
"Well," he said, straightening up, "if I am going to do it, the sooner I get busy the better."
Quickly he stripped the covering from the bed, and with his knife slit it lengthwise. Each strip he tied to another, until he had a strong improvised rope. He stretched it out on the floor, and measured it carefully with his eye. Then he again walked to the window and peered out.
"Pretty close," he muttered, "but I believe it will reach. The trouble is some one in one of the rooms below is liable to see me."
Now he pushed the bed close to the window, and securely knotted one end of his improvised rope to the heavy iron bars. Then he walked across the room to the door again and listened.
It was now dark outside and Chester realized that he could not have a better moment for his desperate attempt. Quickly he recrossed the room, and dropped the other end of the rope out the window. He glanced down.
"O.K.," he said. "Here goes."
He leaped quickly to the sill, and a moment later was lowering himself hand over hand. And at length he came to the end of the rope.
The ground was still far below him, but Chester had not figured the rope would reach to the ground. Clinging tightly to the rope, he gazed quickly about.
He was now even with the window on the third floor, and he succeeded by clever work in getting a foothold on the sill; and, still clinging to the rope, he stood erect. Inside, Chester saw the figure of a man. Inadvertently, the lad's foot crashed against the window pane, shattering the glass. There was a crash, followed by a guttural exclamation from inside the room.
"I've got to move now!" exclaimed the lad.
Taking a firm hold on the rope, he swung himself outward, giving his flight through space an added impetus by pushing with his right foot. He went sailing through the air, even as a pistol shot rang out behind him.
Chester had calculated truly. Headfirst he crashed among the branches of a tree, at the far side of the walk. Instantly he released his hold upon the rope and was safe in the tree.
"I thought I could do it," he muttered. "Now to get down before some of these fellows get after me."
Rapidly he made his descent, and a few moments later stood upon the sidewalk, unhurt. For a moment he paused to gain a much-needed breath, and then, turning, he stalked quickly away. And as he did so there came cries from within the hotel, and men rushed out and after him.
Chester took to his heels.
"I don't know whether they saw me on the street or not," he told himself, "but the safest place for me is a long way from that hotel."
He doubled around several corners, and at last, as he turned into a more traveled street, he slowed down to a walk. He drew a long breath.
"Guess I have shaken them," he said. "Now, if I only knew where I was, I might manage to get out of here. Guess I had better pick one direction and keep going that way. I'll trust to luck that it is either north or west."
He turned down the next street and set out resolutely, having determined in his mind to stick to the direction he had selected. Fortunately, although the lad could not be sure of it, he was heading northward, where, eventually, he would reach the Italian frontier, although it was much further away than was the western border.
Chester walked along for an hour without even being challenged.
"Funny, too," he muttered. "It's a wonder every street corner doesn't spout soldiers and police at me. I must be getting to be rather a lucky young man."
He had now reached a less thickly populated district. There were few pedestrians upon the streets, houses became farther and farther apart. An occasional automobile passed him, but no attention was paid to the hurrying figure.
Chester slowed down a trifle as he made out a form approaching. As it drew closer Chester noticed it was a uniformed figure. He drew a deep breath.
"Looks like there was liable to be something doing here," he muttered.
He continued his way. The officer, for such Chester perceived the man to be, drew closer. As Chester would have passed him, he suddenly stopped in his tracks, and commanded:
"Halt!"
Chester did so.
"Who are you?" demanded the man, "and where are you going?"
To Chester's great relief, he spoke in German, and the lad replied in the same language, which he spoke without an accent.
"I am on an errand for the ambassador, sir. A prisoner has recently escaped, and I am bearing word to the outposts to be on the watch for him."
"Hm-m-m," muttered the officer. "Why didn't the ambassador make use of the wireless 'phone?"
"I don't know, sir," replied Chester.
The officer laid a heavy hand on the lad's arm, and peered into his face in the dim light. Then the hand tightened.
"You are no German!" was his quiet comment. "You are probably a spy. You are my prisoner!"
Chester's heart sank.