ONE OF THE BLOND BEAST'S WEAPONS
Then, of a sudden, Tom Slade, ship's boy, disappeared, and there in his place was Tom Slade, scout; calm, undismayed—the same Tom Slade who had looked about him, calm and resourceful, when he was lost in the great woods, and who had kept his nerve when menaced by a savage beast.
He cautiously removed the encircling wire, lifted the object out with both hands, finding it surprisingly heavy, and laid it carefully upon the stationary table where cans were usually assorted and opened.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick—it went cheerfully along on its tragic errand.
It appeared to consist of a piece of ordinary stovepipe about twelve inches long. The face and works of an alarm clock, being of a slightly smaller circumference, had been placed within one end of the pipe, the face out, and the intervening space around this was packed with cotton waste. The other end of the pipe was closed with a kind of gummy cement.
Tom observed that the little alarm dial in the clock's face was set for nine o'clock, which of course afforded him infinite relief, for it was not yet seven.
With the greatest of care and hands trembling a little, he pulled out some of the cotton waste around the clock face, holding the dial steady with one hand, and found that nothing save this packing was holding the clock in place. He joggled it very gently this way and that to make sure that it was not connected with anything behind. Then he lifted it out and stood it upright on a shelf with cans on either side of it to keep it in place.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick—it went just as before, as if not in the least disappointed that its tragic purpose had been thwarted; tick, tick, tick, tick—like the old alarm clock that used to stand on the shelf above the sink in Barrel Alley.
There was no Gold Cross for this little act of Tom's, and no "loud plaudits," as Pee-Wee would have said, but Tom Slade had saved a couple of hundred lives, just the same.
It occurred to him now that pretty soon he would be expected upstairs. The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter of six and Tom's own watch, which was as honest, plain and reliable as he was himself, said twelve minutes of seven.
"That's funny," said he.
He peered into the open space which the removal of the clock had left in the pipe's end. It ran for about four or five inches, where the pipe appeared to be sealed with the same gummy substance as at the other end.
On the inside of the pipe was a rough-looking, yellowish area about two inches square, and from this two black, heavy cords ran to the cement wall.
Tom understood at once the mechanism of this horrible thing. The bell of the alarm clock had been removed, and the clock so placed that at the fatal tick the striker would have vibrated against this rough area, which was probably inflammable like a match-end and which, on being ignited, would have ignited the fuse.
Tom's imagination traced the hurrying little flames, racing along those two cords to see which would get there first, and he shuddered, thinking of the end of that sprightly little race to the awful goal....
His lip curled a little as he looked at the now harmless piece of junk and as his eyes wandered to the impenitent clock which, without any vestige of remorse or contrition, was ticking merrily up there on the shelf, out of harm's way between the sentinels of cans.
"Huh, I don't call that fighting!" he said.
Tom's knowledge of war was confined to what he had learned at school. He knew about the Battle of Bunker Hill and that ripping old fight, the Battle of Lexington. These two encounters represented what he understood war to be.
When Mr. Ellsworth had taken him in hand, he had told him a few things known to scouts: that it was cowardly to throw stones; that it was contemptible to strike a person in the back or below the waist; that fighting was bad enough, but that if fights must be fought they should be fought in the open. That a boy should never, never strike a girl....
And what kind of fighting was this? thought Tom. Was it not exactly like the boy who sneaks behind a fence and throws stones?
"That ain't fighting," he repeated.
Methodically he went upstairs. His immediate superior was "Butch," but his ultimate superior was Mr. Cressy, the steward; and to him he now went.
"I got somethin' to tell you, Mr. Cressy," he said hurriedly. "I made a mistake and went into the wrong room, and there's a bomb there. It was set for nine o'clock. I fixed it so's it can't go off."
"What?" ejaculated the steward.
"I fixed it so it can't go off," Tom repeated dully. "If I'd waited till I told you, it might 'a' gone off by mistake."
His manner was so entirely free from excitement that for a moment the steward could only stare at him.
"There ain't any danger now," said Tom.
The steward whistled to himself thoughtfully.
"Go down there and wait till I come, and don't say anything about this to anybody," said he.
Tom went down, feeling quite important; he was being drawn head and shoulders into the war now. Once the thought occurred to him that perhaps he would be suspected of something. For he thought he knew now how easily people did "get misjudged." But that seemed absurd, and he dismissed the thought of it—just as he had dismissed the thought of Roscoe Bent's really doing anything wrong or cowardly.
But still a vague feeling of uneasiness held him....