CHAPTER XII
WHEN SWORDS CLASHED
"I wonder if that winds up the whole show?" asked Billy Worth, a short time later, as Alec and Monkey Stallings joined him, while there was an unusual bustle among the numerous retinue of the hard-working stage manager.
"Not on your life, Billy," observed Alec, "though I'm all in myself so far as taking any more wonderful pictures goes, because I've used my last film, which I consider hard luck. Hugh just told me the worst is yet to come."
"What! are they going to make out to burn the old castle down? Is that worrying you, Alec?" asked the Stallings boy.
"Sure it is," frankly confessed Alec. "Of course, the fire will be a whole lot of a fake; that is, much smoke, and no real danger to the girl shut up in that high turret room; but, all the same, it's going to do considerable harm to the building, which may queer it for Aunt Susan's purposes."
"Well, what can you say?" demanded Billy. "These people have put up the money to cover any damage they may do, and money talks every time. Here comes Hugh back to tell us what the programme is. He's just left that hustler of a director, and the chances are Hugh knows all about it, because he's made a big hit with the manager."
"Hugh always does make people look up to him, somehow," mused Alec, as though it often puzzled him to know just how the other managed it.
"There, Arthur has joined him, too, and is coming along," Billy went on to say. "He's about finished helping the doctor take care of the wounded yeomen who had the bad luck to be caught when that treacherous old wall caved in."
The scout master, accompanied by Arthur, quickly joined them, to be greeted by a shower of eager questions.
"I can tell you all about it, fellows," said Hugh, making as if to ward off an attack. "Mr. Jefferson, the manager, says he figures on completing his work in the one visit, and has made all necessary preparations. It's a tremendous job to fetch his big company all the way from New York up here. If they make good to-day they expect to go back in the morning, or perhaps to-night, if they can catch the late train. Otherwise they'll have to make another try to-morrow. Personally, I think they'll make good to-day."
"What's the next stunt, Hugh?" asked Alec, his voice more or less betraying the eagerness and concern he felt.
"Oh, from what I can gather," answered the scout master, smilingly, "it runs about like this: The forces headed by the hero knight have carried the outer works of the fortress castle in which the villain has the fair heroine shut up in that turret room. The invaders, having made a breach in the walls and swarmed over in various places, will now pursue the few desperate defenders of the castle through this passage; and that, with many a desperate hand-to-hand fight. Always the knight in armor is seen hewing his way steadily through all opposition, with one object in view. Of course this is to meet the scoundrel, and finish him, which he eventually does after a dreadful sword fight."
"Whew!" gasped Billy, listening with round eyes to the stirring story.
Alec, too, was deeply interested, but his professional instinct caused him to remark:
"They'll have to burn heaps and heaps of flashlight powder to get all those inside effects. Wish they'd let me see just how they manage it, but it would be apt to queer the value of the picture to have, a modern Boy Scout appear in it. If I get a good chance, though, I've a notion to ask Mr. Jefferson."
"You'll never be able to make it, Alec," Hugh told him. "He's the busiest man on earth. He has to be thinking of fifty things at once."
"Go on, Hugh, and tell us the rest," urged Billy, pawing at the sleeve of the other, which action he doubtless meant to be an urgent second to his appeal.
"Every once in a while there will be glimpses shown of Rebecca in her dungeon, looking out of the little opening, and carrying on as if nearly frightened to death, for gusts of smoke will be circling around her, and she is supposed to know that the fire is getting closer all the time."
"Wow, that must make it a thriller for fair!" exclaimed Monkey Stallings, who was known to love exciting stories, though his watchful mother kept a tight rein on his propensity to indulge along those lines, and censored all books he brought into the house before allowing him to devour them.
"Of course," remarked Alec, flippantly. "It goes without saying that eventually knight in shining armor, Ivanhoe, or whoever he may be, gets to the locked door of the turret tower room, bursts his way through, and saves the lovely maiden, like they always do in stories of those olden times. But here's hoping the fire doesn't get out of control, and set in to destroy the best part of this wonderful castle. Such things have been known to happen, I've read."
"Gosh!" ejaculated Billy with morse than his accustomed vigor, "you're only thinking of the humbug old castle, Alec, and what chance there would be for your rich aunt to buy the same if half burned down. Guess you forget the poor girl shut up in that lonesome turret room; what d'ye suppose would become of her if the fire got beyond control?"
"And not a ladder in sight, either," added Monkey Stallings, dismally, as he swept his eyes around in a nervous way. "As for a fire company, there isn't one closer than Danbury, which is all of ten miles away. Whew! I'm beginning to wish the whole business was over with, boys, and the troupe jogging along back to the town they came from in all those big automobiles."
Hugh made no remark just then, but perhaps this suggestion of possible trouble cause him a little concern. He could be seen looking gravely toward the immense pile of real and imitation stone as though mentally figuring what it might be possible to do in a sudden emergency.
As numerous events in the past had proved, Hugh Hardin was always a great hand for mapping out things beforehand. He believed in the principle of preparing for war in times of peace, so as not to be taken unawares.
"A man insures his home," Hugh often said in explanation of this habit, "when everything seems lovely and safe, not when the fire is raging, and his property going up in flame and smoke."
The stage manager had determined that there was no need of repeating the last wild scene where the castle was taken, and a tottering wall fell unexpectedly in the midst of the furious struggle. Let it stand, he had determined, accident and all. It appeared to be almost perfect "copy," and would show up as a faithful portrayal of the stupendous perils attending the efforts of his company in enacting just one phase of a romantic drama of the days of chivalry.
"I notice that they are meaning to use two machines and a couple or camera men, so as to get all the excitement down pat," ventured Alec, presently, as they stood and watched the hurrying people of the play in their remarkable attire suggestive of those feudal days of old.
"One is to be kept busy outside," explained Hugh, "while the other takes pictures of the fighting going on through the corridors and apartments of the castle, while the knight and his valorous retainers are battling their way closer and closer to the place where the captive 'maiden' is held fast behind the locked door. I got all that stuff straight from Mr. Jefferson, and those are his own words, so don't laugh."
"Huh! it's too serious a business to do much laughing," grunted Billy. "I'm just itching all over to see how it comes out. There, that must have been the signal to start. I can see some of the men beginning to make an awful smoke with the apparatus they're handling. What a good imitation of the real thing it is!"
"Whoopee! listen to the big swords clashing inside the castle, will you?" cried Monkey Stallings. "Say, we're missing great stunts, believe me, in having to stay out here. I've got half a notion——-"
However, Monkey did not finish the sentence, whatever rash notion was flitting through his active mind. Possibly he had indulged in a wild dream that for one of his climbing abilities it might prove feasible to reach a window above, and by thrusting his head through the aperture see something of the wonderful things going on in the passages where the crowd was thronging.
It was the fact of Hugh looking meaningly at him that caused Monkey to stop in the midst of his sentence, for he saw by the expression on the face of the scout master that Hugh would not permit any meddling. The enormous expense and labor attending the taking of that picture must not be wasted through any injudicious act on the part of himself or one of his chums.
As the minutes passed the confusion became almost a riot, so it seemed to Billy. The shouts of the fighting men grew hoarse with constant repetitions, for naturally they had to give vent to their emotions, or else much of their efforts would have lacked in the genuine feeling. How those swords did whack and beat upon each other as slowly but surely the defenders of the castle were being cut down one by one!
It was terribly realistic, too, with the vast volumes of smoke rising up in billows, and here and there what seemed to be a red tongue of fire shooting through the appalling waves of black vapor.
Presently, as the boys understood, matters would reach a climax. This was when the hero knight attained the goal for which he was striving so valiantly.
Then he would be seen attacking the fastened door furiously, while inside and out that ominous smoke curled in wreaths about him. In the end, just when it seemed as though all would be lost, of course, the knight must batter his way in through the broken door, and the dashing rescue would be complete.
Hugh was beginning to feel nervous, and with a reason. While his chums' were wholly wrapped up in observing the numerous exciting incidents that fell under their observation, and connected with the work of the laboring players, the scout master had made a sudden discovery that worried him.
It was a very small matter, and would never have been noticed by any one whose training had not been that of a scout, accustomed to observing everything happening around him. But small matters may become deciding factors.
The wind had shifted all of a sudden, and besides coming from a new quarter was rapidly growing in violence. Hugh knew this from the way the smoke had turned and was now sweeping toward the southeast. This fact, while trifling in itself, might, as he well knew, assume a terrible significance when it was remembered that a dozen industrious supers were playing with fire, and causing it to appear that the whole wing of the castle were enveloped in flames, real or make-believe.
Hugh had eyes for nothing else after making that thrilling discovery. He watched with his nerves on edge, and at the same time began to think within that active brain of his what his plan of campaign must be should the worst that he feared come to pass.
Those hoarse shouts of the combatants, the clang of steel smiting steel, the roar of the manager's voice through his big megaphone, the shrieks of the women connected with the troupe, induced by the real excitement of the occasion—-all these sounds fell upon deaf ears as Hugh gripped his chum Arthur by the arm and called his attention to the impending peril, becoming greater with every second.
"The wind, don't you see it's whipped around, and is coming from a new quarter?" was the tenor of what he called in the other's ear. "If that fire gets away from those supers it's going to give them a heap of trouble! Yes, it will chase those fighters out of the passages in a hurry, and I'm afraid it'll even cut off the poor girl who is supposed to be locked in that turret room."
"Hugh, look! look!" ejaculated Arthur, in sudden excitement; "Just as you said, I do believe the fire has got beyond their control already. Listen to the way everybody is whooping it up now. It's real fright that we hear, and no make-believe!"