"What's that?" demanded Stubbs in a shrill voice.
"Frightened? Me frightened? I'll leave it to Hal there if I am frightened. Who was it found the way to get here and help you fellows, anyhow? Who was it, I ask you? I'll tell you who it was. It was me, Anthony Stubbs, war correspondent of the New York Gazette. Yes, sir, it was—Oh, let's go down. I'm so sick."
"Stubbs, you are all right," declared Hal, and added to the others: "What he says is perfectly true. Had it not been for him, we would not be here now. He conceived the plan that admitted us to the Austrian lines, and if it were light enough you would see that it was a good plan. I'll venture to say you would know neither one of us but for our voices," and he explained in detail.
"By George, Mr. Stubbs, I didn't think you had it in you!" exclaimed
Chester. He stretched forth a hand. "Shake!" he said.
"Oh, please let me alone," moaned Stubbs. "I'm terribly sick. How long before we can go down?"
"Not for some hours, I'm afraid," replied Hal. "If we were to descend now we would fall into the hands of the Austrians."
"I don't care whose hands we fall into," mumbled Stubbs, "if we could only fall, that's all I ask."
"He must be sick," declared Chester. "Funny it never affected me that way."
"No, it's not," declared Stubbs, suddenly taking an interest in things.
"Nothing would affect you like it does me. Nor any of the rest of you.
You are hardened to these things. I'm a man of peace, and sympathetic,
and kind. You are a lot of hard-hearted brutes."
The other three occupants of the machine smiled to themselves. Not for the world would they have laughed at the little man, for he was very close to them all. And at last Hal said: