“Let’s go down,” said one of the men, loosening his revolver.
“Please don’t try it!” begged Beany. “We could never get down without light and then they would have the drop on us. It’s no use now. Besides, they could go out of that outside door without the least trouble after they had shot us all up.”
“The kid is right,” said Lieutenant Reed. “He knows how the land lies down there. Come up to the General, boys, and make a report. He will tell us what he wants done.”
Sliding the panel shut, the Lieutenant called a guard and, leaving the hallway patrolled by a couple of stalwart Americans, the group surrounding the two boys entered the office and saluted the General.
General Pershing bent his serious, keen gaze on the boys, then a bright, sudden smile lighted the strong, handsome face that had grown sad and still in the troubled, anxious months at the front.
“Always up to something, boys,” he said. “Well, your friend the Colonel warned me how it would be. Now suppose you tell me all about it.”
Beany with a sigh of relief lifted his blouse and deposited it on the table. It struck the surface with a clank and as he pulled the cloth away a regular flood of gold pieces covered the papers where the General had been writing.
“Part of the story, sir,” said Beany. And then talking together, or taking turns, as the spirit moved them, the boys pieced out the account of their adventures. The part that Beany kept harking back to was the presence of the prisoners in the big room. He described carefully and accurately the appearance of the young soldier and told as well as he could about the limp, unconscious girl who had been carried out into the dark garden. Beany shuddered as he spoke.
“I am sure the girl was dead, sir. She laid there for hours, I guess, and she never moved at all, never batted an eyelash. And she was white.... I never saw anybody so white. It was as though all her blood had been drained out of her.”
“Was she wounded?” asked the General.