Jack looked his dismay; but the colonel gave a sharp order. Two soldiers laid hold of the boy. He started to shake them off indignantly while his friends looked on aghast.
“I can explain all this,” he cried; “this man Radwig had trouble with me. He’s trying to get even. He——”
“Take him away,” came the cold order in unmoved tones. “You are responsible for him,” added the colonel to Jack’s two captors. “See that he is carefully guarded till the court martial.”
“The court martial!” cried Jack. “Why, I—I’m an American citizen and——”
“There is no more to be said,” and Jack, with an armed guard pressing a revolver to either side, was marched off without a chance to say more. As he went on, he could hear his friends protesting indignantly and then, they too, were taken in charge by the soldiers and escorted to the automobile. Then came a sharp order to them to drive back to Louvain on pain of death. There was nothing for them to do but to obey. The iron discipline of the German officers allowed no argument. And so, leaving Jack to his fate, they were compelled to drive off with heavy hearts.
“Don’t worry, we’ll get the American consul and get him out all right,” said Tom, as cheerfully as he could.
But Bill, with the thought of a court martial in his mind, sat in a miserable state all the way back to the town which they reached only after making a long detour, necessitated by the blown-up bridge.
His chum in the hands of the Germans, and subject to court martial, Bill had good cause to feel worried and oppressed as to the outcome when he realized the influence that Radwig, Jack’s enemy, appeared to possess. To what terrible lengths might not his desire for vengeance lead him?