Then the speed boat backed away, made a sweeping turn, and was soon heading up the Danube again. The boys waved their hats to the three gaily dressed Hungarian soldiers seated in the other craft, and were in turn saluted by the trio.
After that Jack again started the engine, and they began moving with the current at a lively rate.
“Well, that was a new experience, now!” exclaimed Josh; “and we are mighty lucky to have escaped being taken back to Budapest and shut up in a dungeon.”
“Yes, it was easy, after all,” grumbled George; “but who’d think Hungarian officers would know English so well?”
“And just to think of our being taken for a lot of desperate Serbian youths sworn to get the aged and benevolent Emperor Francis Joseph! Ugh! it’ll give me a shiver every time I think of it. I never dreamed before that I looked like a fellow who would take his life in his hand to do such a terrible thing.”
[CHAPTER V]
SIGNS OF COMING TROUBLE
All day long the powerboat kept constantly moving down the reaches of the Danube River. Many were the interesting sights the boys looked upon from time to time. Nor did they see any particular signs of overhanging trouble. War may have been declared by Austria-Hungary upon Serbia and Russia, backing up the action of her ally, Germany, but the indications of it were not immediately apparent.