His last remark appealed to old Otto.
“That is so,” he muttered. “It is not safe. We must hide the bodies,
both of them, yes?”
The bodies! Jane decided that Dean must have been killed and that they
thought that she, too, was dead. As she strove to open her eyes she
could hear Frederic protesting.
“It’s inhuman,” he cried. “They both are hurt, but perhaps still alive.
We must take them to a hospital.”
“And endanger all our plans,” stormed old Otto. “Throw them into the
woods.”
“We’ll do nothing of the sort,” Frederic insisted, his voice becoming
unusually stern and severe. “I’m going to get both of these people to a
doctor at once, I tell you.”
With effort Jane opened her eyes and looked cautiously about. Where was
Thomas Dean? How badly had he been hurt? The Hoffs’ automobile was
slowly backing up. As she looked old Otto sprang out of it and righted
the motorcycle. As he did so Jane saw the body of Dean lying senseless
beneath it, but to him the old German paid no attention. He was
examining the motorcycle and still sputtering that the swine should be
left to rot.
“We are going to take them with us in the car,” directed Frederic in a
voice of authority. “I command it.”
At the word old Otto’s mutterings ceased, though he shot a black look
at the younger man.
“This machine,” he suggested, “it is not hurt. I will take it and do
our work. There is haste. You remain with the car. Do what you will
with these people.”
“Go then,” said his nephew curtly. “You can take the train at the first
station and make time.”
As the old man mounted the motorcycle and sped away Frederic sprang
from the car, and approaching the spot where Dean’s body lay, began
making an examination of his injuries.
“Scalp wound, perhaps fractured skull, broken arm,” Jane heard him
saying aloud to himself. She noted curiously that as soon as he was
left to himself he began speaking in English.
He left Dean and approached her. As he came nearer she closed her eyes
again, trying to plan some course of action. Her head was throbbing so
that she found it impossible to think. She felt toward young Hoff a
warmth of gratitude for not having gone off and left them helpless as
his uncle had insisted. Even though he was an enemy of her country, a
man to be hated, a spy, she could not help being glad for his presence
there. What would she have done without him, with Dean lying there
injured and helpless on this lonely mountain road?
“This chap seems only stunned,” she heard him say as he bent over her,
then as he looked closer, she heard him exclaim:
“My God, it’s Jane!”
In an instant he was down at her side on his knees. Tenderly one of his
arms went about her and lifted her head.
“Miss Strong, Jane, Jane,” he implored, “Jane dear, speak to me.”
Illustration: “Thank God,” he cried. “Jane dear, tell me you are not
hurt.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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