The Dispatch-Riders: The Adventures of Two British Motor-cyclists in the Great WarWesterman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
General
The Dispatch-Riders: The Adventures of Two British Motor-cyclists in the Great War
Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
Adventure stories; Motorcycles -- Juvenile fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile fiction
Kenneth entered the tobacconist's first. As he did so he momentarily
forgot that he carried his rifle across his back. In passing through
the narrow doorway the muzzle of the weapon struck the plate-glass
window of the porch and cracked it.
Alarmed by the crash the shopkeeper rushed out, but before Kenneth
could offer any apologies the man gave a howl of terror.
"Mercy, monsieur Englishman!" he exclaimed. "Indeed I could not help
it. Von Koenik compelled me to disclose your name."
Kenneth, ever quick-witted, grasped the situation instantly. The
tobacconist was none other than the spy who, under the name of Jules de
la Paix, kept a similar establishment at Brussels. There his dirty
work had been completed; at Antwerp it was just beginning.
The fellow had also recognized Kenneth as the Englishman he had basely
denounced to his paymasters, the Germans. Seeing him in uniform and
armed, with a fully-accoutred companion, the spy jumped at the hasty
and erroneous conclusion that Kenneth had discovered his duplicity and
had come to arrest him.
His panic at seeing the man whom he supposed to be dead amounted to a
superstitious terror. Hardly knowing what he said, he let fall the
damning admission that he was at least partly responsible for Kenneth's
arrest at Brussels.
"You are my prisoner!" exclaimed Kenneth sternly.
Momentarily recovering his courage, the fellow drew back. His hand
flew to his pocket, but before he could produce a concealed weapon the
British lad grasped him by both arms.
Meanwhile Rollo, guessing by the crash of the broken glass that
something was amiss, had sauntered leisurely into the shop, fully
expecting to hear his chum apologizing profusely to the tobacconist for
his clumsiness. To his surprise, he found Kenneth and the shopkeeper
swaying to and fro in a desperate struggle. Chairs had been
overturned, cases of pipes and packets of tobacco were being thrown in
all directions.
In spite of being encumbered with his rifle and kit, Kenneth succeeded
in throwing the spy to the floor and kneeling on his chest.
[Illustration: KENNETH SUCCEEDED IN THROWING THE SPY TO THE FLOOR]
"Get a strap, a rope, or something, old man," he exclaimed
breathlessly. "We've collared a spy."
Rollo obeyed. It was one of those rare instances when he acted on the
spur of his chum's orders and argued the situation afterwards. He
could not understand how Kenneth had effected the capture without any
previous warning. To him, a lad brought up in a country where law and
order moves with slow and majestic deliberation, it looked like a case
of illegal arrest. Nevertheless he found a length of packing-cord, and
deftly secured the arms of the now exhausted spy, tying them at the
wrists behind his back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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