The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw

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As she stood watching the entrance of the group at the door, scowling
and peering through the gloom, she looked to Ivan's eyes like one of
the furies of the French Revolution. All the history he had read of
that dreadful period was made clear and real to him. Ivan, closely
watched, and closely guarded from harm, had up to the time of the
bombardment of Warsaw, never come in contact with anyone out of his own
noble class with the exception of the Morris family. His father,
knowing the educational standing of Professor Morris in America, and
judging the whole family by his mild, inoffensive manner, had decided
to allow Ivan, his son, to learn English from The Professor. It had
not occurred to him, a man of many affairs, to suspect the presence of
an ingenious lively, mischievous whirlwind in the person of the
Professor's elder son.

When Ivan told his father with enthusiasm of the Professor's family,
the Prince imagined them of course to be exactly like the Professor,
and rejoiced that Ivan could be among such studious and book loving,
quiet people. So he told Ivan that he might spend what time he liked
with the Morris family, and then forgot the whole thing in the fearful
question of War which soon arose. When he left for the Russian front
he left orders that in case of any peril or disaster Ivan was to go to
the Morris house and there remain for greater safety.

Before the happenings of the last chapter, however, Ivan had been
almost constantly with Warren for a year, and had so imbibed his
democratic ideas and had studied so hard to make good as a Scout that
Prince Ivan the Magnificent, had he returned, would have had difficulty
in recognizing his only and dearly loved son.

But as a matter of fact, Ivan the Magnificent did not return. Instead,
blood stained, mud stained and distorted, he slept in a far away trench
past which had swept the invaders' line, grim and terrible.

He had fought well and desperately for the honor of Poland until at
last, under a leaden rain, Ivan the Prince had gone to meet the fate of
Ivan the Man. And not one word of this did Ivan the boy suspect.

It had never seemed that harm could touch his wonderful father. He
must be safe; and Ivan moved through his many adventurous days with
only the thought that he would have so much more to tell his father on
one of the rare and precious evenings when Prince Ivan's duties at
court and with his regiment would allow him to spend a few happy hours
with his son.

So it was with a keen and appraising eye that Ivan viewed that dark and
dungeon- like interior, thinking to tell his father all about it.

The woman beside the table scowled darkly as she saw the group.

"What now?" she demanded. "Are those the spies? They are nothing but
boys! Why do you bother with them, Michael Paovla, why did you bring
them here? Crack them on the head! The river runs swift enough down
the street there."

She brandished her knife as she spoke.

"I will not give them one single meal, do, you hear that?"

"Peace, Martha! Do not jest," said the large man with a wry smile.

He looked at Ivan as he spoke.

"Who are you?" he asked. Clothed as the boy was in mean and soiled
garments, there was still something distinguished about him.

He stood proudly erect. Perhaps his name would help out.

"Ivan Ivanovich, of the House of Sabriski," he said, looking the man in
the face.

The three shouted with laughter. "Isn't he clever?" cried the woman.
"Ask him something else!"

"No," said the man. "I want to think that over. Come, it is cold
here!"

He picked Warren up from the floor where he had thrown him, and,
carrying him down the long room, made his way around the great table
and dropped him roughly on the pile of rags where, Elinor and Rika
were crouched.

Poor little Elinor, huddled on her pile of rags, did not recognize the
limp burden carried in by the larger of the two men, whom she had
learned to dread with unspeakable terror. When he threw it down in the
middle of the room, the pale face was turned toward the child, and she
recognized, Warren. She commenced to scream. Shriek after shriek left
her pale lips, and the man started over to her side, when a short,
sharp word silenced her. She looked to see who had spoken, calling her
so familiarly by name.

"Stop, Elly, stop," said the voice in English, and her cries were
stilled as by magic, although she still gazed with longing and terror
at the pale face down which a tiny line of blood trickled.

The second man clasped a second boy, dirty and torn, and meanly dressed
in a workman's blouse. She stared at him, never recognizing Ivan, whom
she bad always seen so gorgeously clothed in furs and fine broadcloth
and exquisite linen. It was not until he spoke again that she
recognized him.

"Be quiet, Elinor," he said. "We will save you. Warren is not hurt,
he is just dizzy. He will be all right soon."

Ivan spoke hopefully, but as he looked down at the boy lying before
him, he wondered in his heart if there was really a spark of life left
in that still, pale, bleeding body. As for Elinor, after the first
outburst, she sat dumbly trembling.

The past day and night bad been so crowded with horrors that the tender
children were fast passing into a state where they neither realized nor
felt the hardships and abuse they were subjected to.

The time when they sat playing in Professor Morris's quiet house seemed
too far away to remember.

They bad been playing happily, the two children, when the family
decided to go away for a few hours, but so happily were they with their
dolls and each other, that they paid no attention to the stir and
unrest about them. Even Elinor, who was almost six years old, had not
concerned herself with the sound of the big guns.

She did not notice when her father left the room. If he told her, as
he thought be had, to "sit quietly" and await his return, she failed to
hear him. So she took Rika by the hand and. "went, visiting." They
sat down on the top step, and looked into the empty street, and watched
occasional groups of fleeing Poles hurry past to the safety of the
plains. A rough looking woman came past, noticed them, and returned,
looking as she did so at the house, and peering into the hall through
the open door.

Then she approached the children and in a, voice she tried in vain to
make soft, she asked what they were doing, and who they were.

Little Rika, who could say but few words, sat and stared at her with a
frown.

Elinor answered politely. The woman studied them carefully. Elinor
was a child whose beauty was always remarked wherever she went, and the
little Rika was equally lovely. They had been used to kindness and
attention from everyone, so when the woman took out a queer little box,
and offered them each a funny little black candy, they accepted them
quite as a matter of course. Then she drew back, and the children
turned to their dolls again. But only for a moment. Then the head of
golden curls and the long, black ringlets drooped and the drugged
children were asleep. The woman shook two big sacks out from beneath
her dress, and as coolly and as cruelly as though she was filling them
with straw, she shoved a child in either bag, crossed to the curb with
her heavy burden, and sat down to wait.

When her two accomplices joined her, they went rapidly to the hovel
where Warren had tracked them hater, and releasing the half smothered
and unconscious children, they laid them down on a pile of rags, and
sat looking at them, while they ate their evening portion of black
bread and cold fish.

There was a great discussion. The larger man, Michael, was in favor of
offering the children for a ransom. The others would not consider it
at all.

"Remember," said Martha, the woman, "there is much danger in collecting
such fees. Rather will I prepare these little ladies for the trade of
beggars. So beautiful are they that I can go through every capital in
Europe, if so Europe still stands."

"Have it your own way," said the smaller man, Patro by name.

"I always do," she said simply. Then she studied the sleeping forms
again.

"I think it will be well, some time soon, to twist the legs of the
small one," she said. "She would make a sweet cripple."

" No!" said Michael. "You may not do so. I will not have it."

The woman laughed. "Said I not that I have my own way?" she asked.

"All right, Martha, you do," said Patro, "but believe me, it is better
to take the greatest care of those little ones. Think what dancers
they may make some day. There is a fortune in those little feet, I'll
be bound. Be careful of them, watch them, and perhaps some day they
may be prancing on the opera stage at St. Petersburg, or even here in
Warsaw."

The woman sat thinking for a little. "Perhaps you are right," she
said. "People are dance-mad these times. They are pretty enough to
climb to any heights."

Patro laughed.

"Why laugh?" said Martha angrily.

"Nothing, nothing, dear Martha, only that it is funny to think you are
taking these children down from the heights where they belong so that
they may climb back for your pleasure."

The woman's brow grew black. She reached out a heavy foot, and pushed
Elinor away from her.

"Not for thy pleasure," she said sneeringly.

"No, Patro, no! They are to pay me over and over for my life. Drop
for drop, pain for pain, I will take from them all I have myself
suffered. They shall sleep cold, because so I slept all my childhood.
They shall hunger because I did so. They shall beg in the streets
while I listen. Ah!" she shook her fists above her head, "I have hated
all the world, and now these shall pay me!"

Patro shrugged his shoulders. "As you will," he said. "They are
coming to life again, however. I would advise you to feed them enough
to keep beauty in their faces and grace in their limbs, if you indeed
wish to use them for food and light and fire."

"That is sound sense, Patro," she answered, and when the children came
dizzily to consciousness again, she treated them with almost a rough
kindness. But when they cried, she beat them, taking pains to let the
blows fall where they would not leave visible scars or bruises.

So passed the dragging hours, until Warren, unconscious and bleeding,
was flung down at Elinor's side.

"There!" said Michael. "You will spy, will you? Well, we have you
now. And when next you walk the streets, if so you do, you will have
cause to remember Michael Paovla and his friends."

Patro frowned. "You are too handy with names," he said. "Trust only a
dead dog."

"Leave that to me," said Michael with a dark frown. "You," he said to
Ivan, "you see this gun? We'll not bind you, but if you stir toward
the door, or make a move to free yourself, you are lost. I will shoot
you down."

"We only want the children," said Ivan boldly. "Give them to us, and
we will go away, and you will not be harmed."

The three set up a shout of laughter. "Thanks, thanks!" said Michael
when he could speak, but Martha said angrily, "What! Give up my fire
and light and food? Not much!"

"Suppose I pay you," said Ivan, "I will reward you well."

Again a shout went up.

"A million thanks," said the woman. "What will you give -- a dozen
dried fishes?"

"You don't know me," scowled Ivan proudly. "I am the son of your
Prince, Ivan the Brilliant. Beware how you treat me and these friends
of mine."

"The boy will kill me!" cried the woman, leaning back and wiping the
tears of mirth from her leathery cheeks. "Go on, go on, my prince.
And will you not ask us to the palace some day soon? We would like to
see you at your own home."

'Give us the children and set us free, and you may come," said Ivan
after a pause.

"No; you are too amusing," said the woman. "Rather we will take you
with us, or else leave you safely locked here where no one shall
disturb you."

Ivan looked at the worn and haggard children and the form of Warren now
stirring slightly, then he handed the great ruby to Michael.

"Take, this and let us go," he pleaded.

The man looked wonderingly at the flashing stone. "So you too help
yourself in these war times?" he said sneeringly. "What else do you
carry, little rat?"

He ran a practiced, light fingered hand over Ivan, searching for more
jewels, but of course found none.

Night seemed to come all at once in the dark and partly underground
room. Warren, untended, came slowly back to consciousness, and lay
where he had fallen in a sort of doze. Little Elinor crept to him and,
laying her head on his shoulder, went to sleep. Presently Martha began
to yawn, and the men nodded where they sprawled on the benches. The
woman drew out an armful of rags, and prepared for the night by
wrapping another shawl around her shoulders.

The men rose after a whispered consultation, and taking Ivan to the
furthest and darkest corner, tied him securely to a ring in the wall.
His bonds were loose enough to permit him to lie down on the hard earth
and stone floor, but he sat with his back against the wall, wide awake,
every nerve tense and quivering.

Twice Michael came and looked at him in the light of a torch from the
fire, and retreated muttering. Ivan decided to pretend sleep. The
third time Michael gave a grunt of satisfaction.

He went back to the fire and beckoned the others from their pallets.

"He is dead asleep," he said in a low whisper. "We must make our
plans."

"Good!" said the woman. "What do you want to do about it?"

She too whispered in a low tone and it struck Ivan that for some
strange reason he was listening to a conversation spoken in tones that
ordinarily could not be heard three feet away from the speakers. He
listened intently. Every syllable was clear and distinct. Owing to
some peculiar formation of the vaulted ceiling, the sounds were brought
to him, forty feet from the speakers, as accurately as though spoken
into a telephone. Ivan's courage rose once more.

He heard the man Michael light his pipe.

"I don't know," he said.

"Of course not!" sneered the woman. "You never do! I suppose you
don't want to kill them?"

"What's the use?" asked the man. "Why blacken our souls further than
we must?"

"I'll tell you why," said Martha suddenly. Her whisper cut like a
knife. "I'll tell you. Because I fear them. Boys as they are, I fear
them! There is a spirit in the eyes of the one who calls himself Ivan
that will never die until death blinds them. The little rat! The
smart little rat! Calling himself a prince! My, I wish I had had the
training of him. Well, whoever he is, he is a Pole, and he will hurt
us yet. I feel it. I can feel it, anyway, that harm will come to us
through those boys. I warn you, Michael. Patro, I warn you.

Once, twice, thrice! You know I never fail."

There was a silence, and Ivan heard Patro catch his breath sharply.

"Well, what would you?" he said finally.

There was a note of triumph in the woman's voice when she spoke.

"Tomorrow night," she said, "we will leave them here, tied to the
table. I will leave food on the table for them, just enough for one
meal. I have still my little friends in the pill box on the chimney
ledge. They are as strong as ever. We will not stay to see whether
they eat or not. But I think they will, because I will see to it that
they do not taste much food tomorrow. We will lock the door. I will
go down to Prague. They say it is but little harmed, and I have a
sister there. I will give the smaller child to her. I have a fancy
for the light one myself, and they are too unlike to pass off for
sisters."

There was a long pause. Then, "Have it as you like," said Michael.
"Of course, the boys will bother a good deal, if they go free."

"Certainly they would," said Martha. "We would never know where they
would crop up, especially that Ivan one."

"Suppose they do not eat?" asked Patro.

"Eat, eat!" cried Martha. "Well, know you nothing of boys! And they
will suspect nothing. You are brutes, brutes, remember, and I so kind
and so sorry," she laughed. "They will believe all I say," she added.

Michael nodded. "Then it is settled," he said.

In the United States, every possible precaution is taken to protect
children from harm. Laws are made especially for their safety;
societies exist in every town and city to look after them. They go
unharmed through the streets. Noble men and women give their lives to
visiting the poorest districts and making easier the lot of the
unfortunate ones they find there. Special cases are frequently written
up in the papers, and help found for them in that way. In factories,
shops, stores, asylums, in the streets, in the slums, every possible,
effort is made to make the lot of children an easier and happier one.

In a great number of the European countries, the case is different.
There are no laws, for instance, governing the age at which a child
shall be put to work. In fact, in order to keep body and soul
together, children labor from the time they are babies. They do the
work of farm animals when their little hands can scarcely grasp the
implements of toil. There are many, oh, so many of them; and they are
held cheaply. Poorly clothed, poorly fed, they take kindly to theft,
as a means of getting the necessities of their bare, miserable little
lives.

Once upon a time, there was a dark and dreadful age when making
cripples and dwarfs was a regular trade. Children were taken (nearly
always stolen ones) and their limbs twisted, or their faces distorted,
in order to gain sympathy from the passersby, of whom they were taught
to beg. That frightful time is long past; but the trades of begging
and thieving are still taught.

And to criminals like those in whose hands the children had fallen,
life, and child life especially, was too cheap and of too little
account to matter much. They did not in the least mind the
contemplation of a crime as horrible as the one they had just decided
on. They were afraid of the bright, alert Scouts who had fallen into
their clutches, and to them there was but one way to treat the matter
-- the shackles and the poisoned food.

CHAPTER VI

TO THE RESCUE

After this there was silence. The men slept with snores and grunts an
they moved uneasily on their hard beds, and Ivan slept only at
intervals. He was anxious to know whether the conversation had been
heard by Warren, but did not dare to communicate with him in any way,
although he could hear an occasional sigh as though his friend was
suffering pain. Warren was indeed feeling badly from the blow that had
nearly broken his skull. Fortunately the weapon, a piece of iron shod
wood, had glanced and so saved his life. But his head ached worse than
he had thought a head could ache; and when he finally came out of the,
daze of the blow, he slept only in a sort of stupor. He had not heard
the conversation that had been listened to so eagerly by Ivan, and so
was at least saved that anxiety.

Day came, and to Ivan, who was prepared, there were signs of
departure. Warren, who still lay silent on his pallet of rags, did not
seem to see anything. He did not eat, but accepted a cup of' water
from the woman's hand.

Elinor clung to him, and the woman did not object.

Ivan was afraid to speak to any of them. The day dragged away, and
finally (it seemed years) the room grew so dark that Ivan knew that
night must be approaching. Soon he would know their fate. It was
uncertain, because he knew that at any time in the day they might have
decided not to leave their death to the poisoned food, but to shoot
them to death before leaving the place.

However, Martha commenced the preparation of the meal that was meant
for supper, and Ivan noticed that she had made more than usual.

A crust of dry bread and a cup of water was given to Warren, and the
same fare thrown on the floor beside Ivan, who did not eat it and
watched anxiously to see if Warren would taste his. But the boy shook
his head.

"Never mind," said the woman, slyly looking over to the door where the
men were bundling some ragged garments in a big square of cloth.

"Never mind. I am sorry for you, my poor boy. Soon those brutes will
take us away, but I will leave one good meal for you. I promise you
that if they beat me for it you shall be decently fed for once. And I
am a good cook; you shall see!"

Ivan shivered. Then as the woman turned to the fire and rattled the
pans, he said sharply in English:

"Warren, do not eat!"

The three turned threateningly as he spoke, but as he made no effort to
continue the speech in what was to them an unknown tongue, they once
more went about their tasks. As they became interested in the tasks
they were doing, Ivan spoke again.

"Warren?" he said.

Warren heard. "Yes!"

"Don't try to keep the girls if they start to take them," he said as
rapidly as he could talk.

"There they go again!" said the woman "What are they up to, do you
think?"

Michael went over to Warren.

"Do you want your head broken again?" he scowled. "You will get it.
And you, too!" He turned to Ivan, and shouted threateningly across the
room. "It will be your turn if I hear you speak again."

Ivan, who had said all he wanted to, nodded and was silent.

Soon Michael and Patro picked Ivan up and carried him to the massive
bench that stood at one side of the table, and seating him there, tied
his legs in a clever fashion so that he was unable to reach the bonds,
he was so wedged between the bench and table. The place must once have
been a public wine room, and what furniture there was of the heaviest
sort.

Warren they lifted and tied in the same manner on the opposite side of
the great table.

"There!" said the woman Martha. "Now you can see each other, and talk
as long as you like." She looked at the men and laughed.

"Where are you going?" said Ivan in Polish.

"Well," said the woman, "I don't mind telling you in the least."

"Don't do it!" warned Patro.

"Why not? They are safe," said the woman.

"Won't your bonds hold as long as necessary? You see," she said,
turning to Warren, "it will be a day or two perhaps before your friends
find you. And even then I don't believe you will tell my plans. It
will be too late. We are going to tame these nice little girls, and
make beggars of them. Something useful, you see, instead of letting
them grow up in idleness as they would if they stayed with you. We
will go to Prague from here and I will give the little one to my
sister. Then we will get out of this accursed country soon as we can,
and get away where money comes easy to the poor war refugees. What do
you think of that?" She leered close to the boy's face.

Everything was ready. The food, poisoned as Ivan knew it to be, stood
temptingly between them, on the table. It was not an unpleasing meal.
To Warren, who had not tasted solid food for two days, everything
looked inviting. Ivan felt himself shaking with excitement. All was
ready. The men unbarred the door, and the woman with a last sneering
jest at the boys, picked up little Rika, while Michael lifted Elinor.
The child screamed.

"Warren, don't let them take me away! Don't let them take me!" she
cried over and over.

"Be a good girl! We will come for you very soon," said Ivan swiftly,
as she paused for breath.

The child screamed again, and Michael wound a thick muffler across her
face.

The heavy door closed with a clash. The boys heard a faint cry, and
then the great key turned in the lock. They looked at each other.

"What does it all mean?" said Warren. He struggled furiously to
release his feet, but gave up to sit staring at Ivan. "What does it
all mean?"

"Well, for one thing, " said Ivan, "that food is poisoned." He
proceeded to recount to Warren, the strange circumstance of the
whispered conversation which he had so clearly overheard.

"It has saved our lives," said Warren solemnly. "I am starved and
would have eaten this stuff sure as nails . Gee, what an escape! Let
us work out of these ropes and get out of here. Perhaps, we can get
those cutthroats before they got away from the city."

For some moments the boys both wiggled and twisted to free themselves.
It was in vain. So closely were they wedged between the benches and
table, and so cleverly were their feet tied with rope and pieces of
board to wedge them, that it was absolutely an impossibility to release
themselves. All through the night they sat there, at intervals
renewing their efforts to get free, and with despair growing in their
hearts. They began to realize the seriousness of the situation. When
Warren's watch told them that morning had come, they found themselves
looking wistfully at the food. Its scent was in their famished
nostrils. Warren drew a piece of fish toward him.

"I wonder if it is all poisoned," he said.

With a cry Ivan reached out and swept the food from the table.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I found myself wondering the same thing. If
we die, we die -- but not that way, my Warren. We will be free yet.
Ivanovich does not die today."

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