Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz Part 33

"Be careful what you say, Darrin," cautioned Lieutenant Trent.

"In effect, you are accusing an officer of the United States Navy of treason!"

"That is the very crime of which I suspect him, sir," Dave answered, bluntly.

"Are you sure that your personal animosity has no part in that suspicion?"

"No dislike for a brother officer could induce me to charge him falsely," Dave answered simply.

"I beg your pardon, Darrin!" exclaimed Trent in sincere regret.

"I shouldn't have asked you that."

"Here is the door, sir," Dave reported, in a whisper, halting and pointing.

"I heard some one talking in there in low tones," reported Riley.

"I couldn't make it out, for he was talking in Spanish."

"I suspect that the voices were those of Lieutenant Cantor and Cosetta," Dave whispered.

"If they don't get away, we'll soon know," Trent whispered. "Stone and Root, I want you two to head the party that rushes the door.

As soon as you get inside don't stop for anything else, but rush to the rear windows and shoot any one who attempts to escape by the rear fence. Now, men, rush that door!"

So hard and sudden was the a.s.sault that the door gave way at the first rush.

Revolver in hand, Dave Darrin was directly behind the two seamen who had been ordered to rush to the rear windows.

Just as the door yielded to the a.s.sault an excited voice in Spanish exclaimed:

"This way---quick!"

The two sailors, who had been ordered to do nothing else except guard the rear windows, saw a figure vanish through the cellar doorway. Leaving that individual to others, Stone and Boot dashed into a rear room, throwing up the window.

In the darkness a second man also rushed for the cellar doorway.

But Dave Darrin's extended right hand closed on that party's collar.

"You're my prisoner," Dave hissed, throwing his man backward to the floor.

As several men rushed past them one sailor halted, throwing on the rays of a pocket electric light.

"You, Cantor, and here?" exclaimed Lieutenant Trent, aghast, as he recognized the features of his brother officer. "In mercy's name-----"

"Let me up," broke in Cantor, angrily, and Dave released him.

"Ensign Darrin, I order you in arrest for attacking your superior officer."

"You won't observe that arrest, Darrin," spoke Trent, coldly.

"I'll be responsible for my order to that effect. Now, then, Cantor, what explanation have you to offer for being in the house of Cosetta, the bandit?"

"I'll give no explanation here," blazed Cantor, angrily, as now on his feet, he glared at Trent and Darrin---Dalzell was not there, for just at this instant the bolted cellar door, under his orders, was battered down, and Dan, with several sailormen at his back, darted down the stairs, by the light of a pocket lamp.

The cellar was deserted. There was no sign of the means by which the fugitive had escaped.

"Trent," said Cantor, with an effort at sternness, "you will not question me, here or now."

"I'll question you as much as I see fit, sir," Lieutenant Trent retorted, crisply. "Lieutenant Cantor, you are caught here under strange circ.u.mstances. You will explain, and satisfactorily, or-----"

"Lieutenant Trent," retorted the other, savagely, "while you and I are officers of the same rating, my commission is older than yours, and I am ranking officer here. I direct you to withdraw your men and to leave this house."

"And I tell you," retorted Lieutenant Trent, "that I am on duty here. You have not said that you are here on duty. Therefore I shall not recognize your authority."

"Trent," broke in the other savagely, "if you-----"

"I do," Lieutenant Trent retorted, stiffly. "Just that, in fact.

In other words, sir, I place you in arrest! c.o.xswain Riley, I shall hold you responsible for this prisoner. Take two other men, if you wish, to help you guard him. If Lieutenant Cantor escapes, or attempts to escape, then you have my order to shoot him, if necessary."

"Darrin," snarled Cantor, "this is all your doing!"

"Some of it, sir," Dave admitted, cheerfully. "I heard you and another man talking in here, and I sent for Lieutenant Trent.

As it happens, I know this to be the home, or the hanging-out place of Cosetta, and as I heard you talking just inside the door, I reported that fact to Lieutenant Trent."

"You will find nothing in this house, and I have not been, intentionally, in the house of a bandit, or in the house of any other questionable character," snarled Cantor, turning his back on Darrin. "And you are making a serious mistake in placing me in arrest."

"If your companion had been a proper one he would not have run away when American forces burst in here," Lieutenant Trent returned.

"Both on Ensign Darrin's report, and on my own observation and suspicion, I will take the responsibility of placing you in arrest.

I shall report your arrest to the commanding officer on sh.o.r.e, and will be guided by his instructions. You will have opportunity to state your case to him."

"And he will order my instant release as soon as he hears why I am on sh.o.r.e. Trent, you have made a serious mistake, and you are continuing to make it by keeping me in arrest."

"Sorry, Cantor; sorry, indeed, if I am doing you an injustice,"

Lieutenant Trent answered, with more feeling. "Yet under the circ.u.mstances, I cannot read my duty in any other way."

"You'll be sorry," cried Cantor, angrily.

"I don't know what to make of this, sir," Danny Grin reported, a much puzzled look showing on his face. "That cellar door was shut and bolted in our faces. We smashed the door instantly, and rushed down the stairs. When we reached the cellar we found it empty; whoever the man was he escaped in some way that is a mystery to me."

"Have you thought of the probability of a secret pa.s.sage from the cellar?" inquired Trent.

"Yes, sir, and we've sounded the walls, but without any result."

"I'll go below with you," offered Trent. "Ensign Darrin, bear in mind that we are in danger of being surprised here, and would then find ourselves in something of a trap. Take ten men and go into the street, keeping close watch."

Twenty minutes later Trent came out, followed by his command, with whom marched the fuming Cantor, a prisoner.

"Darrin, there must be a secret pa.s.sage from the cellar," Trent told his subordinate, "but we have been unable to find it. We are bringing with us the body of the sniper that Riley shot on the roof."

Line was formed and the detachment started back, Danny Grin and two sailormen acting as a rear guard against possible attack.

Arrived at the post-office Trent, accompanied by Cantor and the latter's guards, hurried off in search of the commanding officer of the sh.o.r.e force.

Fifteen minutes later Lieutenant Trent returned.