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"Hurrah!" cried the moving picture boys, and their fears and weariness seemed to depart from them in a moment. "The great airship raid was a success," went on the Frenchman. "Our troops and yours have made a big advance, and have captured many prisoners. They would have had Labenstein, but he is beyond prisons now. Let us go hence! Even dead I can not endure his company.
Silently the boys stole forward until they could make out the dim figures more clearly. There was no doubt that they were those of Secor and Labenstein. And then, as the boys paused, fearing to get so close as to court discovery, they saw a little light flash. Three times up and down on the port side of the bows went a little flash of light, and then it suddenly went out.
"I find that mine is out of order for some reason," and he held out a small, but powerful, electric flash lamp, of the sort sold for the use of soldiers. "Have you, by any chance, one that you could spare me?" asked Mr. Labenstein.
"Go to it, old top!" exclaimed Macaroni, dropping into what he thought the latest English slang. "I'm going to turn in." The lanky helper of the moving picture boys had spent the hours of his watch with his eye close to a small hole that had been bored in the door of the boys' stateroom. The hole gave a view of the staterooms of Lieutenant Secor and Mr. Labenstein, which adjoined.
Then, as Blake watched, he saw the door open and the German come out. Labenstein looked around with furtive glances, and they rested for some little time on the door behind which Blake was watching. Then, as if satisfied that all was quiet, the man stole silently along, the corridor. "Something doing," thought Blake. "Something doing, all right. He has something in his hand probably my flashlight.
"I will allow you to keep your gas masks for the present," the German captain said, "as you may need them, as we ourselves may, before we get back to our lines." "Then we are going back with you?" asked Joe. "Of a certainty yes! Did you think I would leave you here to go back to your own? Indeed not! Now, then, ready march all of you!" and he nodded at Secor and Labenstein.
Immediately following the explosion, which seemed to come from the side of the Jeanne where Labenstein had flashed his signal, the German and the Frenchman had subsided into silence. Each one had given voice to an exclamation in his own tongue and then had hurried away.
The commander was greatly astonished when told what the boys had seen. He questioned them at length, and made sure there could have been no mistake. "And they gave a signal," mused the captain. "It hardly seems possible!" "It was Labenstein who actually flashed the light," said Blake. "Do you know anything about him, Captain Merceau?"
"Wait a bit!" advised Blake, and he smiled at his chum. "Do you know anything about these flashlights, Joe?" "A little yes. I know a powerful one, like that you gave Labenstein, can be seen a long way on a dark night." "Well, then maybe you know something else about them, or you may have forgotten it.
Labenstein, who had finished his talk with the German captain of the raiding squad, turned to the boys, and a tantalizing smile spread over his face as he said: "Ah, we meet again, I see!" "And you don't seem to have found much use for my flashlight," said Blake. "I hope it still works!" The German muttered an exclamation of anger, and turned aside to pick up the boxes of films.
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