for the best, he heard his
comrade whisper down to him as he hung suspended, clutching the sill of
the open window.

"After all, you'll have to come up too, Tom," he was saying feverishly.
"There are complications that'll need your judgment, knots to untangle
that are beyond me."

CHAPTER XXI

IN THE OLD LORRAINE CHATEAU

What Jack said in his cautious fashion puzzled Tom. For the life of him
he could not understand what had arisen, calling for any unusual display
of generalship. Surely Jack should have been equal to the task of
getting Bessie down from the window, even if he had to make use of
knotted bed-clothes in lieu of a rope.

Still he had asked Tom to come up, and there was nothing to do but grant
his request. "Complications," Jack said, had arisen. That was a
suggestive word, and to Tom's mind seemed to hint at further mystery.

Accordingly he proceeded to imitate the example of his comrade. Jack had
shown the way, and all his chum had to do was to follow. As Tom was also
an all-around athlete, accustomed to much climbing from small boyhood,
after nuts and birds' nests and all such things as take lads into tall
trees, he found but little trouble in making the ascent.

When he drew himself alongside Jack, the other gave a sigh of relief.

"Whee! I'm glad you've come, I tell you, Tom," he said. "It was getting
too big a job for me to tackle."

"What's happened, Jack?" asked the late arrival on the stone ledge under
the window of the upper room.

"First, here's Bessie, Tom," Jack went on. "She wants to shake hands
with you. Since we parted, when the steamer was docked, the poor girl
has been having all sorts of trouble; and she's glad as can be to see us
both again; aren't you, Bessie?"

Tom, feeling a small, trembling hand groping for his, immediately
grasped it, and gave a squeeze that must have carried conviction to the
heart of the girl.

"Oh, I'm shivering like everything!" she murmured, adding quickly: "But
not with fear. It's because my prayers have been answered, and help has
come at last, when everything looked so awfully dark--and I'm so very,
very hungry."

"Hungry!" repeated Tom, starting, it seemed such a very strange word for
the girl to use, even though they were in Germany, where all food he
knew must be getting exceedingly scarce.

"Yes, what do you think, that rotten bounder of a spy is half starving
the poor girl! He ought to be tarred and feathered, that's what!"
gro