Chapter 8 AS IN THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY

"W-what's it all mean, Hugh?" Billy was gasping, as he stood there with quaking knees, and just stared and stared.

Indeed, for the moment Hugh could not have answered him, he was himself so busily engaged in looking. There was good and sufficient reason for the eyes of every one being glued on the remarkable sight taking place before them, for surely such an amazing spectacle had never before been witnessed in America, nor indeed for some hundreds of years even in the old country.

The castle was no longer given over to the owls and bats and rats. It now seemed to be fairly swarming with moving figures, and such figures! Hugh blinked, and took a second look before he could actually believe his eyes.

Why, there were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century, on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances, and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements for casting missiles; some of them were climbing short scaling ladders only to be rudely hurled down again by some of the valiant defenders who manned the top of the walls.

The drawbridge had been raised, and the portcullis protected the door, but the gallant assailants had apparently thrown a bridge hastily constructed across the moat, and they were certainly as busy as a hive of bees that had struck a mine of sugar.

It was a wonderful scene, and the five scouts could hardly be blamed for thinking they must be dreaming, everything was so unreal, so like a page torn from history in the times of the Crusaders.

Perhaps one or more of them began to believe that a host of spirits belonging to ancient worthies, long since dead, while passing by had recognized in the make-believe castle such a wonderful copy of something they had known in life that they were tempted to stop and play their parts again with all this gusto and confusion.

If this were the case, however, Hugh quickly disillusioned the rest of the group. His quick eye had found an explanation for all this remarkable happening.

"Well, I declare, who would ever have believed it?" they heard him saying, for again the riot was beginning to die out, men were brushing themselves off, while a few others, less fortunate than their companions, were being pulled out of the moat surrounding the castle, which evidently held some water, for they appeared to be dripping wet, though taking it all in good part.

"What have you guessed, Hugh?" demanded Arthur, knowing from the manner of the scout master that he had apparently solved the mystery.

Hugh was laughing now. The strained look had passed from his young face. It seemed to him like a jump from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"If you fellows will look over to one side to where that man was turning the handle of some sort of box just as if he might be an organ grinder, you'll guess what it all means," Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke.

Cries of wonder and comprehension immediately arose from Alec and Arthur, though even then Billy and Stallings did not seem to fully grasp the facts.

"Motion-picture actors at work!" exclaimed Alec.

"Oh! did you ever hear of such a thing?" gurgled Billy, at the same time beginning to lose the haunted look on his face.

"Sure thing!" added Arthur, grinning now. "That chap is the camera man--what is it they call it, a cinematoscope or something that way. He's been grinding like mad while all that battle on the walls was taking place. And I can see him laughing from here, as if that last scrap pleased him a whole lot."

"Well, if that don't beat everything!" said Monkey Stallings, in mingled awe and delight. "To think of a company finding out about that queer old imitation castle, and coming all the way up here so as to stage one of their Shakespeare plays around it!"

"And look at all the actors they've gone and fetched along with them, will you?" Billy went on to say. "Why, there must be scores of men and women there, all dressed in fancy costumes. Gee! it must cost rafts of money to stage just one of those dramas."

"Oh!" said Hugh; "expense doesn't seem to enter into their calculations when they think they've got something that will go. A thousand people have been used in, one play, I've read, and as much as two hundred thousand dollars spent on it!"

"Say, here's our same old luck come along again, fellows!" declared Arthur, as though it gave him a tremendous amount of satisfaction to realize it. "I've always had a sort of hankering after a chance to learn just how these queer people managed when staging one of their plays, and as sure as you live we're in a fair way to find out now."

"Was there ever anything so strange as our being up here just at the time they came to play their game?" demanded Monkey Stallings. "Why, it begins to look as if they must have engaged the old castle especially to cast their play here, and make it seem the real stuff, don't you think so, Hugh?"

"That's not so very remarkable, after all," ventured Hugh, as all of them continued to stare at the many moving figures, apparently resting for the next stage in the exciting drama that was being reeled off. "I understand that all those big companies have spies out everywhere about the country."

"Spies!" echoed Billy; "and what for, Hugh, when we're not at war with anybody?"

"There's a tremendous amount of competition afloat between the numerous companies," explained the other. "They are looking for all sorts of queer settings for their plays. Houses have to be burned down, bridges blown up, railroad trains ditched, and all manner of stunts pulled off to satisfy the public greed for thrilling spectacles."

Alec gave a plain, unmistakable groan.

"That's it," he said disconsolately, "it's going to spell my finish. I knew that I didn't have that heavy feeling for nothing. There was something in the air that told me my fine dreams were going to be wrecked, sooner or later. Chances are now this big company has gone and stepped in to buy the old castle for a song, and in the course of their reproduction of history they expect to blow the same up, or at least set fire to that part made of wood. It's all off, boys!"

"But you've got your pictures to show for it, Alec," Hugh told him, consolingly, "and your aunt wouldn't think of taking back your camera after you've done so well with it. She can see that it isn't your fault, no matter what happens to the old building now."

Alec gave a cry of triumph.

"Say, that's right, Hugh, and thank you for reminding me I'm carrying that same camera at this very minute. What's to hinder me snapping off a few pictures on my own account of what's going on over there? What do you say to that, Hugh?"

"I should say you'd be foolish not to take the chance," returned the scout leader.

It was surprising to see how Alec forgot his keen disappointment as he commenced to focus his instrument upon the easily seen building, with all those strange costumed figures about the walls.

"The sun is just right for a cracker-jack snap-shot from here," he remarked, as he proceeded to press the bulb, and then carefully change the exposure so that he might not inadvertently take two pictures on the same portion of film; for Alec was exceedingly systematic in most things he did, which was one secret for his wonderful success at photography, a profession that allows no haphazard habits.

"There, I reckon they're staging another picture over yonder, boys!" cried Arthur, as a new bustle was noticed amidst the group of players. "Two of the men appear to have been knocked out in that attack, for there's a chap who looks like he might be a doctor attending to them under that tree. I wonder if they'd care to let me lend a hand at that part of the game? I'm sure I can be of help."

Arthur was never happier than when plying his favorite vocation of amateur surgeon. He had really done some fine work along those lines, and received the approbation of those who were well up in medical practice.

"Whee, if all that scrapping was half-way real!" burst out the admiring Billy; "the only thing I wonder at is how any of those fellows manage to come out of the fight with whole heads or limbs. Some of them were sent crashing down when that short ladder was hurled back by the defenders on the walls. It looked pretty real stuff from here."

"It is pretty near the genuine thing." said Hugh. "I've often wondered whether they faked those wonderful affairs, but after, what I've seen this day I'm going to believe they're as close to the original as can be. There, you see how the fat man beside the operator is waving his arms. He's got a megaphone, too, and as the scene goes along he bawls through that to tell them to keep on, or change the way they're doing things."

Alec got ready to take another snap-shot when the battle was well on. He was as excited as Hugh had ever seen him, and the other took occasion to warn the photographer to be careful.

"Get a grip on yourself, Alec," he said. "Hold yourself steady, or else you'll be making some fearful blunder, and spoiling the best chance you ever had to get a prize picture. Now they are starting in again, you see!"

Every one of the five scouts was straining his eyesight to the extreme limit in the, endeavor not to lose the slightest incident. Never before had such a glorious opportunity come to any of their kind to actually watch how those astonishing scenes of olden times were taken by the motion-picture players; and they did not want to miss any part of it.

Again did the great noise break forth as the valiant assailants commenced their new attack upon the apparently impregnable walls of the ancient castle, so gallantly defended by the occupants.

This small army of players had descended on the region like a flood of seventeen-year locusts. An hour or two before and there had apparently not been a living thing in the neighborhood of the mansion, and now it was the centre of a swarming horde of earnest workers, each trying to earn his salary as best he knew how, both by shouting, and also fighting in yeoman style.

"Oh! why can't we get closer than this, Hugh?" begged Alec, after he had taken another snap at the animated spectacle that would later on thrill many a boyish heart in the way of a picture, and also cause a feeling of envy to arise because a cruel fate had prevented them from participating in the wonderful adventure.

"Nothing to hinder that I can see," he was told. "Fact is, I was going to suggest that same thing myself. So let's get a move on, fellows."

Eagerly they kept pace with Hugh as he started to run toward the castle. It would be a shame not to take full advantage of the golden opportunity offered them to get in close touch with these motion-picture actors who, unaware of the fact that they had a small and select audience in the way of Boy Scouts, were each and every one working like troopers to fulfill their difficult duties.

Alec kept close "tabs" on what was going on ahead presently, possibly fearing that the excited, fat manager, who was dancing up and down, mopping his forehead with a red bandanna with one hand, and waving the megaphone with the other when not shouting through the same, might call the scene off, the boy stopped short, focussed again on the amazing picture, and got another snap-shot at closer range.

In this fashion the runners managed to come close up before there was a sudden cessation to all the tumult of hideous war, and the actors, laughing and evidently enjoying it to the utmost, began to crowd around the stage director as if to learn whether the scene had met with his approval.