VI
Roberts’s first impulse was to spring back into the bushes and crouch down to prevent his being observed. There he lay peering out and watching the scene.
There was no doubt about the house being the same one, for besides the improbability of there being two such houses in that dense wilderness, he had seen from the lights the general outline of the house on the night he had been first taken there. If he had any doubt, a discovery he made a short time after was sufficient to remove it.
Two sides of the great structure were visible to him from where he was, and he saw that all the windows were protected with iron bars!
He ran his eye over the whole building with considerable curiosity. Except for the bars above mentioned, it was a most inviting-looking structure, having broad piazzas around it covered with vines and growing plants and a beautiful garden in front. It was situated upon a high elevation, and, even from where he was, Roberts could see the broad view stretching beyond on the other side. But the thought uppermost in his mind while he lay watching the place was less of all this than of the wretched American whom he had left there.
He had not been there more than five minutes before he saw the door in front of the broad avenue open and a man step out. A single glance at the figure was enough to tell him that it was the little Frenchman who had welcomed him on the night he had been brought there.
“You scoundrel!” Roberts thought, clenching his hands. “I should like to get hold of you!”
The man had a cigar in his mouth, and began sauntering up and down the piazza. Roberts had the pleasure of watching him for a considerable time at this occupation, and then he came out and fell to examining the flowers in front of the house.
In the meantime the American was thinking over his situation and trying to make up his mind what to do. He was not willing to risk any further explorations of the place by himself; and yet, on the other hand, he dreaded retracing that long walk on the road.
“Perhaps it goes on,” he thought, “and perhaps I can find another house beyond.”
He stole back into the bushes and made a circuit of the broad grove to investigate. He found, however, that the road apparently led only to the mansion and that he was confronted with the necessity of retracing his steps the entire day’s journey.
“Perhaps they left me near some place,” he thought, “and I would have been all right if I had only waited for daylight!”
Weakened by his unpleasant experiences, Roberts was not prepared to undertake that trip immediately. It was then well on toward sunset, but he resolved to rest several hours, at any rate.
He crept back into the bushes a short distance to make himself safe from discovery and stretched himself out to rest. Several hours passed in that way, and then, as darkness once more settled upon the place, he crept forward for a closer view of the house before leaving it. He had not taken very many steps, however, before something occurred which caused him to stop abruptly. He could see, through the bushes, the lights shining out from one or two of the windows. Suddenly, his ears were caught by a confused sound of voices. He sprang forward to the edge of the bushes and gazed out just in time to witness an exciting scene.
The doorway was open and a flood of light was pouring out. In the doorway several men were struggling violently.
At that very instant one of the voices cried out in English: “Help! Help!” And to his consternation Roberts recognized the voice as the same he had heard through the keyhole of his cell! It was the American prisoner!
As Roberts realized this, all thought of caution left him. With a yell he leaped forward and bounded across the lawn at the top of his speed.
The rest happened so quickly that Roberts had no time to think. He saw the figures silhouetted in the light of the doorway, one man making a desperate struggle against two or three others. Roberts reached the foot of the steps leading up to the piazza at the very same instant that another figure came dashing around the corner of the porch, crying out excitedly in French. He recognized both the voice and form as those of the hated master of the house.
It was the opportunity for which he had been wishing. He flung himself upon the man, and before the latter had time even to throw up his hands dealt him a blow with all the power of his arm, catching him in the chest and sending him reeling backward; then, with a shout of encouragement, he turned and dashed toward the doorway.
He was in the very nick of time, for the other prisoner, who had been making a gallant fight for his liberty, was now almost overpowered by the men. Roberts recognized them as the same servants who had welcomed him upon his entrance. Several others were rushing down the hallway to join in the struggle, when he flung himself through the doorway. One of the men had pinned the unfortunate prisoner to the wall, but Roberts dealt him a blow that sent him flying backward. The others turned with a cry of alarm, at the same time loosening their hold upon the prisoner.
And the latter whirled like a flash, and before Roberts had time to shout to him had dashed out of the doorway and down the steps of the building. His rescuer paused only long enough to repel a furious onslaught, and then he, too, turned and rushed away into the darkness.
“Run! Run!” he yelled to the man he had helped. “Run for your life!”
There was no need of the exhortation. The man was fairly flying over the ground, making for the thicket beyond.
Roberts heard footsteps behind him and glanced over his shoulder in time to see that his danger was by no means over. It seemed as if his shout must have alarmed the whole house. Half a dozen men had poured out of the doorway and were in full pursuit of the fugitives. The nearest of them, who had been rushing up to join in the fight as Roberts turned, were only a few yards behind.
Roberts knew that all depended upon his being able to get away into the thicket, for he was by no means strong enough for a long race. The other man seemed able to run faster, and was leaving his rescuer behind.
“Oh, if I only had my revolver!” he said to himself.
As it was, he expected some of the men to fire upon him. Before there was time for this, however, the race was over and lost. To the edge of the bushes was a matter of only a few seconds; the first man disappeared and Roberts followed, when suddenly a tangled vine in his path caught his foot and brought him to earth with a blow so violent that it almost stunned him. Not two seconds later Roberts felt a heavy body fling itself upon him and heard a voice crying out in the now too familiar French.
He tried to struggle to his feet once more to grapple with his assailant, but his efforts were in vain, for the latter’s cries had brought several more to the spot, and before he was able to realize it Roberts was again a helpless prisoner.
His cries were stopped by one of the men flinging his coat about his head; then two others picked him up by the arms and feet and set out to carry him.
He was so breathless and dazed by what had occurred that he was scarcely able to realize his plight. Once more a prisoner in the hands of the mysterious Frenchman!
“Of course, they will take me straight back to the house,” he thought, and in this he found that he was not mistaken. From the sounds that reached his ears he knew that a crowd had gathered about those who were carrying him, and suddenly, above all the excited cries, Roberts heard a voice that he recognized as that of the master.
“Vous l’avez?” he cried excitedly. “Bien!”
Roberts did not know the meaning of the words, but the Frenchman’s delight was sufficiently manifested by the tone of the voice. The American’s heart sank as he thought of what was before him.
“He won’t let me off so easily this time!” he thought. “I am not sorry I whacked him, all the same, and at least that other fellow will escape!”
He was borne swiftly forward by the men; from the sounds of the footsteps he knew that they were on the gravel walk once more. Then they mounted the steps of the piazza, and through an opening in the coat that was still flung over his head he made out the light of the doorway. At the same time he heard the voice of the Frenchman and was borne into the hallway again. The door shut behind him. It sounded like a death-knell in his ears.
“Probably they will take me back to that very same cell,” he thought.
And then suddenly two of the men seized him by his arms, and the rest released their hold, leaving him standing upon his feet. The coat was flung from off his face, and he stood before his captors.
Roberts found himself in the very same hallway as on the previous occasion, surrounded by the very same servants, and in the presence of the very same master. All this was exactly what he had expected, and nothing of it surprised him. But there was one new circumstance, one that left him almost dazed with consternation—the action of the crowd of men the instant they caught sight of him.
The master himself, having apparently recovered from the blow which Roberts had dealt him, was standing in front of his prisoner; as he got a glimpse of his face he staggered back with an exclamation, and burst into a roar of laughter! He began to shake all over with uncontrollable merriment, and finally he sank back against the wall, apparently scarcely able to stand.
Nor were his assistants less strangely affected—they, too, gazed at the prisoner, and then went likewise into spasms of laughter. Everyone in the hall was soon joining in the uproar, and two men who were holding Roberts were so overcome that they let go their hold of him! The puzzled man found himself alone and free once more, but he was so amazed that he could only stand and stare about him.
It would not be possible to describe his perplexity. The little Frenchman, now apparently not in the least alarmed by the fact that his prisoner was free, lay back in a chair near the fireplace, almost purple in the face with laughter. And this situation continued for fully two minutes more before the man, seeing Roberts’s amazement, rose to his feet and came toward him.
“Monsieur!” he began, making a desperate effort to control his laughter. “Monsieur! Une très grande bévue!”
Then seeing from the expression on Roberts’s face that the remark was not understood, he again went into an explosion of merriment.
“J’ai oublié!” he gasped. “Vous ne comprenez pas——”
Yet, though Roberts did not understand, there was one thing which these things did make plain to him, and which brought him a vast relief. This farce, whatever it was, was at least not going to turn out a tragedy for him.
He stood as he was in the centre of the hallway watching the crowd. When the first burst of laughter had passed away they remained eagerly talking to each other, glancing at him occasionally and gesticulating. The little Frenchman, who seemed not to have the slightest enmity toward Roberts for having knocked him down, was still standing in front of him, laughing excitedly and trying to make himself understood. As he only continued to shake his head the Frenchman gave a gesture of despair. Suddenly, however, a thought seemed to strike him, and he whirled about and called to one of the men.
“Jacques!” he exclaimed. “Appelez Jacques!”
Immediately one of the men turned and darted out of the door. It was only a few seconds later before another man entered the room and toward him the excited little Frenchman rushed. Still shaking with merriment he began an excited conversation, glancing occasionally at Roberts. In a few seconds the newcomer was also convulsed with hilarity.
“Parlez-lui, Jacques!” cried the master of the house excitedly. “Vite!”
And the man came toward Roberts, his face strained with suppressed laughter.
“Sir!” he stammered, scarcely able to speak. “Sir, I explain!”
“Go ahead,” said Roberts, who by this time had begun to feel the laughter contagious. “Hurry up, for heaven’s sake!”
The Frenchman paused for a few seconds, evidently collecting his scanty knowledge of English; then he turned toward the master of the house.
“Sir,” he said, making a profound bow, “I introduce—I introduce you the Dr. Anselme.”
The little Frenchman in turn made a profound bow; at the same time a sudden idea flashed across Roberts.
The two men, who were watching him closely, glanced at each other and again began laughing uproariously. Then again Jacques began his laborious explanation, pausing very long between words.
“This house,” he said, “this house—it is—it is une—une—what is de word? Une hôpital——”
Again the man stopped and gazed into the air. In the meantime, however, Roberts’s brain had been working, and a possible explanation of his extraordinary adventures with Dr. Anselme had flashed over him.
“A hospital!” he cried, “an asylum!”
“Oui, oui, monsieur!” cried the man excitedly.
“There was one man coming,” he continued excitedly, “one——”
“Patient?” suggested Roberts.
“Oui, oui!” exclaimed the other. “One patient! He was to come——”
But the man did not finish his sentence. At that moment there came the sound of rolling carriage-wheels, and Dr. Anselme made a sudden start for the door and flung it open just as the carriage stopped and a man bounded up the steps of the porch. The little doctor, still half convulsed with laughter, dragged him into the house and began an excited conversation with him. In a moment or two the latter turned to Roberts. He began to speak in fluent English, keeping from giving way to laughter by a violent effort.
“Sir,” he said, “my brother wishes me to explain—I have arrived just in time.”
“For heaven’s sake!” cried Roberts in relief. “Talk on, and tell me what is the matter!”
“It is a most extraordinary blunder,” said the newcomer. “You have escaped a dangerous surgical operation by the merest chance!”
Roberts placed his hand on his bald head, and everyone in the hallway gave a roar of laughter.
“Yes,” said the other, “that is it. My brother is a well-known specialist in mental diseases and has this sanitarium in the mountains. No doubt you were surprised to find such a large house so far away from any city. We were expecting a patient, an American, by the same train on which you arrived. He was suffering from an injury to the skull, which made him liable to periodic attacks of insanity, and he was coming up here to be treated.”
“The very man I saw on the train!” cried Roberts. “A tall, dark-haired person?”
“We do not know in the least what he looks like,” was the reply, “for had we known we should not have made the horrible blunder we did.”
In a few words Roberts related how the stranger had leaped from the train during the night.
“Undoubtedly,” said the other, “that was he. He probably lacked courage to come. I have been out hunting for him, but have not found him.”
“And they were going to operate on me?” Roberts gasped.
“Yes,” said the other; “it was only the fact that my brother was unable to find any trace of injury to your skull that saved you. Then it occurred to him to search your clothing, and he found your card, which, of course, showed him the terrible mistake.”
By this time Roberts himself was able to join in the uproarious laughter.
“But that other man—that prisoner who has been here for twenty years—what about him?” he asked.
“He has been here nearly thirty years,” laughed the other, “but he has no knowledge of the time. He is a raving maniac!”
“And I helped him to escape!” gasped Roberts.
“Yes, you did,” said the other ruefully, “and I am afraid it will take us many days to catch him!”
“But why in the world did you take me away and leave me there on the road?” cried Roberts, when he was able to speak. “Why did you not explain to me?”
“I would have if I had been here,” the man answered, “but my brother concluded that, as you were not destined for here, you were going to the mines, which are the only other inhabited spot around here. So they carried you to the mines.”
“To the mines!” gasped the other. “For heaven’s sake, what do you mean? You left me out in the middle of the jungle!”
Once more the Frenchman went off into a fit of laughter. “Why, they left you within fifty yards of the place!” gasped Dr. Anselme’s brother. “They did not take you in, as they thought there might be some trouble made about the matter and we were anxious to get out of it without any.”
Then in a few words Roberts told what had happened to him since that adventure.
“I thought I was doing something very heroic in rescuing that man,” he exclaimed. “Please apologize to the doctor for the whack I gave him.”
Dr. Anselme protested that the blow was nothing at all, though Roberts fancied that he could see him wince at the mere recollection of it. Nothing more was said about that, however, and, still laughing about the man’s strange adventures, the doctor turned to the door on one side and flung it open, disclosing the same familiar dining-room.
“Sir, I pardon you,” he said, and his brother interpreted, “now sit again with us at our table, I beg of you.”
And they went in to supper.
The Day
“HERE’S one for you, ’Squire, that I’ll betcha you can’t answer,” tantalizingly said Hi Spry, as the Old Codger added himself to the roster of the Linen Pants and Solid Comfort Club. “‘When tomorrow is yesterday, today will be as far from the end of the week as was today from the beginning of the week when yesterday was tomorrow. What is today?’”
“Today, Hiram,” grimly returned the veteran, “is the day that I’m goin’ to ask you to return to me them three dollars and thirty-five cents that you borrowed from me over two months ago, with the promise that you’d pay ’em back the then-comin’ day-after-tomorrow, which went mizzling down the corridors of time quite a spell ago without fetchin’ me the money. That’s what day this is, Hiram, although I prob’ly shouldn’t have mentioned it if you hadn’t tried to humiliate me in public by springin’ a question on me that you was pretty sure I couldn’t answer.”
No Retribution
CRAWFORD—Why do you object to the methods of our benevolent millionaires?
Crabshaw—Because in distributing their surplus wealth they don’t give it back to the people they got it from.
A Belated Reconciliation
BY WILL N. HARBEN
Author of “Abner Daniel,” “The Substitute,”
“The Georgians,” etc.
OLD Jim Ewebanks sat down on the wash-bench in front of the widow Thompson’s cabin and watched the old woman as she stood in the doorway, pouring water into her earthen churn to “make the butter come.” He had walked over from his cabin across the hollow to bring her a piece of news; but the subject was a delicate one, and he hardly knew how to broach it.
If he had been a lighter man, he would have led her further in her cheerful comments on the crops, the price of cotton and the health of their neighbors; but deception of no sort was in Ewebanks’s line, and moreover, the sun was going down. He could see the blue smoke curling from the mud-and-log chimney on the dark, mist-draped mountainside across the marshes and writing a welcome message on the sky. He had a mental glimpse of his wife as she bent over a big fireplace and put steaming food on the supper-table. He was reminded that he had not fed his cattle; and still he could not bring himself to the task before him.
Mrs. Thompson’s son, Joe, came up the narrow road from the field, leading his bay mare. The young man turned the animal into a little stableyard. With the clanking harness massed on his brawny shoulder he passed by, nodding to the visitor, and hung his burden on a peg in the lean-to shed at the end of the cabin.
Then he went into the entry between the two rooms of the house, and, rolling up his shirt sleeves, bathed his face and hands in a tin basin.
Ewebanks determined to come to his point before Joe finished washing. Indeed, a sudden question from the widow made it somewhat easier for him.
“What’s fetched you ’long here this time o’ day, Jim?” she asked, as she tilted her churn toward the light reflected from the sky and raised the dasher cautiously to inspect the yellow lumps of butter clinging to its dripping surface.
Ewebanks felt his throat tighten. It was hard for him to bring up a subject to the mild-faced, reticent woman, which, while it had been common talk in the neighborhood for the past twenty-five years, had scarcely been mentioned in her presence. He bent down irresolutely and began to pick the cockle-burrs from the frayed legs of his trousers.
Joe Thompson saved him from an immediate reply by throwing the contents of his basin at a lot of chickens in the yard and coming toward him, drying his face and hands on his red cotton handkerchief.
“You are off’n yore reg’lar stompin’-ground, hain’t you?” he said cordially.
Jim Ewebanks made a failure of a smile as his eyes fell on Mrs. Thompson. She had stopped churning, and, leaning on her wooden dasher, was studying his face.
“What fetched you, shore ’nough?” she asked abruptly.
Ewebanks knew that her suspicions were roused. He sat erect and clasped his coarse hands between his knees.
“My cousin Sally Wynn’s been over in the valley today,” he gulped. “It’s reported thar that yore sister, Mrs. Hansard, is purty low. We-uns talked it over—me’n my wife did—an’ Sally, an’ ’lowed you ort to know. They axed me to come tell you, but as I told them, I hain’t no hand to—it looks like they could ’a’ picked somebody——”
He broke off. There was little change in the grim, lined face under the gray hair, and the red-checked breakfast shawl which the woman wore like a hood. She turned the churn again to the light and peered down into the white depths.
Someone had once said in the hearing of Ewebanks that nothing could induce Martha Thompson to utter a word about her sister, and he wondered how she would treat the present disclosure. She let the churn resume its upright position and put the lid back into place; then she glanced at him.
“She—hain’t bad off, I reckon,” she said tensely.
“Purty low,” he replied, his eyes on the ground. “The fact is, Mrs. Thompson, ef you want to see ’er alive you’d better go over thar tomorrow at the furdest.”
Ewebanks knew he had gone a little too far in his last words, when Joe broke in fiercely:
“She won’t go a step! She sha’n’t set foot inside that cussed house. They’ve done ’thout us so fur, an’ they kin longer—dead, dyin’ or buried!”
“Hush, Joe!” Mrs. Thompson had left her churn, and with her hands wrapped in her apron was leaning against the door-jamb.
Joe didn’t heed her.
“They’ve always helt the’r heads above us becase we’re poor an’ they’re rich,” he ran on. “You sha’n’t go a step, mother!”
Mrs. Thompson said nothing. She rolled her churn aside and went into the cabin. Ewebanks saw her bending over the pots and kettles in the red light from the live coals. He saw her rise to arrange the table, and knew she was going to ask him to supper. He got up to go, said good day to Joe, who had lapsed into sullen silence, and descended the rocky path toward his cabin.
It was growing dusk; a deepening haze, half of smoke, half of mist, hung over the wooded hill on the right of the road, and on the left a newly cleared field was dotted with the smoldering fires of brush-heaps.
At the foot of the hill he glanced back and saw Mrs. Thompson in the path signaling to him. He paused in the corner of a rail fence half overgrown with briars and waited for her. She was panting with exertion when she reached him.
“I didn’t care to talk up thar ’fore Joe,” she began. “He’s so bitter agin Melissa an’ ’er folks; but I want to know more. What seems to be ailin’ ’er, Jim?”
“A general break-down, I reckon,” was the answer. “She’s been gradually on the fail fer some time. I reckon yore duty-bound to see ’er, Mrs. Thompson. I’d not pay any attention to Joe nur nobody else. Maybe thar’s been some pride on yore side, too.”
“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully, and then she was silent. She broke a piece of worm-eaten bark from a pine rail on the fence and crumbled it in her hand.
“I’ve been wantin’ to tell you some’n fer a long time,” Ewebanks put in cautiously, “but it wasn’t no business o’ mine, an’ I hate meddlin’. I hain’t no talebearer, but this hain’t that, I reckon.”
“I hauled some wood fer ’er one day last spring when me’n my team was detained at court over thar. She come out in the yard in front o’ her fine house whar I was unloadin’. She looked mighty thin an’ peaked an’ lonesome. I had no idea she knowed me from a side o’ sole leather, grand woman that she is, but she axed me ef I wasn’t from out this way. I told ’er I was, an’ then she reached over the wagon-wheel an’ shuck hands powerful friendly like, an’ axed particular about you an’ Joe, an’ how you was a-makin’ of it. I told ’er you was up an’ about, but, like the rest of us, as pore as Job’s turkey. She said she’d been a-layin’ off to go to see you, but, somehow, hadn’t been able to git round to it. She said she’d been porely fer over a year.”
“She wasn’t porely two year back when I was on my back with typhoid,” said Mrs. Thompson bitterly. “The report went out that I’d never git up agin, but she never come a-nigh me, nur sent no word.”
“Maybe she never heard of it,” said Ewebanks. “They had a lot to do over thar about that time in one way and another. One o’ the gals was marryin’ of a banker, an’ t’other the Governor’s son, an’ yore brother-in-law, up to his death, was in politics, an’ they was constant a-givin’ parties an’ a-havin’ big company an’ the like. We-uns that don’t carry on at sech a rate ortn’t to be judges. I’m of the opinion that you ort to go, Mrs. Thompson. Ef she dies you’ll always wish you’d laid aside the grudge.”
The old woman glanced up at her cabin and awkwardly wiped her mouth with her bare hand.
“It seems sech a short time sence me’n her was childern together,” she mused. “We was on the same level then, an’ I never loved anybody more’n I did her. She was the purtiest gal in the neighborhood, an’ as sharp as a briar. Squire Farnhill tuck a likin’ to ’er, an’, as he had no childern o’ his own, he offered to adopt ’er an’ give ’er a home an’ education. She was a great stay-at-home an’ we had to actually beg ’er to go. We knowed it was best, fer pa was weighted down with debt an’ was a big drinker. She was soon weaned from us an’ ’fore she was seventeen Colonel Frank Hansard married ’er an’ tuck ’er over to his big plantation in Fannin’. We had our matters to look after, an’ they had the’rn. It begun that way, an’ it’s kept up.”
“I don’t know how true it is,” ventured Ewebanks, “but I have heard that her husband was a proud, stuck-up, ambitious man, an’ that he wished to cut off communication betwixt you two; but he’s dead an’ out o’ the way now.”
“Yes, but sometimes childern take after the’r fathers,” said the widow, “an’, right or wrong, it’s natural fer a mother to sympathize with her offspring. I’m sorter afeard the family wouldn’t want me even at ’er deathbed. Now, ef they had jest ’a’ sent me word that she was low, or——”
“I’d be fer doin’ my duty accordin’ to my own lights,” declared Ewebanks, when he saw she was going no further. “I don’t know as I’d be bothered about what them gals, or the’r husbands, thought at sech a serious time.”
She nodded as if she agreed with him, and turned to go. “Joe’s waitin’ fer his supper,” she said. “I’ll study about it, Jim. I couldn’t go till tomorrow, anyway. But, Jim Ewebanks—” she hesitated for a moment, and then she looked at him squarely—“Jim, I want to tell you that I think you are a powerful good man. Yo’re a Christian o’ the right sort, an’ I’m glad you are my neighbor.”