“He is crazy!” declared the excited woman. “He must be taken care of, or he will murder somebody.”
Frank unhesitatingly went up to the room, opened the door and entered. The professor was standing before a long mirror in his nightdress, with the revolver in his hand, talking wildly to himself.
“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed, shrilly. “So I have found you at last! You thought you could get away, you robber! Ha! ha! ha! There is no escape for such as you! You robbed the boy who trusted you! You deserve to die, and now you shall!”
Then he lifted the revolver and fired straight into the center of the mirror.
Frank reached him with a rush and grappled with him, attempting to hold him still and wrest the revolver from his grasp. But the professor developed the strength of a maniac for a time, and a terrible struggle ensued, in which the revolver was twice discharged, although neither of the bullets did any harm.
At last Frank secured the revolver, but even then the maniac fought on, screaming:
“He deserves death! He shall not escape! Let me go! I will kill him! I will kill him!”
“Be quiet, professor!” commanded Frank, as he finally forced the man down upon a chair and held him there. “Be still, I tell you! You know me. I am Frank.”
“Then why didn’t you let me kill him?” panted the man, giving up at last. “You are the one he robbed. He should die, as he deserves! He was a coward! Once he stood up to shoot himself with that very pistol, but his nerve failed him, and he ran away, leaving me here in his place. I have been watching for him to come back. Ha! ha! ha! Oh, he can’t escape!”
Frank talked soothingly to the man, and finally got him back into the bed. The professor was deathly white, and his eyes fairly burned. His hands were hot and cold by turns.