“What!” cried Wynne Landon, “bricks tied to her, and thrown in the lake but not drowned! Who saved her life?”
“She herself,” returned Wise, “didn’t you, Zizi?”
And there she was, in the back of the hall, behind the group, every member of which turned to see her. Peterson was with her, and the two came forward.
Zizi was garbed in clothes that Mr. Peterson had lent her, and though too large, she had pinned up the plain black dress until it looked neither grotesque nor unbecoming.
“Yes, I’m here,” she announced, “but only because a bag o’ bones can’t be sunk by a bag o’ bricks! Your Shawled Woman,—only he didn’t have his shawl over his head,—carried me off about as easy as he might have sneaked off a doll-baby! Then,—shall I tell ’em all, Pen?”
“Yes, child, tell it all, just as it happened.”
“Well, he stuffed a bale of cotton into my mouth, which same was soaked with chloroform, so, naturally I couldn’t yell; likewise, I didn’t know just where I was at for a few minutes.”
“Who was he?” exclaimed Braye, “what did he look like?”
“Was it the skull face?” asked Eve.
“Nixy on the bone face!” returned Zizi, “he was a plain clothes man in civilian dress, with a black mask over his patrician features.”