“The museum is on the next street,” remarked young Smartweed, as he rang the bell three times. “We have to walk through this court, to reach it by the back passage.”
Still Herbert’s suspicions slumbered.
And now the catch to the door was pulled back, and our unfortunate hero and his companion passed in. The hallway was ominously dark. They groped their way forward till a second door was reached, and here the leader knocked three times, then paused for a moment and knocked once more. After a brief interval three more knocks precisely like the first were given, and then the door opened.
The two stepped quickly into the room, and Herbert’s arms were instantly seized by some one from behind the door, and drawn backward by an effort to fasten the wrists together behind him. Quicker than thought, young Randolph wrested his arms from the grip that was upon them, and, turning like a flash, planted a solid blow upon the jaw of his assailant—a blow which sent him, with a terrified yell, sprawling to the floor.
Then it was that he recognized, in the prostrate figure, Felix Mortimer, and a sickening sense of the awful truth dawned upon him. He was trapped!
The genial friend whom he had met on the Bowery now showed his real character, and before Herbert could further defend himself, he was pounced upon by him and a villainous looking man with a scraggy red beard and most repulsive features. They threw a thick black cloth over his head, and, after binding his hands firmly together, thrust him into a dark vault, or pen, in the cellar.
Our hero realized now most fully his helpless and defenseless position—a position that placed him entirely at the mercy of his enemies; if mercy in any degree dwelt in the breasts of the cruel band of outlaws in whose den he was now a prisoner.