"Now for the wrists," and Blossom quietly regarded the position of the sleeper's hands. One was doubled on his huge chest, the other hung over the bedside. To straighten one arm and lift the other,—to do this gently and without awaking the sleeper,—to tie both wrists together as he had tied the ankles,—this was a difficult task, but Blossom accomplished it. Once the convict moved. "Don't give it up so easy!" he muttered and snored again.
Blossom surveyed him with great satisfaction.—"There's muscle, and bone, and fists,—did you ever see sich fists!"
"A perfect brute!" ejaculated Somers.
"Now you stay here, while I go into the next room, and hunt for the tother one."
This room, it will be remembered, communicated with an adjoining apartment by folding-doors. Blossom took the candle and listened; all was silent beyond the folding-doors. He carefully opened these doors, and light in hand, went into the next apartment. A belt of light came through the aperture, and fell upon the tall, spare form of the merchant prince, who, standing in the center of the first apartment gazed through the aperture just mentioned, into the second room. All the movements of Blossom were open to his gaze.
He saw him approach a bed, whose ruffled coverlet indicated that a man was sleeping there. He saw him bend over this bed, but the burly form of the police-officer hid the face of the sleeper from the sight of the merchant prince. He saw him lift the coverlet, and stand for a moment, as if gazing upon the sleeping man, and then saw him start abruptly from the bed, and turn his step toward the first room.
"What's the matter with you," cried the merchant prince, "are you frightened?"
Truth to tell, the full-moon face of Blossom, spotted with carbuncles, had somewhat changed its color.
"Can't you speak? It's Evelyn who's sleeping yonder,—isn't it? Hadn't you better wake him quietly?"
"Ah my feller," and the broken voice of Blossom, showed that he was human after all—all that he had seen in his lifetime,—"Ah my feller, he'll never wake again."