"Are you hurt, Tom? What made you fall?" was the double question that Harding attempted to ask.
"My God! can that be possible?" was the inconsequent answer, and his hand went up to his head as if the organs of thought were for the moment disordered.
"What do you mean? What did you see, Tom?" was Harding's next double question. Leslie was pulling on his boots.
"See? Nothing—every thing! I will tell you all about it when my brains get settled!" was the reply. "I have simply been frightened out of my boots—no, I left my boots down here. But I was frightened out of the tree, and came devilish near to killing myself and you. Eh, didn't I?"
"Never mind about that! Tell us what you saw?" said Harding, whose bump of curiosity now began to be seriously agitated.
"The red woman! witch! devil! What does it all mean?" was the torrent of incoherence which next burst from Leslie, not affording Harding a very close solution of the mystery, but promising at least something.
"Well?" said the latter, expecting more. They had again crossed the street, and stood opposite the house of mystery. Leslie was endeavoring to brush his soiled clothes with that most difficult of all brushes, the hand. Harding was looking full at the window, and waiting for the further explanation. Suddenly, a carriage whirled through Prince from the direction of Broadway, and pulled up immediately before the house. Leslie stopped brushing his clothes. At the same moment, a head was again thrust against the window, and immediately withdrawn. Then the light against the curtain dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and that together" with the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man of the world. The people in that house were going away. Where? That was something to be looked into.
"You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on Houston?" he asked hurriedly of Harding.
"Yes," was the reply.
"I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very rapidly. "We must follow those people, if they go to perdition. Go to the stable, quick—do. There is always at least one carriage standing ready, and have it here as soon as money can bring it. I will watch meanwhile. Hurry! hurry!"