Suddenly from the west came a great noise. "Hark!" cried the husband. "A prairie fire? Of course not. The settlers made that impossible long since." He looked anxiously in the direction from whence came the noise. The sun could not be seen, and everything at once grew dark. "A tornado!" cried Sidney, and, grabbing his wife, he started to fall to the ground, but too late! A sudden wind seemed to pick him up, and a moment later whirled him into the air, while Mildred cried out in agonizing tones:
"Sidney, Sidney, come back, come back; don't leave me!" But on he flew, with the wind raising him higher and higher into the air, while she moaned until she felt her heart would break. Everything was so dark about her that she could not see, and then, suddenly it began to clear. Darkness was not about her, for overhead burned an electric light. She lay across a bed. She stood up and looked about her.
Her brain throbbed terribly, while she tried to recall where she was, and then slowly it all came back to her. Miss Jones—the visit to the blind tiger—a bottle of coca cola—"Oh, my God!" she cried in piteous tones. "I'm lost! I'm lost! I'm lost!"
She rushed to the door. It was bolted. She paused a moment as she stood by it. Where had he gone! She had a watch on her wrist; she looked at it. She had not been there long. She recalled looking at it just before drinking the stuff in the glass. That was exactly an hour before. It was fully a half hour later when she had been brought to this place. But where was the man.
She looked across the room to a chair. Over the back of it lay the overcoat he had worn. Then it became clear to her. He had stepped out a moment to get something perhaps. She walked to the door quickly and tried the knob. It was locked and the key was gone. She became frantic as she ran around the room. She tried the window again. Useless. Besides, when she peeped under the shade, it was too far to the ground. She stood dumbly for a moment. Presently, mechanically, she walked to a dresser that stood to one side, and peered in the glass at herself. She recoiled when she saw her face. It was swollen, and her eyes looked strange. She could not believe herself. She looked again. "Yes," she whispered, "this is I!" She looked away. The top of the dresser was covered with a newspaper. Mechanically she found herself looking over it. It was not a city paper, she could see, so, somewhat curiously, she turned it over and saw the front page. Her eyes chanced to fall on an article two columns in width. She read a few lines, and then, with a muffled cry, she staggered backward, clutching the paper. She sought the chair or the bed—anything, she was too weak to stand now. But, ere she had reached either, she suddenly stood stiffly erect, while the blood seemed to freeze in her veins.
A step sounded in the hallway, and a moment later, a key rattled in the lock. The man was returning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Go Brother! In God's Name, Go!"
"I am truly sorry to see the colored people of this town fail in their effort to secure a Y.M.C.A. for their youth," said the secretary of the white Y.M.C.A., as he rested his elbows for a moment upon the cigar case.