THE MEDAL LIBRARY

FAMOUS COPYRIGHTED STORIES

FOR BOYS, BY FAMOUS AUTHORS

This is an ideal line for boys of all ages. It contains juvenile masterpieces by the most popular writers of interesting fiction for boys. Among these may be mentioned the works of Burt L. Standish, detailing the adventures of Frank Merriwell, the hero, of whom every American boy has read with admiration. Frank is a truly representative American lad, full of character and a strong determination to do right at any cost. Then, there are the works of Horatio Alger, Jr., whose keen insight into the minds of the boys of our country has enabled him to write a series of the most interesting tales ever published. This line also contains some of the best works of Oliver Optic, another author whose entire life was devoted to writing books that would tend to interest and elevate our boys.

PUBLISHED EVERY WEEK

To be Published During December

To be Published During November

Horatio Alger, Jr.

The greatest and most famous writer of rattling good tales of adventure for boys, was Horatio Alger, Jr. He is the Dickens of juvenile literature. His best works are published in the Medal Library at ten cents per copy. For sale by all newsdealers.

ALGER, HORATIO, JR.

42. Young Acrobat, The.

50. Dean Dunham.

52. From Farm Boy to Senator.

61. Erie Train Boy, The.

87. Five Hundred Dollar Check, The.

118. Ned Newton; or, The Adventures of a New York Bootblack.

122. Tom Brace.

130. From Canal Boy to President.

138. Striving for Fortune.

154. Paul, the Peddler.

159. Phil, the Fiddler.

163. Slow and Sure.

166. Try and Trust.

170. Strong and Steady.

175. Strive and Succeed.

181. Brave and Bold.

187. Bound to Rise.

192. Tom, the Bootblack.

198. Only an Irish Boy.

202. Risen From the Ranks.

212. Julius, the Street Boy.

221. Young Outlaw, The.

228. Cash Boy, The.

234. Store Boy, The.

243. Adrift in New York.

252. Luke Walton.

260. Driven From Home.

264. Hector’s Inheritance.

268. Do and Dare.

272. Facing the World.

277. In a New World.

282. Herbert Carter’s Legacy.

If these books are ordered by mail, add four cents per copy to cover postage.

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, NEW YORK

Frank Merriwell on the Boulevards

OR

ASTONISHING THE EUROPEANS

By

BURT L. STANDISH

Author of

“The Merriwell Stories“

STREET & SMITH PUBLISHERS

79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1899

By STREET & SMITH

────

FRANK MERRIWELL ON THE BOULEVARDS

FRANK MERRIWELL ON THE BOULEVARDS

────────

CHAPTER I.
“MADEMOISELLE MYSTERIE.”

“Well, fellows, what do you think of Paris?” asked Frank Merriwell, settling himself into a comfortable position on his chair.

With his three Yale friends, Frank had been in the French capital a day. The party had crossed from England the previous day, and, after a good night’s sleep, the first for three of the party on French shore, they had sallied forth to spend the day seeing the sights of Paris.

“Paris!” cried Harry Rattleton, striking an attitude in the middle of the room; “Paris is a—a relief!”

“I should say so!” nodded Jack Diamond, standing by a window, from which he could look out upon the brilliantly lighted Place Vendome, in the center of which rose the majestic Vendome Column, the most imposing monument of all Europe. “After London, Paris is heaven!”

“Haw!” grunted Bruce Browning, who was in his favorite attitude of rest, stretched at full length on a comfortable couch. “Paris would be all right, if it wasn’t full of Frenchmen.”

“As for that,” smiled Frank, “it is full of Englishmen, Americans, and people from all over the world, and every well-educated Frenchman can talk English, you know.”

“Paris is beautiful!” cried Diamond. “Look at that column out there! Just think, the bronze from which it was built was furnished by Austrian and Russian cannon captured in battle by the French! From base to summit, it is covered with bronze figures, in relief, forming a miniature army, with cannon, horses, and accouterments, ascending by a spiral road to the massive figure of Napoleon at the top. Oh, it is a sight for the eyes of the world!”

“The statue, yes,” nodded Frank. “Think of robing Napoleon in the garb of a Roman emperor! That is the one thing in bad taste about the column. But that was not always so.”

“How’s that?” exclaimed Rattleton. “Have they changed his clothes from the original suit given him?”

“That is not the original statue at the top of the column.”

“No? Why, how——”

“After Waterloo, when the Bourbons once more governed France, they took Napoleon’s statue down. The original one represented him in the cocked hat and old gray coat, immortalized on many a field of victory.”

“And they never put it back?”

“In its place, they erected a monstrous fleur-de-lis. However, this combination of the emblem of the Bourbon family and a memorial of Napoleon was perfectly absurd, and the people protested against it. Louis Philippe yielded to the desire of the masses, and the present figure of Napoleon was erected. This monument was shamefully treated by the communists.”

“Eh! Why, they didn’t bother themselves with that, did they?”

“They pulled it down. It was necessary to lay a thick bed of tan along the street, to mitigate the shock when it fell. The national troops arrived in time to prevent its complete ruin, and it was reconstructed as you see it.”

“It’s strange that people like the communists, nihilists, anarchists, and that sort, always, when possible, destroy everything they can in the way of sculpture, architecture, and art. They seem possessed by a senseless rage against the beautiful. Such human beings plainly show the low and brutal in their natures. They rob themselves of sympathy by their acts, and make themselves detested, as they should be. God did not put us into the world to hate and destroy,” declared Diamond.

“Oh, say, give us a rest!” grunted Browning. “I’m tired.”

“As usual.”

“Now, don’t fling that!” growled the big Yale man.

“Merriwell has kept us on the jump all day, seeing things. He trotted us from the Trocadero to Prison Mazas, and that is pretty nearly from one end of the city to the other. He has shown us all the sights——”

“I beg your pardon!” exclaimed Merry, with a laugh. “I haven’t begun to show you anything of the sights of Paris. All I tried to do was give you a general idea of the city.”

“Dow the hickens—I mean, how the dickens—you ever learned so much about Paris is what puzzles me,” burst forth Rattleton.

“It’s a wonder to all of us,” admitted Diamond. “Why, you seem perfectly familiar with the city, Frank.”

“To a certain extent, I am familiar with it. You know, I spent three weeks here in company with our old friend, Ephraim Gallup, and my guardian, poor Professor Scotch, and I was on the hustle all the time, so I got the lay of the land pretty well.”

“But, great Scott! why didn’t you ever say anything about it?”

“Never had occasion.”

“Didn’t you meet with any adventures in Paris worth relating?”

“Oh, I met with adventures enough, I assure you.”

“Pleasant adventures?” asked Harry, with a grin and a wink.

“Well, I hardly think they’d be designated as pleasant.”

“Lovely girls, and all that sort of thing?”

“There was one girl concerned.”

“Only one?”

“She was quite enough, under the circumstances. She was an anarchist.”

“Huah!” grunted Bruce.

“Whew!” whistled Harry.

“Jove!” exclaimed Jack.

“I fell in with a New York newspaper reporter, who had been sent over to investigate and write up the recent bomb outrages in this city. Being seen with him, I was spotted by the anarchists, who regarded him as a spy. I was warned to leave France, but didn’t fancy being driven out that way.”

“Well, that was interesting!” ejaculated Diamond.

“Rather!” drawled Bruce.

“It was hot stuff!” said Rattleton.

“It was the night after Grand Prix, the great French horse-race, that I received my first warning. It came from a masked woman. Wynne, the reporter, followed her, but she slipped him. On the night after Grand Prix, all Paris turns out to enjoy itself, and be gay. It was at the Jardin de Paris that I saw her again, in the midst of the mob that was dancing and singing there in the open air. I caught her by the wrist, and she tried to stab me.”

“Whew!” again whistled Rattleton.

“Huah!” once more grunted Browning.

“Jove!” was Diamond’s repeated ejaculation.

“Her friends were on hand to aid her, and she managed to break away, and slip me, as she had Wynne. Afterward, at a place called the Red Flag, I ran across Wynne. Anarchists resorted there, and they tried to stop us both. Wynne got away, but I was roped in. Somebody rapped the senses out of me, and I came to myself in a dungeon-like place, a captive.”

They knew he was telling the truth, for Frank Merriwell never lied, but it dazed them to think he had never mentioned the matter before.

“What happened next?” breathlessly asked Harry.

“The woman, who was known as ‘Mademoiselle Mysterie,’ came there to kill me. I was bound and gagged, and she had a dagger to finish me off. I couldn’t squeal, and so I smiled at her. Then what do you think happened?”

“Can’t guess.”

“You tell.”

“Go on!”

“She fell in love with me,” said Frank quietly.

“What?”

“The deuce!”

“Come off!”

“She did,” nodded Merry, smiling. “She decided not to kill me. She resolved to save me, even though I had been condemned to die by the bomb-throwers, who were convinced that I was dangerous for them. Then, when the real executioner came into the cellar to do the job, she struck him senseless with a stone, and set me free.”

Bruce Browning sat up, and stared at Frank.

“I’ll admit that you are the queerest chap alive!” he growled. “You had such an adventure here in Paris, and yet you never told any of us a word about it! Merriwell, I don’t understand you, and I thought I knew you pretty well.”

Now Frank laughed outright.

“I had no occasion to say anything about it, you know.”

“Most fellows would have made an occasion. Supposing the story of that adventure had been known at college. You’d been a king-pin from the very first.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You know, a fellow’s record before he enters Yale doesn’t cut much ice there. It’s the record he makes afterward that counts. In almost any other college it is different. A man’s standing amounts to a great deal elsewhere. At Yale, he makes a standing for himself. If he attempts to bolster himself up by tales of what he has done, he is regarded with suspicion and contempt. You know this is true. It is to his direct disadvantage to boast.”

“But it was not necessary for you to boast. You might have told your friends. You never told any of us.”

“Never!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Not a word!” came reproachfully from Rattleton.

“Not even when we were coming here,” growled Browning resentfully.

“Well, I’ve told you now, you know.”

“Not everything,” said Jack eagerly. “Go on. How did you escape?”

“Fought my way out through dynamiters, aided by the woman. The men were in a room where a Russian manufacturer of infernal machines was explaining how his devilish inventions worked. He had all his bombs spread out on a table. I got through that room, and out of the building, and I was lucky. What happened behind me, I can only surmise. It is certain one of those bombs was exploded, and it exploded others. The building was wrecked, the anarchists were killed, and among them was found the body of the woman who had saved me, their queen. She is buried at Mont Parnasse, and I paid for the stone that marks her grave.”

Browning struggled to his feet, and stood there, colossal, imposing, outraged, his hands on his hips.

“I have considered you my friend,” he said; “but I feel like punching you now! Why, you even trotted us round all day, and never once mentioned this!”

“I didn’t want to bore you.”

“Bore us—bore us with a yarn like that! Why, it’s exciting enough to furnish a plot for a novel! And you actually passed through such an adventure here in Paris?”

“Didn’t I say so? Do you think I’m drawing the long bow?”

“No, but——”

“But what?”

“It is so remarkable. Why, you came to Yale in the quietest way possible. Any one might have taken you for a country lad just getting out into the world, for all of anything you had to tell of yourself.”

“What if I had told the story I’ve just related to you? What if I had related a number of yarns about my adventures in various parts of the world? What if I had begun at college by prating of the things I had done?”

“You’d been set down as a howling liar!” exploded Rattleton.

“Exactly,” nodded Merry. “If I had an inclination to speak of such things, I put it aside, and kept corked up. You need not set it down as modesty, unless you like; you may call it horse-sense.”

They talked over Frank’s adventure, just related, for some time, asking him many questions about it, for it was a most fascinating story.

“Those must have been tot old himes—I mean hot old times,” said Rattleton.

“I should say so!” agreed Diamond. “You struck a circus in Paris, and that’s straight! I hardly think anything like that will happen while you are here this time.”

“Not likely,” admitted Merry. “I don’t believe I care about having anything like that happen again. It’s well enough to talk about, but I was rather too near being snuffed out to enjoy it at the time.”

There came a timid knock on the door.

“Come!” called Frank.

The door opened falteringly, and Mr. Maybe, Frank’s tutor, looked in hesitatingly.

“Mr. Merriwell,” he said, “I think you had better retire. You must be tired, and, you know, your studies——”

“Hang it, Mr. Maybe!” exclaimed Merry; “I’m not going to begin cramming again the moment we reach Paris. You must give me two or three days to look round with my friends, and enjoy the sights.”

“You have wasted to-day, sir, and——”

“Wasted it? No. We’ve taken in the streets, the boulevards, the Seine, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Champs-Élysées, the Bourse, and so forth. To-morrow, we will visit other places of interest—Versailles, the Trocadero, the Grand Opera-House, perhaps, the Eiffel Tower. There are thousands of beautiful things to be seen in Paris, Mr. Maybe, and I advise you to get out and circulate. It will do you good.”

“You must have been reading the guide-books, to know so much about Paris,” said Maybe. “I’m going to bed, and I advise you to do the same. Good night.”

He retired, closing the door.

“He doesn’t even dream you ever saw Paris before,” said Rattleton.

“Well,” grunted Browning, from the couch, on which he was stretched once more, “I think I’ll take his advice, and go to bed. I know I shall sleep like a top to-night. I don’t believe an earthquake would disturb me.”

“But your snoring is likely to disturb everybody else on this floor,” declared Rattleton. “I’m glad Merriwell has taken pity on me, and arranged it so I don’t have to sleep with you. You’ll have an entire bed and a whole room to yourself to-night.”

“What a relief that will be!” murmured the big fellow. “How sweetly I will slumber!”

He did not notice that his three companions looked at each other knowingly, while Frank changed a laugh into a choking cough. He did not suspect what was in store for him that night, so he arose, bade good night to the others, and went to his room.

CHAPTER II.
BRUCE’S LIVELY NIGHT.

Bruce really was tired. Big, strong fellow though he was, his laziness overcame the energy it seemed natural he should possess, and a day of hustling quite exhausted him.

He was glad to have a room by himself, and he rolled into bed with a satisfied grunt, muttering:

“Now, nothing will disturb me till morning.”

In a short time, he was asleep, and snoring. His slumbers, however, were rudely disturbed. At first, it seemed like a dream. He fancied he could hear the gong of a fire-engine that was thundering down upon him, while he seemed helpless to get out of the way and escape. The gong pounded furiously, and he struggled with all his might to flee. In the midst of the awful effort, he awoke, sweat starting from every pore. The infernal clatter and bang of the bell continued, and it sounded right there in that room.

With a snort, Bruce sat up.

“Fire, I’ll bet a hundred dollars!” he blurted, as he made a dive to get out of bed.

His feet became entangled with the bedclothes, and he landed sprawling, with a terrible thud that knocked the breath from his body.

Clatter! bang! ding! bang! clatter!

That bell was keeping it up at a fearful rate, and Browning floundered around on the floor, becoming more and more helplessly entangled in the bedclothing.

“This is awful!” he groaned. “I’m tying myself all up here, and I’ll be burned to death! The old hotel is afire, and that’s the alarm!”

He was tempted to uplift his voice, and roar aloud for aid, but refrained from doing so, and forcibly tore himself free from the entangling clothing.

“Keep cool, old man!” he said, as he got upon his feet. “The people who lose their heads at fires get burned. The ones who keep cool escape.”

Then he found the gas, and turned it on, but could not find a match. He rushed round the room, bumping against chairs, barking his shins, and bruising himself generally. Over one of the chairs he fell, and he got so tangled up with it that it really seemed that the chair was clinging to him, like a living creature.

“Oh, yes!” he snarled. “Throw me down, and then pile onto me, will you! Try to hold me down, so I’ll be burned to death, will you! Punch your legs into my ribs, will you! Hit me in the eye, and upper-cut me on the chin, will you! Get out!”

He flung the chair from him, with great violence. There was a crash, a thud on the floor, a whirring sound and the alarm-bell ceased to ring.

Rather dazed, Bruce got up. He was still trembling, but he made a search for his vest, found it, and secured a match.

The stillness which followed the racket of the bell and the frantic gyrations of the big Yale man seemed awful, and he was more frightened than ever. If he had wished to shout then, it is doubtful if he could have raised a cry that would have been heard outside his door.

The first match he struck spluttered and went out. With the second, he lighted the gas, the odor of which filled the room. Then he looked around, and the sight that met his eyes filled him with wonder.

The chair he had flung across the room had struck a small shelf, and knocked down a clock of the forty-nine-cent variety, smashing it, and scattering its works over the carpet. As he stood there, glaring at its ruins, the truth began to dawn upon him.

“It was that thundering alarm-clock!” he snorted. “The thing went off, and spoiled my slumbers! There is no fire and no danger! I’ve been fooled by a bargain-counter alarm-clock!”

He felt like jumping on the ruins of the poor time-piece, but remembered that he was barefooted, and it would be sure to hurt him. Then his eye caught sight of a slip of paper attached to a ring in the case of the clock. He picked it up. On the paper were these words, written in English:

“Good night!

Sleep tight!”

Browning flung the clock-case into a corner, uttering a “woosh” of indignation.

“That’s what I call a pretty cheap joke!” he exploded. “My first night by myself, and they couldn’t let me rest in peace! Oh, I’ll have revenge for this!”

He gathered up the clothing, and piled it back onto the bed, then turned out the gas, and rolled in once more.

“It’s like one of Merriwell’s old tricks,” he thought, as he buried himself under the twisted clothing, and prepared to make up for lost time.

Being really tired, it was not long before his nerves quieted down, and he began to snore once more. He was dreaming a very pleasant dream, when there was a repetition of the former racket. Browning groaned, and stirred. Then, with a snort, he sat up.

“Murder!” he gurgled. “I thought I’d smashed the old thing so it couldn’t go off again!”

He flung himself out of bed, saying some very ugly words, and lighted the gas once more. The remnants of the clock he had smashed lay quietly in the corner, but the racket of an alarm-bell came from another part of the room. Furiously he began to search for it, and, in about five minutes, he found it in the top drawer of the dressing-case.

To the clock was attached a card, on which was written:

“Excuse me, please. I hope you are resting well.”

Mad? Browning almost frothed at the mouth. He opened the window, and flung the clock out with great violence. Then he slammed down the window, turned off the gas, and went back to bed.

“I’ll get even for this, if it takes me the rest of my life!” he grumbled, as he settled down, and tried to make himself comfortable in the twisted bed.

Being exhausted, it did not take him long to doze again. Then another clock began operations. Bruce made a flying leap from the bed, striking the floor before he was fairly awake.

“Ten thousand furies!” he roared, as he chased around the room about twenty times, and broke the world’s record for the two-mile dash. “It’s another one! Where is the fiendish thing? Let me get my hands on it! Oh, I won’t do a thing to it!”

In the course of four or five minutes, he found it, hidden behind a picture. A tag was attached to it, and on the tag was written:

“You must be very, very tired.”

“Tired!” howled the big fellow. “I should say so! This is enough to make anybody tired!”

He dropped the clock to the floor, but it continued to rattle away. With an exclamation of anger, quite forgetting that his feet were not encased in boots, he drew off and kicked the clock up against the wall, with all his strength, breaking his great toe-nail, and knocking the skin off the two neighboring toes.

“Yow!” he howled, as he held onto his injured toes with both hands, and hopped around the room on the other foot. “Oh, my goodness! I’ve maimed myself for life! I’ll be a helpless cripple as long as I live!”

The clock gave a sort of derisive rattle, and stopped.

Bruce sat down on the edge of the bed, and examined his injured foot. After awhile, he bound up his toes with a handkerchief, and turned in again.

“I guess this is the end of it,” he decided. “They’ve spoiled my night’s rest! It’s an outrage!”

His nerves were not near the surface, so they soon became quiet, and, despite what had happened, despite the injury to his foot, he began to snore again. Then the fourth clock started out to get in its work. When Browning awoke, and realized what was taking place, he was wild. He made another jump, to get out of bed, caught his feet in the bedclothing again, and struck on his forehead and nose, barking the latter, and causing it to bleed slightly.

“All the fiends of the hot place couldn’t devise greater torture!” he frothed. “It’s villainous! It’s criminal! I’ll be a raving maniac before morning!”

He began to fling things around at a furious rate in his mad search for the clock. At last, he found it in his grip, where it had been carefully tucked. When he yanked it out, it flew from his fingers, and rolled away. He scrambled after it on his hands and knees, upsetting a marble-topped table, which struck him a terrible thump on the back of the head, producing a swelling almost as large as a hen’s egg.

When Browning got hold of the clock at last, he was the maddest man in all France. He rushed to the window, and slammed it open. Then he hurled the clock into the street, with a fearful violence, barely missing a passing pedestrian, who shouted something about bombs, and took to his heels.

In yanking the clock from the grip, he had torn off a bit of paper. On the paper he read these words:

“Hope this doesn’t disturb you, old man.”

It must be confessed that Bruce Browning made a few “dark-blue” remarks, which would not look well in print. Then he searched all around the room for another clock, but could not find one.

“It’s the last of them,” he decided, looking at his watch. “A quarter to three, and I haven’t slept ten minutes thus far to-night. Oh, I’ll be in fine condition to-morrow!”

But he felt that the trick must be worn out, and he went back to bed. Exactly twenty minutes later, just as he was beginning to breathe heavily, another clock began to bang away. Browning awoke, and groaned.

“What! again?” he almost sobbed.

He got up, and searched for the clock. It took him four minutes to find it hidden among the slats of his bed.

As in the other cases, a slip of paper was attached to the thing, and he read:

“Don’t you care, old man—it’ll soon be daylight.”

He dropped the clock, and it went bounding merrily under the bed, keeping up its cheerful racket.

“Come out here!” he roared, thrusting himself after it. “Don’t try to dodge me! Don’t try to hide from me!”

He touched it, with a frantic sweep of his arm, but knocked it still farther away.

Then he tore a slat from the bed, and struck at the clock, knocking it out on the farther side. When he tried to back out from beneath the bed, the frame had him pinned across the shoulders, and he was forced to lift it before he could get out. In a burst of anger, he turned it over on its side. Then he got at the clock with the slat.

“Oh, I’ll settle you!” he roared, making a crack at the clock, but missing it entirely. “I’ll destroy you! I’ll hammer the stuffing out of ye! I’ll annihilate ye! Take that—and that! Yow!”

A piece of glass from the clock flew up and cut his face. The coil-spring hopped out, sailed through the air, and settled around his neck.

He dropped the slat, and caught at the spring.

“Come off, here!” he snarled, yanking at it. He cut his neck, and nearly tore his left ear from his head in getting the spring off.

Bleeding, perspiring, furious, he sat there in the middle of the floor, and looked around. The room was a spectacle. Furniture was smashed and scattered all about. The bed was upset, and the battered cases and scattered works of three clocks lay around, and a mirror showed him that he was almost the greatest wreck in the room.

“To-morrow,” he hissed, through his clenched teeth, “to-morrow, I shall be a murderer, for I shall kill the fiend who devised this piece of business!”

He decided that it was useless to try to sleep. He filled his pipe, and sat in an easy chair by the window. On the chair he planted himself in a comfortable position, prepared to wait for the next outbreak, and nip it in the bud. Exhausted nature, however, conquered. He smoked ten minutes, perhaps, and the pipe fell from his mouth.

It was fortunate for him that the next clock got “into gear” just when it did, for it aroused him so that he realized something was burning. He jumped up, with a yell, for his pajamas were afire. With frantic haste, he tore them off, smothering the fire, which had been caused by a spark from his pipe, by the aid of a rug. And the clock played a merry accompaniment while this was taking place.

He found the thing beneath the grate in the fireplace, and it was tagged. On the tag was written:

“Isn’t it just perfectly lovely in Paris!”

Once more he used the window, taking care this time not to hit anybody upon the street. It was near daybreak, and Bruce Browning had spent a very lively night. As the gray streaks of dawn crept in at his window, he gathered some of the bedding in the middle of the floor, and lay down there, where he fell asleep in the midst of the mess.

In the morning, three young men stopped before Bruce Browning’s door, and listened.

“I can’t hear anything,” said Rattleton, with his ear against a panel.

“I can’t see anything,” said Diamond, with his eye to the keyhole.

“Then we will investigate, and find out if he has passed a pleasant night,” said Frank Merriwell, taking a key from his pocket, and preparing to fit it to the lock of the door.

“Eh?” exclaimed Rattleton, staring at the key. “What’s that?”

“Hey!” cried Diamond. “Is that the key to the door?”

“Yes,” nodded Frank, with a smile.

“Where did you get it?”

“Took possession of it last night, after we’d distributed the clocks,” Merry explained. “There’s a spring-lock on all the doors in this hotel, and Browning never missed the key.”

Frank softly inserted the key in the lock, and turned it.

“I’ll bet a cannon wouldn’t arouse him now,” grinned Harry. “Needn’t be so easy, Frank.”

Merry pushed open the door, and the sight that met their gaze filled them with astonishment.

The room was a scene of disorder. Everything was upset, even to the bed. The furniture was scattered about in confusion, and the floor was strewn with the débris of shattered clocks. On the floor beside the overturned bed, Browning was wrapped in a mass of twisted and tangled bedclothing. A sheet was twisted round his throat, and his face was covered with cuts, bruises, and blood. There was blood on the bedding, and it looked as if a sanguinary encounter had taken place there. They came in, and stood looking down at him.

“Wheejiz!” snickered Harry. “It’s plain he had a lively time of it!”

“Looks like he’d fought for his life!” muttered Diamond.

“And he’s still enough to have lost the battle,” said Frank.

“You don’t suppose he was driven to suicide?” gasped Rattleton, in sudden alarm.

“Oh, no,” assured Frank. “Look—he is breathing. Listen—he is muttering some words in his sleep.”

Browning groaned, and thickly muttered:

“Fiends! You have ruined my sleep, but I’ll get square, if I——”

Then the words became an incoherent jumble.

Rattleton grinned.

“Scrate gott, but he did have a lively time of it! Look at this room! It’s a sight!”

“Look at him!” directed Frank. “He’s a sight! How in the world did he get battered and cut up like that?”

“Merriwell,” said Diamond, “he’s sure to be pretty ugly about this when he wakes up.”

“Oh, he’ll get over it. But I don’t believe he’ll forget his second night in Paris as long as he lives.”

“It’s retribution,” declared Rattleton. “Night after night he has tortured me, and kept me awake by his beastly snoring, and he’s been mad enough to eat me when I kicked about it. I didn’t think the clocks would disturb him at all.”

“But it seems that they did,” observed Diamond, with a faint smile.

Rattleton was for sneaking out of the room as quietly as possible, without disturbing Browning, but Frank could not think of leaving without letting Bruce know they had seen him. So they all stood around the big fellow, and sang “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

The big fellow grunted, groaned, kicked—awoke!

For a few moments it was evident he did not catch on to the situation. He lay there, amid the tangled bedding, staring up at the laughing lads, and blinking in a comical manner, so that Rattleton broke down, and began to laugh.

“Huah!” grunted Bruce.

Then Frank and Jack stopped, and Merry said:

“Excuse me, please. I hope this doesn’t disturb you.”

“Waugh!” Bruce struggled to a sitting posture, with the bedspread twisted about his neck like a muffler.

“I hope you are resting well,” snickered Rattleton.

Browning began to tear at the bedspread, a look of rage coming to his bruised and lacerated face.

“You must be very, very tired,” observed Diamond seriously.

A howl of fury escaped Browning’s lips. He looked around the room, and saw the overturned furniture, and the shattered clocks. In a moment, he remembered all the horrors of the previous night.

“You imps of Satan!” he thundered, making a floundering jump to get upon his feet. “I have sworn an oath of vengeance! My time has come! Not one of you leaves this room alive!”

Then his tangled feet tripped him up, and he sprawled on the floor, with a crash, causing the three lads to shout with laughter.

“You seem to be excited, Bruce,” said Frank. “I hope nothing happened in the night to disturb you.”

“Excited!” exploded Browning, tearing at the bedclothes, and ripping a sheet from end to end. “Oh, no, I’m not excited! Let me get my hands on you, Frank Merriwell! You’ll never put up another job like this!”

“You should take something for your nerves,” advised Frank. “It’s plain you have bad dreams. Why don’t you try Mrs. Soothlow’s Wynsling Syrup?”

Browning got hold of a chair, and threw it at Frank, who dodged, and the chair knocked down a mirror.

“You’ll have a nice little bill to pay when you settle for things here,” said Diamond.

“You go to blazes!” cried the enraged giant. “You come round here and grin at me, and you never had sense enough to think up a good practical joke in all your life! Get out of here! Get out lively, if you want to escape with your life!”

“Alas! alas!” exclaimed Frank, with a tragedy pose. “He is mad!”

“You bet I’m mad!” agreed Bruce. “I’m madder than a wet setting hen! I’ll get back at you for this job!”

He got onto his hands and knees, for the purpose of rising, but Merry promptly pushed him over with his foot, causing the big fellow to gnash his teeth.

“Fellows,” said Merry, “we must commit him to an asylum for the violently insane. It is plain that he’s dangerous.”

Browning tore off the baffling bedspread, and again struggled to get up, actually intending to wreak vengeance on them by personal violence; but Merry caught hold of two ends of the spread, and tripped him up with a loop of it, while Rattleton basted him on the head with a pillow, and Diamond picked up all the clothes and flung them on top of him. To finish the job, Merry turned the bedstead over upon him.

“Now, will you be good?” chirped Rattleton.

“We must leave you, Bruce,” said Diamond.

“And we hope you will be feeling better when we return,” laughed Merriwell.

Browning protruded his head from one side of the mass that was piled upon him, and gasped:

“This—settles—it!”

He would have said more, but they shouted with laughter again, and left him there to extricate himself as best he could, closing the door behind them as they went out.

CHAPTER III.
A WALK AND A WARNING.

After breakfast, Frank, Jack, and Harry started out for a stroll. Frenchmen of leisure seldom see Paris in the morning. For that matter, the majority of foreigners seldom see it at that time. It is the universal belief that “gay Paree” is at its best at night, and foreigners with that “frisky feeling” usually wear off much of their exuberance at night, and sleep away forenoons in recuperating for another night. But the Yale lads were there to see the city by day, as well as by night. They found it very bright and beautiful that sunny morning, as they strolled down the Rivoli. The fountains were sparkling in the sunshine, and sparrows were chittering on the brink of the stone bowls. They came to the Place du Châtelet, and strolled over the bridge, where the heavy carts were rumbling, and an occasional omnibus rolled along. From the bridge, the city looked very attractive, rising amid a bower of trees, magnificent and graceful in architecture, and harmonious in its general effect. Columns and arches could be seen, and, as they walked onward slowly, they came in view of the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, rising beyond the barracks. To the right was the Palais de Justice, with its clock and turrets, and stalking sentinels, in blue and vermilion. Then they came to the Place St. Michel, where there was a jumble of carts and omnibuses at that early hour, rumbling about the fountain of ugly, water-spitting griffins.

As they strolled leisurely along, Frank talked to them of the places they passed. Diamond was intensely interested in everything. Paris had a history, and, for him, it was fascinating in a thousand ways.

They passed on up the hill of the Boulevard St. Michel, where there were tooting trams and dawdling gendarmes, strolling in the sunshine, and Merry explained that, when they stepped from the stones of the Place St. Michel, they had “crossed the frontier” and entered the famous Latin Quartier. At last they came to the Luxembourg, which was a blaze of flowers. They walked slowly along the tree-lined avenues, passing moss-covered marbles and old-time columns, and strolled through the grove of the bronze lion, till they came out to the tree-crowned terrace above the fountain.

Diamond uttered an exclamation of pleasure.

“Beautiful!” he cried, gazing down at the basin, shimmering in the morning sunshine.

All around them were trees, and flowers, and statues, and winding walks. At a distance, where ended an avenue of trees, the Observatory rose, its white dome looming up amid the green like an Eastern mosque. At the opposite end of the avenue was the massive palace, with its every window fiery in the morning sunshine. Around the fountain doves were wheeling and cooing. Bees were buzzing amid the flowers, and a gendarme, or policeman, was loitering on his way.

They found a place to sit down and talk. The bells of St. Sulpice chimed the hour, and the palace answered them, stroke for stroke. It was all so peaceful and beautiful that it did not seem possible men had ever fought like wild beasts there in that happy city. It did not seem possible the streets had been deluged with innocent blood, that wild-eyed fanatics had razed the beautiful columns and statues, had burned, and wrecked, and ruined. It did not seem possible that the city had been besieged, and bombarded, and pillaged. They sat and talked of those things.

“Those days are past forever,” said Rattleton.

“Who knows?” spoke Frank.

They looked at him in surprise.

“What do you think?” asked Jack. “Do you look for another revolution in France?”

“It may come.”

“What will bring it?”

“Justice.”

“By that you mean—just what?”

“The reversal of the Dreyfus verdict—perhaps. To-day, France is resting over a slumbering volcano; it is impossible to predict when the eruption may occur.”

“Then you believe there is a possibility that poor Dreyfus may obtain justice?”

“A possibility—yes. At any rate, the whole Dreyfus affair is an ineffaceable blot on France. The country is army-ridden. The army condemned the poor Jew to Devil’s Island, and the army can make no mistake. The honor of the army must be maintained, at any cost, and so conspiracy follows conspiracy, and forgery follows forgery, till the whole affair is so tangled and twisted that a revolution may cut the twisted skein, which nothing seems to unravel.”

“And then what will happen?”

“Who can tell? The streets of Paris may again run red with human blood, works of art may be destroyed, beautiful buildings may be razed, and from the ashes and ruins another form of government may rise. It is not easy to foretell the future of France. Frenchmen are changeable. What pleases them to-day they regard with indifference or contempt to-morrow.”

“Well, I fancy we’ll have a peaceful time here,” said Jack.

“It’ll be a change from what we have been having,” came quickly from Harry. “Things were exciting enough in England.”

“Yes,” nodded Frank; “we did have a hot time there, take it all together.”

“And the wind-up was about as hot as anything,” grinned Rattleton. “We went down into the country with Reynolds, where we thought it would be dead quiet, and things fairly sizzled. Harris turned up again, and tried to kidnap Elsie. The cross-country gallop turned into a man-hunt, and Merry came near finishing Harris when he caught him.”

“He escaped being hanged when he was drowned, after that,” declared Diamond. “He’ll never trouble anybody again.”

“Never,” nodded Frank. “I am glad his blood is not on my hands, but I did come near finishing him at the bridge.”

“You came out of your trance then,” said the Virginian. “Harris realized that the time when you would spare him was past, and that is why he made such a desperate attempt to escape by swimming the river.”

“Let’s not talk about the poor devil,” said Merry seriously. “He is dead.”

“And so is his running-mate, Brattle.”

“No. I have learned that Martin Brattle was not killed in London, but was seriously injured, and taken to a hospital, where he gave a fictitious name. I have reasons to believe he recovered.”

“Well, it’s hardly probable he’ll ever trouble you again.”

“I hope he’ll have sense enough to keep away from me. One thing that happened in London I seriously regret.”

“What was that?”

“I do not know what became of the man of mystery, Mr. Noname, but it seems that he must have perished in the East End fire, at which Brattle was injured.”

“He was a queer creature.”

“And it was remarkable that he took such an interest in me. I did not understand it then, and I do not understand it now. He claimed that he was my guardian spirit—my good genius.”

“He talked like a lunatic sometimes.”

“And yet to him I owe so much! But for him, I might never have found Elsie when Brattle carried her off. He led me straight to her, and then he vanished. Before that, when I was in danger, he appeared, and warned me; since then, no matter what danger has menaced me, he has not appeared, so I fear he perished in the fire.”

“Well, it’s not likely you will need to be warned in Paris, for I fancy our visit here will pass off quietly, with nothing at all in the way of dangerous adventure.”

After awhile, they rose, and started to stroll back to the hotel. They passed out of the Luxembourg to the Boulevard, but had not walked far before a closed carriage drew close to the curbing. From behind the curtained window a black-gloved hand reached out, and beckoned, while a voice called:

“Frank Merriwell!”

Merry started at the sound of that voice. It seemed to stir slumbering memories in his heart, and it caused a strange sensation to pass over him. The hand disappeared, reappeared, held a folded paper toward Frank. Again the voice spoke his name. Merry stepped toward the cab, and took the bit of paper. Then he reached to draw the curtain, but the driver whipped up his horses, and the cab rolled away.

He unfolded the paper, and read:

“In Paris, you must face perils such as never before menaced you, but I shall be near to warn you of danger.”

“The Man Without a Name.”

Frank would have pursued the carriage, but it was rolling away too swiftly for him to overtake it.

His companions observed his excitement, and, as such agitation was something rare in him, they knew it meant more than they could understand.

“What is it?” asked Diamond.

“What’s the matter?” spluttered Rattleton.

Frank stared at the slip of paper.

“It must be a trick,” he said. “Did either of you see the person who handed me this?”

Neither of them had.

“I saw nothing but his hand,” said Jack.

“And that was covered by a black glove,” spoke Harry.

“What’s it say?” asked the Virginian.

Frank read it aloud, and then looked into the faces of his friends.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

“You can search me!” gasped Harry. “I don’t know what to think of it. Dut the whickens—no; what the dickens does it mean?”

“It can’t be from the Man of Mystery,” asserted the Virginian. “Still, he called himself the Man Without a Name.”

Frank stared hard at the writing on the paper. After a little, he said:

“It is as if one had risen from the dead, for I believe this came from Mr. Noname.”

“Well, this mysterious business is getting thin!” cried Jack.

“I think it’s getting thick,” said Harry.

“What’ll you do, Frank?” asked the Virginian.

“Nothing; simply wait for developments.”

“You must be getting rather tired of this. Here, we were just saying we’d have a peaceful, jolly time here in Paris, and right on top of it the fun begins. Why should you be in danger here? Harris will not trouble you, and Brattle is in London. You are practically a stranger in a strange city. I think it’s rot! I don’t take any stock in it.”

“Whether you take any stock in it or not, you must confess that it is rather odd.”

“It couldn’t be a joke? You don’t suppose Browning——”

“I thought of that, but it doesn’t seem likely. I’ll wager that Bruce is sleeping off the excitement of last night.”

The more they talked about it, the more mystified they became, till, at last, they gave it up. Frank put the paper in his pocket, and they continued their careless stroll back to the hotel.

CHAPTER IV.
BRUCE ANGRY.

It was high noon when they reached the Place Vendome, having taken their time in returning. As they approached the hotel, Browning came out, and stood on the marble steps, smoking a cigar. Rattleton began to grin as they drew near, and the big fellow scowled blackly at them. They took off their hats, and saluted him, with mock courtesy.

“Behold, he hath risen!” cried Frank.

“At last, at least, at loost!” gurgled Harry.

“Before you, gentlemen,” said Diamond, “you see a most imposing man.”

“That’s right,” nodded Merry; “he’s imposed on everybody he could borrow money from.”

“He had a very strong face,” observed Rattleton. “I believe he could travel on it.”

“It looks as if he’d been traveling on it,” smiled Frank.

“I should advise the gentleman to turn farmer,” said Harry.

“Yes,” said Frank; “he might be able to raise a beard.”

Browning did not seem to take this chaffing in good part, for he scowled blackly, uttered a growl, swung down the steps, and started off.

“Where are you going, old man?” called Frank.

Browning did not answer, or turn his head, but continued walking away.

“He’s niffed,” said Jack. “That’s queer, for him.”

“He’ll get over it,” declared Rattleton.

But Frank was perplexed and disturbed.

“I don’t like it, fellows,” he declared. “Never saw Bruce take a joke that way before.”

“Oh, he’d thought it a fine thing if it’d been on somebody else,” said Harry. “Let him go. I’m hungry. Let’s have some lunch.”

He caught hold of Frank’s arm, attempting to draw him into the hotel, but Merry would not go.

“I don’t like it,” he confessed. “I don’t care to carry a joke so far that any of my real friends will take offense.”

“Bosh! If Browning is mad about that, it will do him good to let him alone till he recovers.”

Frank continued watching Bruce striding away across the square, and into the Rue Castiglione.

“Go order lunch, fellows,” he said. “I’m going to bring Browning back.”

“Don’t be fool enough to chase after him!” advised the Virginian.

But Frank would not listen, and away he started after the big Yale man, who was striding along as if he had an important engagement to keep. It was near the obelisk that stands by the beautiful fountain in the Place de la Concorde that Frank overtook his college chum. Bruce had paused a moment in the midst of this most beautiful square in the whole world, probably, utterly unaware that he had been followed, when Merry came up, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, old man,” said Frank; “come back to the hotel, and have lunch with us.”

Browning wheeled about, and scowled at Merry.

“Who are you addressing?” he growled, like an angry dog.

“Oh, come!” exclaimed Merry; “drop it! Don’t take a joke from a friend to heart in this manner.”

“Friend!” rumbled the big fellow, with scorn and contempt. “Do you call yourself my friend? Bah!”

Merriwell was astonished more than ever, but he was not willing to think Bruce in earnest.

“Of course I call myself your friend!” he exclaimed. “Are you going to get sore over a harmless joke?”

“I am done with you!” declared Browning dramatically. “I understand your boasted friendship now! You would make a laughing-stock of any friend you might have! Don’t grin at me! I am in earnest! I see through your hollow friendship now! I understand you at last! Leave me! I am done with you!”

“Surely, you do not mean that, Browning?”

“Surely I do!”

“Impossible!”

“Do you think so? Well, you’ll see! I shall look for another hotel! I shall go it alone, and no thanks to you, Frank Merriwell! Don’t dare ever again call me your friend! I am your enemy! All I ask is that you keep away from me, now and forever!”

Frank caught his breath, astounded beyond measure. Browning was glaring at him in the fiercest manner imaginable, and he seemed angry enough to smite Merry full in the face.

“Look here, Bruce,” said Frank, “I had no idea you could be so thin-skinned. If I had thought you’d take it this way, I would not have——”

“It’s too late to tell what you would not have done! You’ve done it!”

“But without a thought of——”

“I advise you to think next time. We were enemies when you first came to Yale, and we’ll be enemies when you return there, if you are lucky enough to get back. I can make it pretty hot for you, and I think I will.”

Frank’s face flushed, and he drew off a bit.

“If you are willing to let a little thing like a joke ruin our friendship——”

“Little thing!” again interrupted Browning. “What do you call a little thing? I didn’t come here to Paris with you to be made a guy! I don’t come here to stand as a butt for your wretched jokes! You have been pretty popular in your day, but you’re outgrowing it, and you won’t cut so much ice in the future. I’m no sycophant, to crawl round after you, and let you impose on me just as you please!”

“You are quite unreasonable, old man. I scarcely looked for anything like this from you, and I think you’ll come to your senses in time.”

“Think what you like; from this time, you and I are quits!”

Then Browning turned, and crossed the square toward the Champs-Élysées, leaving Merry there by the fountain. As he walked away, the big fellow grinned, and muttered:

“You didn’t expect that, did you? Oh, I’ll get back at you, Frank Merriwell! You’ll find there is somebody else who can play at that little game! I wonder how you like it!”

Frank Merriwell stood there in the midst of the Place de la Concorde, and watched Browning depart. On one side lay the swiftly flowing Seine, spanned by a bridge five hundred feet in length; on the opposite side, to the north, a beautiful street disclosed the majestic portal of Madeline. To the left was the Garden of the Tuileries, while to the right opened the Champs-Élysées. The fountain tinkled and splashed in the sunshine, and over the smooth, hard pavement cabs came and went like swarms of insects. It seemed that this splendid square, where crowds of joyous people seemed forever crossing and recrossing, had been appropriately named, “The Place of Peace,” but there Frank Merriwell had failed to make peace with his offended comrade, and, as he stood reflecting, he remembered all the horrors that had taken place there on that spot where fell the shadow of the obelisk.

There had been erected the hideous guillotine, the glittering blade of which had descended upon the necks of thousands of the aristocracy of France, among whom were Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. The very ground beneath the stones was soaked with human blood, for there, day after day, the imbruted mob had gathered to sing, and laugh, and shout, as head after head of old and young, weak and strong, proud and beautiful, rich and famous, had rolled from the gory scaffold to mingle in the common basket.

Frank shuddered with horror as he thought of the “knitting women” and “The Vengeance,” described by Dickens. He closed his eyes for a moment, and his vision showed him the scaffold, and he could hear those women calmly counting the blood-dripping heads as they continued to knit, knit, knit, and the scarlet blade rose and fell, cutting short the thread of a human life each time it descended. He saw the long lines of tumbrels rumbling through the streets, surrounded by the armed guard and the howling mobs, all headed toward this blood-cursed spot, bearing helpless and innocent victims to doom.

In fancy, he saw a royal carriage enter that square, and stop near the raised platform, above which rose the blood-red post of the guillotine, and he saw Louis XVI. alight from the carriage, to be immediately surrounded by his executioners. He saw Louis remove his coat and cravat, and then object when they tried to bind his hands. He saw the confessor remonstrate with Louis, till, at last, the doomed man stretched out his hands, saying: “Do what you will; I will drink the cup to the dregs!” Frank pictured him, with a firm step, ascending to that blood-soaked platform. Then the drums beat, to drown his words; the spring was touched, and the fearful knife slid down the grooves.

Then came Marie Antoinette, not in a closed carriage, like the king, but in an open cart, the same as the poorest wretch of them all. For a moment she had recoiled from the cart, which she saw beyond the gate of the courtyard, and then she had advanced up the steps, with firm and steady tread, armed guards on every hand, a hooting mob welcoming her appearance. And thus she had ridden through the streets to that fearful square, now called “The Place of Peace.” On the scaffold, she had looked over the seething mob to the Garden of the Tuileries, and the scenes of her former happiness, while a tear had rolled down her pale cheek. “Farewell, my children!” she had murmured; “I go to join your father.” Then she bowed her head, the knife fell, and the frightful deed was done.

France may erect fountains in the midst of that beautiful square, but all the water in the world will not wash away the blood that has been shed there!

Frank Merriwell gave himself a shake, as if throwing off these gruesome thoughts, and banishing the horrid visions. Browning had disappeared.

“I was a fool to let him go like that!” muttered Merry. “If I am to blame, I’m willing to apologize, and I feel sure Browning will accept an apology.”

Then he hurried across the square, and followed Bruce. Frank fancied he must soon overtake Browning, but he was surprised to traverse the entire length of the Elysian Fields before catching a glimpse of the big Yale man.

Browning was turning into a side street as Frank observed him. He seemed walking as if to keep an appointment with some one. Puzzled not a little by what had happened, and by Browning’s mysterious behavior, Frank followed at a distance.

At last, Browning came to a little café, and he entered, without once looking back. Merry decided that it was an ordinary drinking-saloon, and he wondered if Browning had gone in there for the purpose of indulging freely in intoxicants.

After a moment of hesitation, Merry followed. The moment Frank stepped inside the door, he decided it was a cheap place, indeed. From the outside, it did not look so bad; but, once inside, it reminded him of the den of the Red Flag, where he had found the well-known ruffians of Paris assembled.

A few men were drinking at tables. They looked at Frank suspiciously as he glanced them over. He saw nothing of Browning. A door opened into another room. To that door he advanced. A man met him, and asked, in French, what he wanted.

“I am looking for a friend,” answered Merry, likewise in French.

“Have you the sign?”

“The what?”

“The sign.”

“No; I don’t know what——”

“Then you cannot enter.”

At this moment, a voice from within cried out something in very bad French, and the man at the door suddenly stepped aside, saying:

“Enter.”

Frank hesitated a moment, and then stepped into the room. Immediately the door closed behind him with a click.

Frank stood there looking around in the dim light which came through a curtained window. He saw there were several persons in the room. At the farther end was a passage.

“L’espion!”

The word was hissed through the gloom, and it put Frank on the alert in a moment.

Somebody had called him a spy! What did it mean? All around him, men rose up, and, in that moment, he realized he had walked into grave peril. Out in the passage, a door opened, admitting a faint gleam of light. Somebody passed through the door, and Frank was certain he recognized Bruce Browning hurriedly leaving.

“Browning!” he called. “Browning, stop!”

He leaped toward the passage.

Slam! The door closed, and the departing person was gone.

Bang! Another door slammed in his face, and he was kept from entering the passage.

Like a flash, Frank whirled about. Somewhere, he fancied, he heard a person hammering on a door, the blows echoing along the closed passage. He was not armed, and he realized that some sort of danger beset him. It was startling, because it was so unexpected and mysterious. Out from the men who had risen, one advanced. Even in the gloom of the place, to which Frank’s eyes were not yet accustomed, there seemed something familiar about this person.

“It is Frank Merriwell!” exclaimed an exulting, triumphant voice. “We are met again!”

The hammering which echoed through the passage became a crash, as if a door had fallen before an assault. Then followed something like a sodden blow, and a groan. What queer thing was happening beyond the door at Frank Merriwell’s back?

“Yes, we are met again!” exulted the man that confronted Frank. “Look at me! You know me!”

The man bent forward, and Frank’s eyes seemed to pierce the gloom. In amazement, Merry started back against the door.

“Martin Brattle?” he exclaimed, in doubt. “It can’t be!”

“Oh, but it is!” declared the man. “You thought me dead; but, you see, I am not. I have followed you here. I have come for Elsie!”

“Elsie!”

“Yes. Where is she?”

“She is not in Paris.”

“You lie! I know she is here! You shall send a message that will bring her to you—and to me!”

“Are you crazy, Brattle? Did your fall rob you of reason? Elsie Bellwood is in England. She did not accompany me to France.”

“And you think you can make me believe that? Bah! I know you, Frank Merriwell! You are a great bluffer, but the game will not go now!”

Then he turned to the other men, crying, in broken French:

“Down with the spy! Don’t let him escape! I have told you who he is! Down with him!”

And they sprang, like famished tigers, at Frank!

Frank Merriwell felt that it was to be a fight for life against terrible odds. He leaped aside, caught up a chair, swung it over his head, and splintered it with a blow that stretched one of his assailants on the floor.

Then Frank laughed! It was the old-time, reckless laugh that broke from his lips in moments of great danger. It sounded weird and uncanny now, and, for a single instant, it seemed to check the assault of his many foes.

“At him!” screamed Brattle. “Capture him! Down with him!”

Merry flung the broken chair at the man who was urging the others on. It struck him, and sent him sprawling and spluttering.

“Come on, my fine fellows!” invited Frank. “Or, if you won’t come on, I’ll come to you!”

He did! With a leap, he was among them. Never had the young Yale athlete used his hard fists to better advantage. He was fresh and unhampered, and he cracked about him at the heads of those men, leaping, darting, ducking, diving, striking all the time. One man he smashed on the ear, another he hit in the eye, a third he struck fair and full in the pit of the stomach, having dodged a blow himself. And Frank laughed again, exulting in the fury of the fight.

Those Frenchmen were astonished, for they had not conceived that one lone Yankee could make such a fight. They had fancied it would be the easiest thing in the world to leap on the American, crush him down, bind him, make him captive. But he was like a whirlwind among them, and he sent them flying in all directions.

“Mon Dieu!“ they cried. “He is a fury! He is a madman!”

“I am a trifle mad,” admitted Frank, as he skilfully kicked one fellow full in the face, sending him flying across a table. “It starts me a bit to be jumped on in this manner. Good morning! Have you used Pear’s soap?”

With this question, he came round at a fellow who had tried to grapple him behind, hitting him a smashing blow that flung him bodily against the partition. There were yells, and groans, and curses. Men were scrambling over each other on the floor, struggling up, and falling again. There came the crash of glass and the splintering of wood.

Somebody struck at Frank with a chair, but he dodged the blow, so that it did not fall fairly, although he felt it on his shoulder. Then he wrenched the chair from the man’s hands, and beat him down with his own weapon.

“I think I shall enjoy this after awhile!” he exclaimed. “It’s a real lively time!”

“Fight as much as you like!” snarled the voice of Brattle. “You can’t get out! We have you, and you’ll be used all the worse for making such a row!”

“Come over where I can get another crack at you!” invited Merry. “If I could hit you once more, real hard, I wouldn’t mind what happened after that!”

“I’ll get a crack at you before I’m done, see if I don’t!”

“You will follow your friend Harris, and he won’t trouble anybody again!”

“You killed him?”

“No; he drowned himself.”

“I’ll not follow him till I have settled with you! Down with him, men!”

A door opened and closed, and a huge form loomed in the gloom of the place.

Frank saw it, and cried:

“Browning! You are just in time! Come on, old man, give me a hand!”

The gigantic form loomed at Merry’s side, and then Frank was struck a terrible blow that stretched him on the floor.

“Treachery!” he gasped, trying to struggle up. “Browning, you have turned——”

They piled upon him. With a fearful effort, he flung them right and left.

“Hold!”

There was a sudden burst of light, as the door leading to the passage flew open. A man entered, bearing a lamp that was lighted. Struggling to his feet, Frank Merriwell saw the Mystery was there, having entered from the passage!

The strange man was dressed in black from his head to his feet. His hair and his beard were black as the raven’s wing, and his deep-set eyes seemed like pools of ink, while his face was pale as marble. His appearance caused the ruffians to desist for a moment from their attack on Frank. There was something terrible in the demeanor of the man who called himself Mr. Noname. Before him Martin Brattle shrank and cowered.

But one of the ruffians uttered a snarl, crying, in French:

“Down with them both! They are both spies!”

The mob crouched like tigers about to spring.

“Back!” rang out the deep voice of the mysterious man.

They paused.

“Back!” he cried, lifting one hand above his head. “I hold a bomb here, and, by the eternal heavens, I’ll drop it, and blow this building to atoms, if you do not keep off!”

That stopped them. They could see a round object in his uplifted hand, and a sudden fear seized upon them. There was something in his pose and manner that awed them.

“Now,” said the strange man, speaking to Frank Merriwell, “the time for you to depart has come. No one will lift a hand to stop you. The way is open.”

Frank realized that the Mystery had appeared at the proper moment to save him, and he was thankful, but cool.

“And you,” he asked, “what will you do?”

“I will go with you. Never fear for me. Nothing can harm me. But I shall blow them to pieces if they try to stop us!”

Frank stepped past him, and entered the passage. Still holding his hand uplifted, the Man of Mystery retreated backward into the passage.

With a swift movement, he placed the lamp on a shelf, and closed the door, crying loudly, in perfect French:

“The first man who tries to enter by that door will be blown to a thousand fragments!”

He stepped softly to Frank’s side.

“Follow!” he said.

At the end of the passage was the door by which Merry had fancied he saw Browning departing. Now it was shattered and broken, as if it had been struck by a battering-ram, and Frank remembered the blows which had resounded through the passage, and the crash that had been followed by groans. Frank also remembered the gigantic figure that had appeared in the darkened room where the battle was taking place, and how he had thought it Browning returned to his aid. But the giant had struck him down with a blow, and he could not believe Bruce had done that.

Out by the shattered door they passed, and found themselves in a yard that was surrounded by a high stone wall. In the wall was an iron gate, but it opened at the touch of the Mystery. Beyond the gate, they were beneath some drooping trees, which seemed to lack the sunlight which was shut off by the crowding buildings.

The Man Without a Name did not pause. He led the way to a door, and, to Frank, it seemed that all portals yielded like magic to his touch, for the door flew open before him. Soon they had passed on, and emerged upon a narrow street.

“You are free,” said the Mystery. “But go not back to that place. It is a nest of serpents.”

“My friend—he went in there.”

“Your friend?” said the Mystery questioningly. “Who is your friend?”

“Bruce Browning.”

“Who is your friend?” repeated the strange man. “You can be sure of no friend but me. I am ever constant. Other friends may fail you, but I will not.”

“But he is back there!”

“How do you know?”

“I followed him in there.”

“And found him not. Trust not friends whom you fail to find in your hour of need.”

“I cannot go away while he may be in peril!”

“You cannot go back, and escape with your life! It is a devils’ nest! The vipers of Paris are there. They plot, and rob, and slay. Among them is an enemy who has followed you across the ocean. He has paid them to destroy you. Keep away from the nest of vipers. Even though you saw your friend go in there, did you not see him come out?”

“Who are you?” cried Frank, amazed. “How is it you know so much? How is it you are always near when I am in peril?”

“There is a tie that binds us.”

“What tie?”

“Fate.”

“I do not understand this mystery.”

“It is not for you to understand now. The time may come when the scales will fall from your eyes, and you shall know all.”

The man seemed ready to turn away, but Frank put out a hand appealingly.

“Can’t you tell me more?” he pleaded. “I thought you had perished in the fire in London.”

“Fire cannot destroy me. My time has not come.”

“Why is it that the sound of your voice seems to awaken echoes of memory within me? Why is it I feel a strange thrill run over me when you are near? Why is it I trusted you from the very first, even though you seemed an enemy?”

“Does not your heart answer those questions?”

“My heart struggled with the problem, but cannot answer it. I am mystified—bewildered—dazed.”

“I tell you the time will come when the scales shall fall from your eyes, and the mystery be revealed unto you. I have proved that I am worthy of trust, have I not?”

“Yes—yes!”

“Trust me, and wait.”

“But why do men shrink before you? I am sure it was more your presence than the bomb that cowed those tigers.”

“The bomb!” said the strange man. “There was no bomb!”

“No bomb?”

“No; nothing but this.”

In his extended hand, the Man of Mystery held an oval-shaped cake of dark-colored substance.

“What is it?” wondered Frank.

“Soap!”

“What?”

“Soap—nothing more!”

“Impossible!” gasped Merry. “Impossible that you cowed those ruffians with a cake of soap!”

“It is the bomb with which I threatened them. When I entered the passage by that broken door to go to your rescue, I found the lamp and the cake of soap on a shelf. The lamp I lighted, and the cake of soap I took with me. You witnessed the result.”

“Astounding!” gasped Frank. “It is almost beyond belief! Talk of nerve—that takes the cake!”

“We shall meet again,” said the Mystery. “Go back to the hotel now, and do not worry about any false friend. Farewell, for a time.”

Then the man turned, and walked away along the narrow street.

Frank hesitated, watching him. When the man was far along the street, Merry hurried after him. He was in time to see the strange being reach the corner, and enter a closed carriage that seemed waiting for him. Away rolled the carriage.

CHAPTER V.
FRANK IN A QUANDARY.

Wondering greatly over what had happened, and not a little troubled thereat, Frank Merriwell returned to the hotel. The singular appearance of the Mystery in Paris, the remarkable behavior of Browning, the turning up of Brattle, the encounter in the café, and the rescue by Mr. Noname were events of an order to fill him with astonishment. It is a credit to Frank that the behavior of Browning troubled him more than anything else. It had not seemed possible that big, good-natured Bruce would turn against Frank for a little thing like a harmless practical joke; but, when Merry thought over the talk in the Place de la Concorde, and Browning’s manner, he was led to confess to himself that it might be that Bruce was actually too angry for reason.

“He’ll be sorry for it,” thought Frank. “He must have known I followed him to that café, and he dodged out by the back way, as I entered that darkened room where those ruffians were. I saw him departing.”

Then he thought of the sound of blows echoing along the passage, the crash, and the groans. He had found the door broken down, but it had told him nothing.

But the giant who appeared in the darkened room, and struck him down—who was that? He knew it had looked just like Browning, but it was not Browning, for nothing could have led the big fellow to such dastardly work.

“I’ll find Bruce back at the hotel,” Merry told himself. “He will laugh at me for the chase he has given me.”

He hurried his footsteps. His brain was in a whirl. The mystery of the Man Without a Name was enough to bewilder him, and that, added to the other things that had happened, put him in a maze. And, only a few short hours before, he had promised himself that his visit in Paris was to be quiet and uneventful!

When he reached the hotel, he found Jack and Harry watching for him. They plied him with questions, but he answered nothing till he had asked:

“Is Bruce here?”

“We have seen nothing of him,” they declared.

“He must be here,” insisted Frank.

“It’s strange we have not seen him, if he returned.”

They looked for him, but he was not in his room, nor could he be found about the hotel. Frank threw himself upon a chair, and stared at the floor, with a troubled look.

“What’s the matter?” asked Diamond. “Hanged if you don’t look as if you’d been in a scrimmage!”

“I have,” said Merry quietly.

“What?”

Both lads stared at him.

“Kit your quidding—I mean quit your kidding!” spluttered Harry.

“I am not kidding,” assured Merry. “I have been in one of the hottest scraps of my life.”

Then he told them about it, and they listened with growing amazement. When he told them of the appearance of Brattle, both lads leaped to their feet.

“That fellow here?” shouted the Virginian.

“Poly hoker!” panted Rattleton. “Have you been having a pipe-dream, Merry?”

“It’s no dream. Mart Brattle is in Paris. He has followed me here, thinking to get hold of Elsie Bellwood.”

“But Elsie is in London.”

“He didn’t know it. He thought she came to Paris at the same time we came.”

“Well, it was a most unfortunate thing when that thug escaped being killed in London!” cried Diamond.

“It would have been no great loss to the world,” confessed Frank; “but he did escape, and he is here. But for Mr. Noname, Brattle’s gang must have downed me in the end. That man appeared at just the right moment to pull me out of the scrape.”

“And stood the ruffians off with a bomb?” said Rattleton.

“A bomb that was no bomb at all,” smiled Frank, amused by the recollection.

“No bomb?”

“How was that?”

Frank explained, causing Jack and Harry to collapse.

“That’s the greatest trick I ever heard of!” exclaimed the Virginian in admiration. “I’ll never again say anything about Mr. Noname. A man who can do a thing like that is all right.”

They talked over all that had happened. It was very remarkable, and created no end of discussion. Diamond alone thought it possible Browning had been in earnest. Rattleton could not conceive that Bruce would remain offended, and Frank had felt all along that the big fellow would come round.

“But he’s shown what he’s made of,” said Jack.

“And you would have taken it just as much to heart, if you had been in his place,” said Harry. “You are a poor fellow to take a joke.”

Jack flushed.

“When I know it’s a joke, I can take it,” he asserted.

Tutor Maybe appeared at this juncture, and began to talk with Frank about his studies; but Merry was in no mood to discuss such matters then, and he promptly said so.

“To-morrow, or the day after, will be time enough,” he said. “Don’t bother me now. I have enough on my mind.”

It was not considered advisable to alarm the tutor by telling him of Frank’s adventure, and Maybe was left to fret and worry as much as he liked, while the boys went out to look after Bruce. The day passed, and Browning failed to return. As evening drew on, Frank grew restless and anxious. He could not think that the big fellow was remaining away out of pique or anger, and he began to fear, despite the remembered assurance of Mr. Noname, that some thing had happened to Bruce.

Again and again he thought of the strange hammering at the door in the passage of the queer café, the crash, and the groans. At last, for all of any danger he might encounter, he resolved to visit the place again. From his trunk Merry took out a revolver, which he carefully loaded. Diamond and Rattleton watched him with curiosity, not to say anxiety.

“Where are you going?” the Virginian asked, after awhile.

“To the dive where I had the little scrap,” declared Frank.

“No, not there?”

“Yes, right there.”

Jack rose.

“Come, Rattleton,” he said; “we must get our shooting-irons.”

“What do you intend to do?” asked Merry.

“Go with you,” asserted Diamond grimly.

“You bet!” nodded Harry, with satisfaction. “If you are going back into that hornets’ nest, we’ll be right with you. But why don’t you notify the police, and——”

“Be notified to keep away from the place? Excuse me,” said Frank grimly. “I do not care for the French police in mine. But, with a gun at hand, I’ll be able to take care of myself.”

“With Rattleton and myself at hand, you’ll be better able to take care of yourself, and so we are going along,” said Jack, as he marched out of the room.

Jack and Harry armed themselves, and announced to Frank that they were ready. The trio started out, prepared for any kind of an adventure they might encounter.

“If I knew where to find Mr. Noname now,” said Merry. “But it’s more than even money he will find me, if I run my nose into any danger. He always pops up at the right moment.”

The lights were beginning to twinkle when they turned into the crooked little street, and approached the café where Frank had met with his adventure. Merry strode along, with swinging step, seeming anxious to reach the place as soon as possible. When they came in front of the narrow little door, a white-aproned old man was lighting the gas within. As they entered, they saw men sitting at the tables, eating, drinking, and smoking, while white-aproned waiters served them.

Frank had made sure of the place, but, somehow, it did not seem quite the same by gaslight. The door to the back room was open, and Merry advanced, without hesitation, to it. He expected that he would be denied admittance, but, to his astonishment, no one asked him for “the sign,” and he stepped into the room, where the tables were covered by cloths, and a few rather respectable-looking old men were drinking and smoking, as they chatted in the seclusion of the place.

More dazed than ever, Frank looked round the place, and it seemed quite unfamiliar, save that there was a door just where he felt certain the entrance to the passage must be. Two long steps took him to the door, but it was fastened, and refused to move at his touch. The old men looked at him in surprise. A waiter came up, and mildly asked what he wanted. Everything seemed so quiet and peaceful there that he wondered if he could be dreaming. By day, the place had been dark and sinister, filled with human tigers; by night, it was alight, and seemed in every way a respectable café.

Frank’s companions observed the bewildered look on his face, and they wondered if he had made a blunder.

“What does monsieur want?” again asked the waiter.

“I want to see the proprietor,” said Frank boldly, speaking in most excellent French. “It is important. Tell him that I must see him at once.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

The waiter bowed low, and departed. After a little, he returned with a gentlemanly looking man, who had a white mustache and imperial, and carried himself with a military air.

“Monsieur,” said the waiter to Frank, “this is M. Delambre.”

M. Delambre bowed in a most courteous manner.

“And what favor may I have the honor of doing you, gentlemen?” he asked suavely.

“I was here this afternoon,” said Frank, speaking boldly and to the point.

“And you return again to-night,” smiled M. Delambre in a flattered manner. “That speaks well for the manner in which you were entertained. Accept my thanks.”

“Oh, I was well entertained!” exclaimed Frank. “It was in this room, too. Here I came, alone and a stranger, and here I was set upon by a pack of ruffians, from whom I barely escaped with my life!”

M. Delambre seemed thunderstruck. He started back, and stared at Merry, one hand uplifted.

“Monsieur,” he cried gently, “what are you saying? Are you mad? Or are you jesting, after the manner of some foreigners?”

“I am neither, M. Delambre; I am speaking the truth, as you must know.”

“Be careful, sir. I have a respectable place here, and I cannot afford to have my business ruined.”

“Your place seems respectable enough now, but it was filled with ruffians this afternoon. In this very room, I fought a band of them, and they came near doing me up. Now, M. Delambre, I have some questions to ask you, and it is best that you answer them.”

The Frenchman drew himself up haughtily.

“Sir, you are insulting!” he said harshly. “I can prove by a hundred persons that my house is thoroughly respectable, and I will permit no one to injure me by such stories. I advise you to leave here at once, or I will call in the gendarmes!”

“Call them, if you like,” said Merry, with perfect coolness. “I do not believe you care to attract attention to yourself and your place.”

M. Delambre made a gesture of despair.

“You foreigners—you Englishmen!” he cried. “It is useless to argue with you!”

Frank did not fancy being called an Englishman, and he told the Frenchman as much.

“I am an American, and in America we have a way of coming straight to the point. Now, see here, M. Delambre, I do not wish to make you any trouble, but I am trying to find out something about a friend whom I followed into this place. He has disappeared.”

The Frenchman held up both hands, a look of horror on his face.

“Monsieur,” he cried, “do you mean to add that I know something about the disappearance of your friend? That is still worse! You have added to the insult! I beg you to leave my place at once, or I shall be forced to call my waiters, and have you ejected!”

“Now, see here, sir,” came grimly from Merry, “I advise you to go slow about this ejecting business! I don’t think you can summon enough waiters to eject my friends and myself.”

“Let him try it!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Do let him try it!” urged Rattleton.

Both of Frank’s friends looked very eager for a scrimmage, and the proprietor of the café showed still further agitation. Again Frank plied him with questions, but now he took another turn, relapsing into grim silence, shrugging his shoulders, sneering, and scowling. It was useless to coax, or threaten, or cajole. M. Delambre closed up like a clam, and nothing could they learn from him.

“Better make a complaint to the authorities, Merry,” suggested Diamond. “Better have the joint placed under surveillance.”

Frank did not fancy being baffled in such a manner, but he realized that his efforts were wasted. Some of the waiters came and stood near, scowling at the three lads, which made Diamond long for a pitched battle. Rattleton, also, expressed an “itching” to punch a few heads.

Merry knew better than to create a disturbance there then, and so he was forced to beat a retreat, giving over the effort to obtain any information concerning Browning. When they were outside, he turned, and surveyed the front of the place closely.

“I suppose you are sure you’re right?” asked Jack. “This is the place?”

“Beyond a doubt,” declared Frank. “There are some clever rascals in there, and M. Delambre is chief of them all.”

But Merry was more downcast over the outcome of the affair than he cared to let his friends know.

CHAPTER VI.
TRAPPED.

The Champs-Élysées were blazing with light from the Arch of Triumph to the Place de la Concorde. The café-chantants were in full blast. Colored electric lights spelled out the names of the different places of amusement. Swarms of cabs and carriages, with their yellow side lamps, came and went. Long rows of tables stood under the trees, surrounded by men and women, who were dining in the open air, bareheaded, chatting, laughing, joyous.

Down the broad avenue went the three American lads, returning to the hotel, where they hoped to find the missing one. The sound of music and singing from the theaters lured them not. The sound of talk, and laughter, and tinkling glasses at the tables did not stop them. The sight of all these people enjoying themselves as human beings can enjoy themselves in no other part of the world did not check their footsteps.

Frank Merriwell had been there before, and he knew all this by heart; but, to Jack and Harry, the sights and sounds were new and novel. At some of the tables, they saw parties of respectable Americans, people of high standing and good breeding, eating and drinking there, beneath the lighted trees at the edge of the sidewalk, utterly unconscious that they were doing anything remarkable. And yet no amount of money could have induced those same persons to sit around a table place at the corner of Thirty-third Street and Broadway, in New York. In Paris, they were ready and glad to adopt the manners of the natives.

Leaving all this behind, the boys hastened to the hotel, where they were again disappointed, for Browning was not there. They looked at each other helplessly.

“Something serious has happened to him,” asserted Frank. “I feel it—I know it!”

“He is to blame for it all!” exploded Jack petulantly. “If he had not taken a nif, and posted off by himself, you’d never run into that joint where you had the scrap. If he’s been knocked down, and robbed, and murdered, he brought it on himself.”

Frank was beginning to feel miserable. He went to his room, where he paced up and down. Then he stole out of the hotel, all by himself, and started back along the route over which he had followed Bruce that morning. Down in the midst of the Elysian Fields he paused, and sat down, all alone, at a table, where he ordered a drink of ginger-ale, and sat sipping it.

Frank had about made up his mind to go to the authorities, and report that the big Yale man was missing. He hated to do it, but he feared he was making a mistake in neglecting to do so. As he sat there, several persons brushed past his table. Who had dropped a slip of paper upon it, he could not tell, but he found it lying there before him.

Merry picked it up. There was writing upon the paper. It said:

“Come to the Theater of the Republic. I will meet you there. I am watching Mart Brattle, and do not wish to leave him.

Browning.”

Frank gave a great jump. He bent over, and examined the writing.

“Browning’s hand!” he exclaimed. “This is from him, but how did it get here?”

There was a mystery. Mysterious happenings were crowding fast.

Frank began to fancy that he understood why Browning had remained away from the hotel all day. The big fellow had been tracking Brattle. Frank sprang up, completely thrown off his guard for the moment. He did not stop to think it over. The Theater of the Republic was near at hand, and soon he was hurrying toward it.

As he approached the entrance, a man suddenly appeared at his side, and grasped his wrist, speaking a single word into his ear:

“Stop!”

Frank faced the man like a flash.

It was Mr. Noname!

“Stop!” commanded the Mystery. “You are going straight to your death!”

Needless to say, Frank stopped.

“You here?” he exclaimed.

“Yes—in time to stop you from falling into the trap. You have been summoned to enter that place. In there, behind a column which you must pass, stands a man with a dagger hidden in his sleeve. He means to place that dagger in your heart!”

Despite himself, Frank shivered.

“How do you know this?”

“How do I know anything? Do not ask me. Have I ever deceived you?”

“Never.”

“I am not deceiving you now. I know whereof I speak.”

“But, my friend, the one I seek has summoned me there.”

“No! The summons was a forgery. Your friend is not there.”

Wondering still more, Frank snatched the scrap of paper from his pocket, and scanned it again, standing there in the glare of lights, which made the place as bright as day.

“It is his writing!” he exclaimed.

“A forgery, I tell you!” persisted Mr. Noname. “A clever one, perhaps; but your friend did not write it. Your deadliest enemy is in there. He is watching the assassin he has hired to do the job. The assassin has laid his plans well, and expects to escape after he has struck you down.”

Frank was convinced, for never had he known the Mystery to tell him anything but the truth.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Keep away.”

“I can’t do that. You say my enemy is in there? You say Brattle is there, then?”

“Yes; he is there.”

“I want to find him. I wish to shadow him.”

“Better leave him to me.”

“I cannot leave everything to you. My friend Bruce Browning has disappeared. You cannot tell me where to find him.”

“Can’t I?”

“Can you?”

“Perhaps not just now,” admitted the Mystery; “but, if you want to know——”

“I do! I shall not rest till I find out!”

“Then I will help you to find out.”

“I am sure this man Brattle has had a hand in the disappearance of my friend. If not, how does it happen that he knows Browning is not with me? Brattle must be followed—he must be tracked to his hole!”

“Let me do it.”

“You cannot do everything. I must have a disguise. I must go in there! I am determined to go in there!”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“I will see that you have what you want.”

They sprang into a cab, the man of mystery spoke to the driver, and away they went. It was not a long drive. The cab dropped them at the door of a dark, little shop. The Mystery knocked with his knuckles against a pane in a window, and soon the door opened. They entered. A coal-oil lamp lighted the place.

“Felix,” said Mr. Noname, “my young friend wants a disguise. It must change his appearance so his best friend will not know him.”

“Oui,” grunted Felix, the withered old keeper of the shop. “I will make him so his own mother could not know him.”

And when Frank issued from the place, less than twenty minutes later, Felix had kept his word. Frank was made up to look like a sap-headed English swell, and his clothes were of the style affected by so many British tourists, who seemed to delight in making themselves as conspicuous and ridiculous as possible. Frank carried a heavy stick, and his hair was combed down over his forehead in a bang. The expression on his face was one of vapid stupidity. He wore a monocle, and he walked in an affected manner.

Thus Frank appeared at the door of the Theater of the Republic, where he paid the price required, and entered. A woman was singing on the stage as Merry came sauntering in. Men were sitting everywhere about the tables, talking to women. No one seemed paying much attention to what was taking place on the stage.

Frank Merriwell looked for the assassin by the pillar—and fancied he found him. A man was loitering near one, his hat pulled over his eyes. This man seemed to scan the face of every person who entered.

“Brattle must be near,” decided Frank.

He took a position where he could watch, and waited to get track of Brattle. The man by the pillar was impatient. It was plain he had about given up. At last, he turned, with an impatient gesture, and declined to remain on the watch longer.

Frank knew well enough that this was one of the ruffians who had attacked him in the saloon. He resolved to try his disguise upon the man.

Approaching the hired assassin, he paused, and drawled:

“Me good fellaw, can yer tell me what houah Anna Held comes on? I have seen the little peach in Hamerica, don’t y’ ’now, and I want to see her hagain, don’t y’ hunderstand. Ya-as, by Jawve!”

The man made a swift and rather savage retort in French, shrugging his shoulders, and turning his back on Merry.

Frank smiled to himself.

“In rather bad temper, I take it,” he thought. “Failed to see anything of your game, and so you are impolite.”

Another man came up hurriedly, and spoke to the one who had been loitering by the pillar. It was Brattle. With boldness, Merry addressed his enemy, his face wearing an expression of idiotic anxiety:

“I say, me deah man, cawn’t yer tell me what time Anna Held comes on? I’d like to see her hagain, ye hunderstand.”

“Oh, go to the devil, you wooden-headed chump!” exclaimed Martin Brattle, grasping his companion by the arm and turning toward the door.

“Haw! Very wude cwecher!” gasped Frank, thrusting the head of his cane into his mouth and staring after them.

He did not let them escape, but when they reached the open air he was following them. It was no easy thing to shadow two men along the brilliantly lighted Champs-Élysées, but Frank did the job in a manner that would have done credit to a professional detective; and, after a time, they turned into another street, where it was easier.

Frank followed them a long, long time, for they did not seem to suspect that he was at their heels. Then, to his infinite disgust, he lost them. They seemed to melt into the very stones of the street. Frank was certain they must have entered some place near at hand, but he had not seen them do so, and he could not tell which way to turn.

He was thoroughly aroused.

“Well, I’ve done a smart trick!” he muttered. “I’ve let them get away after tracking them here! What would the Mystery say to that?”

“That you did well to track them so far,” murmured a voice, and the Mystery stepped out of a dark doorway within ten feet of him.

The appearance of the strange man gave Frank a start, despite his strong nerves.

“You?” he gasped. “How does it happen that you are here?”

“Do not ask questions now. You wish to know where those men went?”

“Yes.”

“This way.”

Mr. Noname drew Frank in at the doorway. They passed through a narrow passage, ascended a flight of stairs, descended another, and yet another, crossed a cemented cellar, ascended some stone steps, and came out into the little back yard of the café where the fight had taken place that day. Directly before Frank, beneath the gloomy trees, was the shattered door, now mended and standing in place.

“There is where you will find them,” asserted the Mystery; “but this door is closed now, and it is barred on the other side. Wait. I will pass to the other side and open it for you.”

“How can you do anything like——”

Frank stopped and caught his breath. He was alone! The Mystery had disappeared!

“Well, talk about your modern magic—this beats anything yet! That man comes and goes like a disembodied spirit.”

The Mystery had promised to open that door, and Merry had confidence to believe he would keep his word, so he waited there in the narrow yard beneath the gloomy trees. He heard a distant clock tolling the hour, and the sound gave him a chill, like a bell pealing for the passing of a soul.

Frank pushed against the mended door, but it stood firm before him. He moved about and explored the yard. In this manner it seemed that at least an hour passed. Of course it was not so long, but time dragged slowly with him waiting there. Frank was growing impatient, when he heard a sound behind him, and wheeled about. Black shadows were appearing under the trees. There was more than one of them—there were several! Those shadows moved like creatures of life. They seemed to crouch and steal toward him. In the blackness under the trees there was a whisper. Frank Merriwell recoiled against the mended door, his heart leaping into his mouth.

“Trapped!”

The word leaped to his lips, and his hand flew for a weapon. In that instant those shadows darted forward and sprang upon him. He tried to draw his revolver, but it was knocked from his hand. In falling it was discharged when it struck the ground, and the flash lighted for a single instant the triumphant face of Frank’s enemy, Martin Brattle.

Merry struck hard and sure for that face, and his fist landed. The man was knocked down, but he struggled up, snarling:

“Crush him down! Capture him! Don’t kill him! I have a use for him! Take him alive!”

“If you can!” panted Merry, fighting like a tiger at bay.

They leaped upon him, and he hurled them back. They tried to beat him down, but he stood like iron before their blows. He sent them reeling, cursing, falling. He felt that he had been betrayed at last by the mysterious man who had led him to that spot. A score of times Diamond had warned him that Mr. Noname would turn on him, but he had not heeded the words of the Virginian. Now it had happened. The Man Without a Name had brought him there to that yard and left him in order that he might be captured by Brattle and his gang.

The thought made Frank fight with such fierceness that they could not beat him down. They hurled him against the door time after time, till, at last, it flew open beneath the shock. Frank’s heels caught on the stool, and he fell backward into the passage.

Before he could rise, five men were on him. A light gleamed near and he was dragged farther in. Then he was beaten into non-resistance, and his hands were tied. At last he was a captive in the hands of Martin Brattle!

CHAPTER VII.
IN THE WINE-CELLAR.

Frank was carried down a shaking flight of stairs into a cellar, where there were barrels and wine-casks and long shelves of bottles, covered with dust and cobwebs. They placed him on a bench, and the light of their coal-oil lamps showed him something that caused him to start and groan.

Bruce Browning was there, standing in the center of the cellar, bound securely to a stone pillar, a gag in his mouth. The eyes of the big Yale man met those of his chum, and there was an instant understanding between them.

Frank knew why Bruce had not returned to the hotel. At last the mighty giant had been conquered and made a captive. In that look volumes were spoken. Bruce expressed his anger, grief, and regret, while Frank showed his sympathy.

They had found each other, but they were helpless and in the power of desperate men. The faces of those men were covered by masks, with the exception of that of Brattle. It seemed that Martin did not care to attempt to conceal his identity. There were seven of them in all.

Brattle stood before Frank and sneered at him.

“Poor fool!” he said. “Did you think you could get the best of me? With all your tricks of disguise, you are not smart enough to cope with Mart Brattle.”

Frank was not gagged.

“It must take a great rascal to match you,” he said.

“I confess that I did not know you in the theater,” said Brattle; “but I knew you after you had followed us so far.”

Frank was disgusted.

“So you discovered I was following you?” he muttered.

“Yes. Then I was certain it must be you; but how you found your way into that yard is what beats me. You disappeared from the street in a twinkling, and next you were in that yard when we came to hunt for you.”

“And you don’t know how I got there?”

“I don’t know how you found the way.”

Frank wondered if the man spoke the truth. He wondered if, indeed, the Mystery had not betrayed him after all. If not, what had become of Mr. Noname? Frank remembered how many times that strange man had appeared and saved him from his enemies, and he began to wonder if it would not happen again.

“Tell me how you found your way into that yard,” commanded Martin Brattle.

Frank laughed.

“That is something for you to find out,” he said.

“You will not tell?”

Brattle snapped his fingers.

“It makes little difference. To-night ends your career in France. You shall die, Frank Merriwell, and you will never tell anything you may have learned to anybody else.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Merry. “You boast; but I doubt if you have the nerve to carry out your threats.”

“You will not doubt long. Let me tell you something. Do you see these men about me?”

“I am not blind.”

“They are the most desperate cutthroats in all Paris. There is not one of them who has not killed his man. They live by robbery and murder.”

“Well, I see you have chosen fit associates, Brattle.”

“Don’t get funny!” growled the man. “I don’t like it!”

“You may not like it, but it is the truth. They are fit associates for you. You have lived by robbery, and I doubt not that you will be executed for murder.”

“Better keep a civil tongue, Merriwell!” snarled Brattle. “You are in my power, and I can make you die a thousand deaths!”

“I have but one life, and so you can make me die but one death.”

Brattle stood with his hands on his hips, scowling down at his victim. The masked ruffians were farther back. They remained silent, and it is doubtful if any of them understood what was being said.

“You do not know me, Frank Merriwell. I have sworn to get even with you for all you have cost me.”

“I have known others to swear such an oath. One who did so, a pal of yours, was drowned in England. Drowning is too easy a death for you.”

“Go on! You are digging your own grave with your words!”

“A little while ago you said you had decided to kill me, anyhow. What difference does it make?”

“Before I kill you you must tell me where to find Elsie Bellwood. In what part of Paris is she?”

“She is not in Paris.”

“Don’t lie!”

“I am not lying, Brattle. You have fooled yourself. Elsie did not come to Paris at all. She is in England.”

“I do not believe it!”

Frank laughed shortly.

“You are at liberty to believe what you like. It makes no difference to me. I am not telling you this to aid you in any way, but simply to show you that you have made a fool of yourself by chasing on here to France, thinking you were following up Elsie Bellwood.”

“Where is she in England?”

“That is for you to find out, Brattle.”

“You refuse to tell?”

“I do.”

“I’ll make you tell!”

“You can’t.”

“We shall see.”

Brattle turned to one of the men and asked him in French for his knife. When he turned back, he held a long, glittering blade in his fingers.

“Now,” he said, resting one knee on the bench and grasping Frank by the neck, “we’ll see if you can be made to tell!”

The point of the knife was at Frank Merriwell’s throat. Merry felt it pricking there, but he never winced or showed the least sign of fear.

Brattle was surprised.

“Can you feel the knife?” he sneered, “or are you too scared to feel anything, you young fool?”

“I can feel it very plainly, thank you,” said Frank. “I should say that the point must be just above my jugular vein.”

Brattle cried out something in French, and there came muttered exclamations of astonishment and admiration from the ruffians who were watching everything. They could not help admiring the nerve of the captive. In the center of the cellar Bruce Browning was twisting and straining at his bonds, the veins beginning to stand out like cords on his face and neck.

Martin Brattle had seen Frank Merriwell under other circumstances, and knew Merry was nervy, but this was something more than the villain had anticipated.

“If I were to give a very slight pressure, this keen blade would penetrate your jugular vein, and then all the doctors in Paris could not give you one hour of life.”

“That’s right, Brat,” admitted Frank. “When the jugular is penetrated, a fellow is done for.”

“Then speak!” ordered Martin fiercely. “Speak, or I will tap the vein, and you shall see your life-blood spouting from your neck!”

Browning’s teeth cracked as they grated together.

“It’s no use,” said Frank coolly; “you can’t force me to speak in that way, Brattle. Go ahead with your devilish work.”

Martin Brattle sprang back and stood panting, trembling, and glaring at his captive.

“What are you made of?” he faltered.

“Flesh and blood,” was the answer; “but not the kind of flesh and blood that quakes before a dastard like you!”

“Still you know I can kill you!”

“Yes; but I know you cannot make me squeal. I’d be ashamed to die after begging to you! It would be dying like a coward! If I must croak, I prefer to do it like a man! Go on with your work!”

Whether they understood it or not, some of the masked ruffians, who stood about with folded arms, murmured as if they were applauding.

Never before had Bruce Browning felt such admiration for his college chum. Always had he known Frank was brave, but now he knew he had nerves of iron. Bruce did not wonder that Merry had been a winner at everything, for he felt that any man with such nerve could not help winning.

Brattle swore.

“I believe you think I am fooling with you!” he snarled. “I believe you think I do not dare to kill you!”

“Quite the contrary,” said Merry promptly; “I believe you are such a coward that you dare murder me, for no one but a low-lived cur would think of doing such a thing!”

Again Brattle sprang on Frank and menaced him with the glittering knife, on the very point of which was a single drop of blood.

“Go ahead!” cried Merry. “Don’t be fooling around like this! Finish your job!”

Brattle drew off.

“Not so quick,” he said. “I understand. You are eager that I should do it, in order to have it over as soon as possible. But I have sworn to make you tell where I may find Elsie Bellwood, and I’ll do it. Do you know how I am going to make you do it?”

“I haven’t an idea.”

“I’ll tell you.”

“Do.”

“I am going to begin by cutting off your fingers one by one.”

“A nice idea!”

“Then I shall cut off your ears, your nose, and so on. I shall torture you by inches till you tell me what I wish to know!”

“You are a bigger coward than I thought!” observed Merry. “Not only that, but you are a brute of the lowest type, Brattle. You are not fit to mingle with men!”

“Oh, you may say what you like! I have to get revenge on you! You robbed me of Elsie! You ruined my business in New York! You put the police after me! You made it necessary for me to fly from the country!”

“What a fine thing that was for the country!”

“I followed you to England to get possession of that girl, and also to get square with you. In London you brought more trouble on me. Because of you, I lay weeks in a hospital. At first they said I might not recover, but I vowed that I would not die till I was able to say I had squared my debt with you. I lived, and I am here to square that debt!”

“Well, you have made talk enough about it. Go ahead with the job.”

“You seem anxious to have the torture begin.”

“Or anxious to have it over.”

“Well, it will not end very quickly. Do you still fancy I am fooling with you? Well, you shall see! I will begin right away by taking a finger from your hand. No; I think I will begin by taking off your ears.”

Browning was straining at his bonds again. He saw the wretch bend over Frank with the knife and reach to slice off one of Merry’s ears. Then, with a mighty surge, the Yale giant burst his bonds asunder. He tore himself free, snatched the gag from his mouth, gave a roar like that of a mad lion, and flung himself on Brattle.

The villain was knocked down in a moment. He screamed for help, and the other ruffians attacked Browning. Bruce was a perfect whirlwind. He caught one of the men up and whirled him round his head like a club, knocking the others over and tumbling them in heaps. He was magnificent in his rage and strength.

“Give it to ’em, Bruce!” cried Merry from the bench, exulting in the turn the tide had taken. “Lay on, and spare not!”

“Oh, I’ll give it to them!” roared the big fellow. “I’ll crack their heads! I’ll mow them down! Where’s that cur who was going to cut off your fingers and your ears? Let him stand forth! I want to get one more crack at him!”

Some of the men fled screaming from the cellar, but more were knocked stiff and senseless on the cemented floor. Bottles crashed down from the shelves and barrels were upset. The fight did not last long, for the men could not stand before the Yale giant. When they had been knocked out, or had fled, Bruce hastened to set Frank free.

They looked for Brattle, but he was one who had escaped by flight.

“We must get out of here,” said Merry. “I fancy we have no time to lose.”

“You are right,” said a deep voice, and they looked up to see the Man of Mystery standing on the stairs. “I have found you at last, led here by the sounds of battle. I feared I had lost you forever. Come; I will lead you from this place. You must get out before the gang recovers.”

They sprang up the stairs after him, and he led them out to the yard where the battle had taken place. Through the passage which he knew he escorted them from the yard and brought them to the open street.

“There,” he said, “you are free. Go!”

A door closed behind them, and when they tried to open it they were unable to do so. The Mystery was gone, and to them he remained a mystery still.

“Was it possible, Frank,” cried Bruce, as they were talking it over the next day, “that you really thought me angry with you? My dear fellow, that was part of the joke. It was my plan to get back at you.”

“Well, it was pretty good acting,” laughed Merry.

“I enjoyed it when I found you were chasing me up. I dodged into that café by accident, and I found a way out by the back door, which opened into that little yard. The door closed behind me, and then I felt that something was wrong. I hammered on it, but it would not open before me. Then I put my shoulder to it and burst it open.”

“The pounding and the crash I heard!” exclaimed Frank.

“I don’t remember much after that till I found myself bound to that stone pillar in the cellar,” said Bruce. “I think somebody struck me on the head with a club as I stumbled into the passage.”

“And I heard you groan!” exclaimed Frank.

“Well, it has turned out pretty well, even though Brattle escaped. He’ll meet his just deserts pretty soon.”

“That is certain,” nodded Frank. “But now I most desire to see the Man Without a Name and thank him for what he has done. He has promised that I shall see him again.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK BROTHERS.

Paris at night, three days later.

Frank Merriwell was strolling along the Avenue de l’Opera, which was lighted as brightly as a ballroom. On either hand were rows and clusters of tables, where men and women were sitting in the open air, sipping their cool drinks and chatting animatedly. It was like walking the floor of a long dining-room. This, Frank told himself, was one of the pleasures of Paris at night. Nowhere else in the world could such a spectacle be seen. The promenaders of the boulevards were patrolling the avenue. They were men whose main ambition in life seemed to be to acquire reputations as boulevardiers, reputations easily obtained by persistently patrolling certain streets at certain hours day after day, week after week, month after month.

About it all there was something strictly and solely Parisian. In Paris alone could one so quickly imbibe the feeling of utter freedom and so quickly fling aside all sensation of restraint and unfamiliarity. At least, so thought Frank just then, as he swung along the avenue, light-hearted, buoyant, careless. To Merry it seemed that he had not a care in the world. It seemed that he would never again have a care.

The appearance of the women sitting out of doors under the trees, with their heads bare, made the city so homelike and friendly that it was as if everybody knew everybody else.

Frank came to the Boulevard des Capucines and paused a moment in front of the Café de la Paix. Now at his back were the cafés, blazing with electric lights, blushing in gorgeous upholstery, glittering with magnificent mirrors, and thronged by well-dressed men and women. Across the square the Grand Opera-House rose, beautiful, artistic, majestic.

“I will sit down a few moments,” thought Merry, as he started toward the table.

Just then a man stumbled and fell against him quite heavily. His first thought was that the man must be intoxicated, but he remembered he was in Paris, and, turning quickly, he saw a refined-looking gentleman, past middle age, with gray mustache and imperial, pressing his hand to his heart, while there was a look of distress on his pale face.

Quick as thought, Frank grasped the man gently and firmly, politely saying:

“Permit me, monsieur. Can I be of assistance to you?”

The stranger gasped as he attempted to reply, and the only word Merry understood was “Rest.” The young American assisted the stranger to a seat by the table, and then bent over him solicitously, again asking how he could be of assistance.

“You have done all you can, thank you, my friend,” murmured the gentleman, as his unsteady hand placed his jewel-decorated cane on the table. “I was seized by a pain in my heart, but it is passing now. You were about to sit down here. Do not let me prevent.”

Frank took a chair at the table, and the man looked at him searchingly.

“If the curiosity is pardonable, may I ask if you are English?” inquired the stranger, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and using it to absorb a tiny drop of blood that had appeared on his wrist.

“I am an American, monsieur.”

The man showed fresh interest.

“An American!” he exclaimed, his face still remaining pale. “I might have guessed it! I have been in America. Americans love justice and liberty.”

“You have hurt yourself, monsieur?” said Frank, as the man continued to press the handkerchief to his wrist.

“It is nothing—a slight scratch. But I received it in a peculiar manner a few moments ago. A woman spoke to me. I attempted to pass on, and she became angry, and struck at me with a hatpin. She barely touched my wrist here—enough to draw blood.”

“I had no idea women were so vicious in Paris—at this early hour of the night.”

“It’s seldom they are. In London it would not be strange. This woman spoke French imperfectly. I do not think she was French. At least, I hope not.”

“She seemed Spanish in her readiness to strike with a weapon,” said Frank. “But you are very pale, monsieur, I fear you are harmed in some other manner.”

“Your solicitation speaks well for you, and is further proof that you are American, not English. An Englishman would not take such interest in a stranger.”

“Perhaps it is a proof of my freshness,” smiled Merry.

“Freshness? What do you mean by that?”

“In English that is slang. It means that a person is too forward, too presuming, lacking in reserve and discretion.”

“The American is impulsive, but to me that is his charm. Having been in America, I know the Americans who come to France do not fairly represent the people of the country.”

Frank glowed.

“I am glad to hear you say that, monsieur!” he cried. “In England, America is judged by the Americans who come to London, much to the misfortune of my native land. The newly rich, the uncultured, the bores and the snobs of America rush to England and France as soon as possible, and they are taken to be representative Americans.”

“I know this is true, and I am glad to meet in France a representative American—outside the Latin Quarter. Monsieur, my card.”

Frank accepted the white bit of cardboard, on which was engraved:

“M. Edmond Laforce.”

“The Duke of Benoit du Sault!” exclaimed Merry, in surprise, looking up.

“Yes, monsieur,” bowed the Frenchman, lifting his eyebrows. “But how is it you know that?”

“Why, you know all America takes a great interest in the Dreyfus case, with which you have been concerned, or, at least, with which newspaper reports have connected you.”

The Duke of Benoit du Sault frowned a little.

“The newspapers! the newspapers!” he exclaimed. “They have given me the publicity I shunned. I have sought to do quietly what I could for that unfortunate man on——Pardon me, monsieur; what do you think of Dreyfus?”

“I think as think nine Americans out of ten, if not ninety-nine out of a hundred.”

“And that is—what?”

“That Dreyfus is innocent!”

The face of the duke seemed to clear, although it remained strangely pale, while there seemed to be something of a hunted look in his piercing eyes.

“I am glad to hear you say that,” he spoke in a low tone. “I have known that America sympathized with him.”

“My card, monsieur.”

Frank took his card from a morocco case and passed it across the table, adding:

“A friendly exchange, that may serve as an introduction, if you care to have it so.”

“Of course I care to have it so, Monsieur Merriwell,” said the duke, immediately extending his hand, which Frank accepted.

The young American noticed that the hand of the man was cold as ice, and it trembled the least bit in his grasp.

“I am sure, monsieur, that you are not feeling well,” he said.

“I am feeling strangely,” admitted the Frenchman, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I do not understand what it is, unless——”

He shivered again, glancing around with that hunted look. Then he tried to force a laugh, saying:

“It cannot be so. For all of the sign, I will not believe my time has come. I have a work to do, a great work—for the honor of France!”

Frank had read in the newspapers—Frank’s trip occurred some years ago—how the Duke of Benoit du Sault had taken up the work for Dreyfus just where Monsieur Zola had been forced to abandon it, and how by doing so he had aroused an army of rabid and howling enemies about his ears. To escape imprisonment, Zola, the great novelist, had fled from France, and it was more than hinted that the Duke of Benoit du Sault might have to do likewise.

Frank was confident of the innocence of Dreyfus, the unfortunate Jew, who had once been an officer in the French Army, but had been accused of betraying the army’s secrets to rival powers, had been publicly disgraced and condemned to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a barren bit of rock and sand, far from France, on the burning bosom of a torrid sea.

Merry had read with great interest about the case, and, being a lover of justice, it was but natural that his soul should be stirred when he thought how Dreyfus had been convicted and condemned on evidence of which he knew absolutely nothing. The trial had been conducted in secret, and the public at large, like the condemned man, knew nothing of the proofs which established Dreyfus’ guilt.

The story of Madame Dreyfus’ devotion, and her unceasing efforts in behalf of her husband had touched Merry. He read how she had appealed to power after power, but all her appeals had seemed in vain till Monsieur Zola had cast himself into the arena, like a gladiator, and taken up the battle. But even Zola, great novelist and political factor as he was, was unable to stand against the army, and in France “the army can do no wrong,” so it was claimed that Dreyfus had been justly judged, and all who sought to show otherwise were enemies of France. The agitation aroused a terrible sentiment against the Jews, and there were repeated riots in the courts and on the streets. Zola and his friends contended against public sentiment and prejudice, and the whole affair which followed was a travesty of justice.

Even though the daring novelist was forced to flee from France to escape imprisonment, the agitation accomplished something. The one man who had done more than all others to convict Dreyfus was likewise forced to leave the country. In England he confessed that he, under instructions of others, had forged the document which had mainly served to convict the Jew. However, this man Esterhazy had told so many stories about the case that it was easy now to claim that this was but another lie, and, strangely enough, in a short time, he retracted the statement.

When the chief of police was forced to confess that he had forged certain documents which seemed to establish the guilt of the prisoner of Devil’s Island, there was a terrible commotion in Paris. The chief of police committed suicide without delay, or was murdered. The friends of Dreyfus made another mighty effort to have him brought back to France and given a fair trial. For a time it looked as if they must succeed, but all the power of the army was brought against them, and effort after effort was frustrated. One after another those officers who had been concerned in the conviction of Dreyfus resigned; but their places were filled by men who expressed themselves as fully confident that the Jew had been justly judged. The reversal of the verdict would mean the disgrace of men high in power, who had been instrumental in certain ways in bringing about the conviction, and so an innocent man was doomed to languish out his life in an iron cage on the burning rock of Devil’s Island, afar in the brassy bosom of a sun-scorched sea.

There were Frenchmen who believed Dreyfus innocent and who loved justice enough to desire his innocence proven, even though it rent the republic in twain. Edmond Laforce, the Duke of Benoit du Sault, was one of these. He placed his wealth and his life at the disposal of the friends of Dreyfus, and he set about devoting himself to the mighty task of forcing France to bring the prisoner back and give him a fair trial. The duke had tried to do his work quietly, but the newspapers had found out about him, and Frank Merriwell had read of him. Thus it came about that Merry knew the man’s title the moment he read his name on the card.

“You have my sympathy, sir,” assured Frank. “To me it does not seem possible that fate will permit poor Dreyfus to die on that desolate island without being brought back and having a fair trial.”

“The ways of God may not be measured by man,” said the duke solemnly; “but, like you, I believe that Dreyfus must be brought back, no matter what may come of it. They say to show him innocent means a revolution in France—means that the streets of Paris must again run with blood. Let it come! Better that than to have him die in Devil’s Island and afterward to have his innocence established. If he is truly guilty, it will be established beyond a doubt by another trial. That will end it forever. If he is innocent, it will mean the everlasting disgrace of France to have him die on that island!”

For a single moment a flush came into the duke’s cheeks, faint, indeed, but still perceptible. It faded quickly, and then, of a sudden, he pressed his hand to his heart once more, uttering a smothered cry of pain.

Frank leaned across the table in instant solicitation, a strange feeling of dread assailing him.

“What is it, monsieur?” he asked.

“The pain——”

“Again?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I order something?”

“A little brandy, please.”

Frank gave the order quickly, and the brandy was brought at once by a waiter. With trembling hand the duke lifted the glass and sipped the liquor.

“Are you subject to such attacks?” asked Merry.

The gentleman shook his head.

“No,” he asserted, “never before a few moments ago have I felt one. I do not understand it.”

He stopped speaking, his eyes fastened on the slight scratch on his wrist, which he had received from the hatpin in the hands of the vicious woman who had accosted him. He trembled as he looked.

“Strange!” he murmured, as if speaking to himself. “The pain seems to shoot from that scratch to my heart. Can it be——No, no! I will not believe it! The sign was given to frighten me. This is nothing. It will pass away.”

Despite his attempt to assure himself, however, it became plain that a great terror had seized upon him. He fought against it, trying to throw it off.

Frank noticed this agitation, and he observed that the duke again looked round in a hunted manner. No one seemed paying any attention to them. The duke’s hand fell from his heart to the table, and he leaned toward Merry. There was a peculiar gleam in his eyes.

“I have made enemies by the stand I have taken,” he said. “It has proved fatal for more than one man who espoused the cause of Dreyfus.”

“It has proved fatal?” questioned the young American. “What do you mean?”

“What I have said. More than one has given up his life because he dared proclaim the innocence of Dreyfus and work to establish it.”

“I have not heard of such cases.”

“Of course not. Why should you? The Black Brothers do their work in silence.”

“Who are the Black Brothers?”

“A band of men sworn to keep Dreyfus on Devil’s Island at any cost.”

“Do you mean to tell me there is such an organization of men in France?” gasped Frank, in horror.

“There is.”

“It does not seem possible!”

“There are said to be seven of the Black Brothers,” said the duke, speaking in guarded tones. “They are seven of the most desperate creatures in all France, and they are the hired assassins of the enemies of Dreyfus. They are paid to destroy such friends of the condemned man as may seem dangerous, and they are guaranteed protection by the men who employ them.”

“Horrible!” exclaimed Merry. “It’s like a grisly conception of some romancist. But I think the law would be able to reach the murderers.”

“Not yet, for as yet there is no proof that they have committed murder.”

“The victims——”

“Have died suddenly and strangely, one and all, and yet no man knows the cause of their death.”

“How is that?”

“Each one has been warned to leave France within ten days. One alone has heeded the warning. The others are dead.”

“They were murdered?”

“Of that there can be no doubt, yet on none of them was found a mark to tell how they died. It seemed that heart trouble cut short their lives.”

Frank started a bit, thinking how strangely the duke had been seized by pains in his heart. The Frenchman seemed to read the thoughts of his companion, and his face appeared to turn yet a shade paler than it had been.

“I have fancied that I might be able to detect the manner in which the Black Brothers do their work,” he said; “but now I fear I shall fail. The pains at my heart are terrible symptoms, and I fear I am to be the next victim.”

“Oh, no! That cannot be!”

“I have been given the sign.”

“What sign?”

“The sign of the Black Brothers! the sign of death!”

“When?”

“This is the tenth day since I received it!” whispered the duke.

CHAPTER IX.
THE BLOOD-RED STAR.

Frank was startled, to say the least. He looked at the man searchingly, wondering now that the duke could be as calm as he seemed. It was plain he had more nerve than Merry had thought.

“The tenth day!” exclaimed Frank. “Then your time is up!”

“Yes,” said the duke, with strange calmness.

“That means——”

Merry stopped.

“I have told you what it means.”

“And you have not heeded the warning?”

“I have not been driven from France.”

“And you do not fear the Black Brothers?”

The French nobleman drew himself up proudly.

“A Laforce never turns his back on danger,” he declared.

“But such terrible peril! It were different if you could face your foes.”

“Yes, it is hard to be beset by unseen peril.”

“Still you do not fear?”

The duke hesitated a little, and then spoke slowly.

“I believe that the bravest may feel fear at times,” he confessed. “In battle it is different, but when one knows a peril he cannot see may be creeping upon him slowly and surely he must be made of more than flesh and blood not to feel a thrill of fear.”

“It is a terrible thing!” exclaimed the young American earnestly. “It is like being chained in a pit where the water is rising inch by inch.”

“It is worse. The prisoner in the pit can see the water rise, but a man to whom the sign of the Black Brothers has been given knows the danger is creeping upon him, but he cannot see it.”

Now Frank felt a strong thrill of admiration for this old Frenchman who could remain thus cool in the face of an unseen and deadly peril.

“If you meet the fate of the others—what then?”

“The assassins cannot destroy every friend of Dreyfus, and justice shall triumph at last.”

“But are you willing to be a sacrifice?”

“No! Still I have lived, and my years to come are not many, at most. If I fall, I have faith to believe that it will mark the turning-point in favor of the prisoner of Devil’s Island. I believe that somehow, sometime, France shall emerge from the clouds and be purged of the stain upon her.”

It gave Frank Merriwell a sensation he had never before experienced to be sitting there before the Café de la Paix, in the heart of Paris, calmly speaking with a man who had been doomed to death by a mysterious band of assassins, and who knew that, were the assassins to carry out their fearful threat, he had not many hours more to live. All around them was life and pleasure, and nothing but the seriousness of the duke could impress Merriwell with the real horror of the situation.

“This sign of which you speak—what is it?”

Edmond Laforce felt in his pocket and brought something forth. This he placed upon the table.

It was a metal star, dark-red in color, with points numbered from one to seven. Upon it were the words, “Ten days.” Beneath the words appeared the dreadful death-machine of France, the guillotine. Frank gazed on the blood-red star with deep interest.

“This,” said the duke, with forced calmness, “is the sign of the Black Brothers. The seven points of the star represent the seven members of the assassin band.”

“You have kept it!” exclaimed Merry. “Why didn’t you throw the thing away?”

“What good? It’s work was done when I received it.”