Blindfolded, Earle Ashley Walcott [non fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

said Mrs. Knapp. "No--I can carry him--I want to carry him."

The man opened the door, then closed and locked it as I helped Mrs. Knapp into the carriage.

"Have you got him safe?" asked Dicky incredulously. "Well, I'll have to say that you know more than I thought you did." And the relief and satisfaction in his tone were so evident that I gladly repented of my suspicions of the light-hearted Dicky.

"Have you heard anything?" I asked him anxiously.

"I thought I heard a yell over here through the woods. We had better get out of here."

"Don't wait a second," said the man. "The south road comes over this other way. If you've heard anybody there, they will be here in five minutes. I'll follow you on a horse."

With an injunction to haste, I stepped after Mrs. Knapp into the carriage, the door was shut, Dicky mounted the seat, and we rolled down the road on the return journey.

"Oh, how thankful I am!" cried Mrs. Knapp. "There is a weight of anxiety off my mind. Can you imagine what I have been fearing in the last month?"

"I had thought a little about that myself," I confessed. "But we are not yet out of the woods, I am afraid."

"Hark! what's that?" said Mrs. Knapp apprehensively.

The carriage was now making its way through the bad stretch in the lane, and there was little noise in its progress.

"I heard nothing," I said, putting down the window to listen. "What was it?"

"I thought it was a shout."

There was no noise but the steady splash of horses' hoofs in the mud, and the sloppy, shearing sound of the wheels as they cut through the wet soil.

As we bumped and groaned again through the ruts, however, there arose in the distance behind us the fierce barking of dogs, their voices raised in anger and alarm.

There was a faint halloo, and a wilder barking followed. Then my ear caught the splashing of galloping hoofs behind, and in a moment the man of the house rode beside us.

"They've come," he said, "or, anyhow, somebody's come. I let the dogs loose, and they will have a lively time for a while."

At his words there was another chorus of barks and shouts. Then a shot rang out, and a fusillade followed with a mournful wail that died away into silence.

"Good Lord! they've shot the dogs," cried the man hotly. "I've a mind to go back and pepper some of 'em."

"No," said Mrs. Knapp, "we may need you. Let us hurry!"

A few yards more brought us to the main road, and once on the firm ground the horses trotted briskly forward, while the horseman dropped behind, the better to observe and give the alarm.

"We were just in time," said Mrs. Knapp, trembling.

"Let us be thankful for so much," said I cheerfully.

"They will follow us," said Mrs. Knapp, with conviction in her tone.

"Not before they have broken into the house. That will keep them for some time, I think."

"Is there no sign of pursuit?"

I leaned out of the window. Only the deadened sound of the hoofs of our own horses, the deadened roll of our own carriage wheels, were audible in the stillness of the night. Then I thought I heard yells and faint hoof-beats in the distance, but again there was silence except for the muffled noise we made in our progress.

"Can't we drive faster?" asked Mrs. Knapp, when I made my report.

"I wouldn't spoil these horses for five hundred dollars," growled the driver when I passed him the injunction to hasten.

"It's a thousand dollars for you if you get to the wharf ahead of the others," cried Mrs. Knapp.

"And you'll have a bullet in your hide if you don't keep out of gunshot of them," I added.

The double inducement to haste had its effect, and we could feel the swifter motion of the vehicle under us, and see the more rapid passage of the trees and fences that lined the way.

The wild ride appeared to last for ages. The fast trot of the horses was a funeral pace to the flight of my excited and anxious imagination. What if we should be overtaken? The hack would offer no protection from bullets, and Mrs. Knapp and the boy could scarcely escape injury if it came to a close encounter. But whenever I looked back there was only the single horseman galloping behind us, and the only sound to be heard was that of our own progress.

At last the houses began to pass more frequently. Now the road was broken by cross streets. Gas-lamps appeared, flickering faint and yellow in the morning air, as though the long night vigil had robbed them of their vitality. We were once more within city limits, and I felt a loosening of the tense nerves of anxiety. The panting horses never slackened pace. We swept over a long bridge, and plunged down a shaded street, and the figure of the horseman was the only sign of life behind us. Of a sudden there sounded a long roll, as of a great drum beating the reveille for an army of giants. The horseman quickened his pace and galloped furiously beside us.

"They're crossing the bridge," he shouted.

"Whip up!" I cried to the driver. "They are only four blocks behind us."

"Are they in sight?" asked Mrs. Knapp.

"I can not see them," I replied, "and it may not be the ones we fear. It is near daybreak, and we are not the only ones astir."

I peered out, but a rising mist from the lagoon and the bay hindered the vision, and the sound of the rolling drum had ceased.

The hack swung around a few corners, and then halted.

"Here we are!" cried Dicky Nahl at the door. "You get aboard the tug and push off. Jake and I will run up to the foot of the wharf. If they come, we can keep 'em off long enough for you to get aboard." Dicky had a revolver in each hand, and the determined ring of his voice, so different from his usual light bantering tone, gave me assurance of his sincerity. With the horseman he hastened to the entrance of the wharf, where the two loomed through the mist like shadow-men.

The tug was where it lay when we left, and at my hail the captain and his crew of three were astir. It was a moment's work to get Mrs. Knapp and her charge aboard.

"Come on!" I cried to Dicky and his companion. And as the lines were cast off they made a running jump on to the deck of the tug boat, and the vessel backed out into the stream.

As the wharf faded away into the mist that hung over the waters I thought I saw shapes of men and horses rushing frantically to the edge, and a massive figure waving its arms like a madman, and shouting impotent curses into the air. But with the distance, the uncertain light, and the curtain of mist that was thickening between us, my eyes might have deceived me, and I omitted to mention my suspicions to Mrs. Knapp.

When the mist and darkness had blotted out shore, wharves and shipping, the tug moved at half-speed down the channel. I persuaded the captain that there was no need to sound the whistle, but he declined gruffly to increase his speed.

"I might as well be shot as run my boat ashore," he growled, with a few emphatic seamanlike adjectives that appeared to belong to nothing in particular. "And any one that doesn't like my way of running a boat can get out and walk."

I did not know of any particular reason for arguing the question, so I joined Mrs. Knapp.

"Thank God, we are safe!" she said, with a sigh of relief.

"We shall be in the city in half an hour, if that is safety," I said.

"It will be safety for a few days. Then we can devise a new plan. I have a strong arm to lean on again."

"I think if you would tell me who the boy is, and why the danger threatens him, I might help you more wisely."

"Perhaps you are right," said Mrs. Knapp thoughtfully. "You shall know before it is necessary to make our next plans."

And then the boy called for her attention and I returned to the deck.

The light of the morning was growing. Vessels were moving. The whistles of the ferry-boats, as they gave warning of their way through the mist, rose shrill on the air. The waters were still, a faint ripple showing in strange contrast to the scene of last night.

"There's a steamer behind us," said Dicky Nahl, with a worried look as I joined him. "I've been listening to it for five minutes."

"It's a tug," said the captain. "She was lying on the other side of the wharf last night."

"Good heavens!" I cried. "Put on full steam, then, or we shall be run down in the bay. It's the gang we are trying to get away from."

The captain looked at me suspiciously for a moment, and was inclined to resent my interference. Then he shrugged his shoulders as though it was none of his business whether we were lunatics or not so long as we paid for the privilege, and rang the engine bell for full speed ahead.

We had just come out of the Oakland Creek channel and the mist suddenly thinned before us. It left the bay and the city fair and wholesome in the gray light, as though the storm had washed the grime and foulness from air and earth and renewed the freshness of life. The clear outline of the hills was scarcely broken by smoke. The ever-changing beauties of the most beautiful of bays took on the faint suggestion of a livelier tint, the herald of the coming sun. We had come but a few hundred yards into the clear air when out of the mist bank behind us shot another tug, the smoke streaming from the funnel, the steam puffing noisily from the escapes and the engine straining to increase the speed.

At the exclamation that broke from us, our captain for the first time showed interest in the speed of his boat, and whistled angrily down to his engineer.

"We can beat _her_" he said, with a contemptuous accent on the "her."

"That's your business," I returned, and walked aft to where Mrs. Knapp was standing, half-way up the steps from the cabin.

"There is Darby Meeker," I said, getting sight of him on the pursuing tug.

"Can they catch us?" inquired Mrs. Knapp, the lines tightening about her mouth.

"I think not--the captain says not. I should say that we were holding our own now."

At this moment a tall, massive figure stepped from the pilot-house of the pursuing tug and shook its fists at us. At the sight of the man my heart stood still. The huge bulk, the wolf-face, just distinguishable, distorted, dark with rage and passion, stopped the blood, and I felt a faintness as of dropping from a height. With a gasp, life and voice came back to me.

"Doddridge Knapp!" I cried.

Mrs. Knapp looked at me in alarm, and grasped the rail.

"No! no!" she exclaimed. "A thousand times no!