183CHAPTER XXIITAKING A CHANCE
There was a scream from the frightened girls and a gasp from the young men as they saw this messenger of death bearing down upon them.
They knew at a glance what had happened. A Malay, yielding to the insidious mental malady that seems peculiar to his race, had suddenly gone mad and started out to kill. That he himself would inevitably be killed did not deter him for a moment. He wanted to die, but he wanted at the same time to take as many with him as possible.
He had made his offering to the infernal gods, had blackened his teeth and anointed his head with cocoa oil, and had started out to slay.
With his eyes blazing, his head rolling from side to side like a mad dog, and with that blood-chilling cry coming from his foam-flecked lips, he was like a figure from a nightmare.
For a moment the Americans stood rooted to184the spot. That instant past, Baseball Joe, as usual, took the lead.
“Look after the girls, Jim!” he cried, and started full tilt toward the awful figure that came plunging down the street.
Mabel and Clara screamed to him to stop, but he only quickened his pace, running like a deer, as though bent on suicide. The Malay saw him coming, and for a second hesitated. He had seen everyone else scurry from him in fear. What did this man mean by coming to meet him?
It was just this instant of indecision upon which Joe had counted, and like a flash he seized it.
When within twenty feet of the Malay, Joe launched himself into the air, and came down flat on the hard dirt road, as he had done many a time before when sliding to base.
The Malay, confused by the unlooked-for action, slashed down at him. Had Joe gone straight toward him, the knife would have been buried in him. But here again his quickness and the tactics of the ballfield came into play.
Instead of going straight toward his antagonist, his slide had been a “fall away.”
Many a time when sliding to second he had thrown himself this way out of the reach of the ball, while his extended hand just clutched the bag.
So now, his sinewy arm caught the Malay by185the leg, while his body swung round to the right. Down went the Malay with a crash, his blood-stained knives clattering on the ground and the next instant Joe was on his back.
His hands closed upon the man’s throat with an iron grip.
But there was no more fight left in the would-be murderer. The fall had jarred and partially stunned him. In an instant Jim had joined Joe, other men came rushing up; and the danger was over.
The crazed man was secured with ropes and carried away, while Joe, perspiring, panting and covered with dust, received the enthusiastic congratulations of the rapidly gathering crowd.
“Pluckiest thing I ever saw in my life!” exclaimed the colonel of the army command, who had witnessed the exploit.
“That fall-away slide of yours was great, Joe!” cried Larry Barrett, who had come up. “I never saw a niftier one on the ballfield.”
“You made the bag all right!” grinned Denton.
“He never touched you!” chuckled Burkett.
“If he had it would have been some touch,” declared McRae, as he picked up one murderous-looking knife and passed it round for inspection.
It was a wicked weapon, nearly a foot in length, with a handle so contrived as to get all186the weight behind the stroke and a wavy blade capable of inflicting a fearful wound.
“Has a bowie knife skinned a mile!” ejaculated Curry, expressing the general sentiment.
Joe hated to pose as a hero but it was some time before the crowd would let him get away and rejoin the girls who were waiting for him.
All the plaudits of the throng were tame compared with what he read in the eyes of Mabel and his sister.
The baseball teams stayed nearly a week in Manila, making short excursions in the suburbs as far as it could be done with safety. Two games were played, one between the Giants and All-Americans, which resulted in favor of the latter, and another between the Giants and a picked nine from the army post.
Many of Uncle Sam’s army boys had been fine amateur players and a few had come from professional teams, so that they were able to put up a gallant fight, although they were, of course, no match for the champions of the world.
“But they certainly put up a fine game,” was Joe’s comment. “They had two pitchers who had some good stuff in ’em.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” returned Jim.
“One of those pitchers used to play ball on a professional team from Los Angeles,” said187McRae, who was standing near. “I understand he had quite a record.”
“I wonder what made him give up pitching and join the army,” remarked Jim curiously.
“Oh, I suppose it was the love of adventure,” answered the manager.
“That might be it,” said Joe. “Some fellows get tired of doing the same thing, and when they have a chance to leave home and see strange places, they grab it.”
While warming up prior to this last game, Joe’s attention was attracted by a muscular Chinaman, who was standing in the crowd that fringed the diamond, interestedly watching the players at practice. He recognized him as a famous wrestler who had taken part in a bout at a performance the night before and who had thrown his opponents with ease.
“Some muscles on that fellow,” Joe remarked to Jim.
“Biggest Chink I ever saw,” replied Jim, “and not a bit of it is fat either. He’d make a dandy highbinder. You saw what he did to the Terrible Turk in that match last night. He just played with him. And the Turk was no slouch either.”
“Look at those arms,” joined in Larry, gazing with admiration at the swelling biceps of the wrestler. “What a slugger he’d make if he knew188how to play ball. He’d break all the fences in the league.”
“He sure would kill the ball if he ever caught it on the end of his bat,” declared Red Curry.
“I’ve half a mind to give him a chance,” laughed Joe.
“Go ahead,” grinned Larry. “I’d like to see him break his back reaching for one of your curves.”
“He might land on it at that,” replied Joe. “A wrestler has to have an eye like a hawk.”
He beckoned to the wrestler, who came toward him at once with a smile on his keen but good-natured face.
“Want to hit the ball?” asked Joe, piecing out his question by going through the motions of swinging a bat that he picked up.
The wrestler “caught on” at once, and the smile on his face broadened into a grin as he nodded his head understandingly.
“Me tly,” he said in the “pidgin English” he had picked up in his travels, and reached out his hand for the bat.
“Have a heart, Joe,” laughed Larry. “Don’t show the poor gink up before the crowd. At any rate let me show him how it’s done.”
“All right,” responded Joe. “You lead off and he can follow.”
Larry took up his position at the plate and189motioned to the wrestler to watch him. The latter nodded and followed every motion.
Joe put over a swift high one that Larry swung at and missed. He “bit” again at an outcurve with no better result.
“Look out, Larry,” chaffed Jim, “or it’s you that will be shown up instead of the Chink.”
A little nettled, Larry caught the next one full and square and it sailed far out into right field.
“There,” he said complacently, as he handed the bat to the wrestler, “that’s the way it’s done.”
The latter went awkwardly to the plate and a laugh ran through the crowd at the unusual sight.
Joe lobbed one over and the Chinaman swung listlessly a foot below the ball.
“Easy money,” laughed Denton.
“Where’s that good eye you said this fellow had?” sang out Willis.
The second ball floated up to the plate as big as a balloon, and again the wrestler whiffed, coming nowhere near the sphere.
But as Joe wound up for the third ball, the listlessness vanished from the Chinaman. A glint came into his eyes and every muscle was tense.
The ball sped toward the plate. The wrestler caught it fair “on the seam” with all his powerful body behind the blow.
The ball soared high and far over center field,190looking as though it were never going to stop. In a regular game it would have been the easiest of home runs.
The wrestler sauntered away from the plate with the same bland smile on his yellow face while the crowd cheered him. He had turned the tables, and the laugh was on Joe and his fellow players.
“But why,” asked Jim, after the game had resulted in a victory for the visitors by a one-sided score, and he was walking back with Joe to the hotel, “did he make such a miserable flunk at the first two balls? Was he kidding us?”
“Not at all,” grinned Joe. “It’s because the Chinamen are the greatest imitators on earth. He saw that Larry missed the first two and so he did the same. He thought it was part of the game!”
191CHAPTER XXIIIAN EMBARRASSED RESCUER
On the long trip to Australia the tourists encountered the most severe storm of the journey. In fact, it was almost equal to the dreaded typhoon, and there were times when, despite the staunchness of the vessel, the faces of the captain and the officers were lined with anxiety.
After two days and nights, however, of peril, the storm blew itself out and the rest of the journey was made over serene seas and under cloudless skies.
One night after the girls had retired, Joe and Jim, together with McRae and Braxton, were sitting in the smoking room. The conversation had been of the kind that always prevails when baseball “fans” get together.
After a while Jim accompanied McRae to the latter’s cabin to discuss some details of Jim’s contract for the coming season, leaving Joe and Braxton as the sole occupants of the room.
Joe had never been able to overcome the192instinctive antipathy that he had felt toward Braxton from the first, but he had kept this under restraint, and Braxton himself, though he might have suspected this feeling, was always suave and urbane.
There was no denying that he was good company and always interesting. In an apparently accidental way, Braxton, who had been scribbling aimlessly upon some pieces of paper that lay on the table, led the talk toward the subject of handwriting.
“It’s a gift to write a good hand,” he remarked. “It’s got to be born in you. Some men can do it naturally, others can’t. I’m one of the fellows that can’t. I’ll bet Horace Greeley himself never wrote a worse hand than I do.”
“I’ve heard that he was a weird writer,” smiled Joe.
“The worst ever,” rejoined Braxton. “I’ve heard that he wrote to his foreman once, ordering him to discharge a printer who had set up a bad copy. The printer hated to lose his job and an idea struck him. He got hold of the letter discharging him and took it to Greeley, who didn’t know him by sight, and told him it was a letter of recommendation from his last employer. Greeley tried to read it, but couldn’t, so he said he guessed it was all right and told him he was engaged.”193
Joe laughed, and Braxton tossed over to him a sheet of paper on which he had written his name.
“Greeley has nothing on me,” he said. “If you didn’t know my name was Braxton, I’ll bet you wouldn’t recognize these hen tracks.”
“You’re right,” said Joe. “I’m no dabster myself at writing and I can sympathize with you.”
“It couldn’t be as bad as this,” challenged Braxton, slipping a pen over to Joe, together with a fresh piece of paper.
“No,” said Joe, as he took up the pen, “I guess at least you could make mine out.”
He scribbled his name and Braxton picked up the paper with a laugh.
“I win,” he said. “You’re bad, but I’m worse. You see I am proud even of my defects.”
He dropped the subject then and talked of other things until Joe, stifling a yawn, excused himself and went to his cabin.
The reception of the party in Australia went far beyond their expectations. That remote continent has always been noted for its sporting spirit and although of course the English blood made cricket their favorite game, the crowds were quick to detect and appreciate the merits of the great American pastime.
As a rule they would not concede that the batting was any better than that shown by their own194cricketers, but there was no question as to the superiority of the fielding.
The lightning throws, the double plays, the marvelous catches in the outfield and the speed shown on the bases were freely admitted to be far and away beyond that shown by their elevens. And the crowds grew larger and larger as the visiting teams made their triumphal progress through the great cities of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.
Inspired by their reception and put upon their mettle by the great outpouring of spectators, the teams themselves played like demons. One might almost have thought that they were fighting for the pennant.
They were so evenly matched that first one and then the other was on top, and by the time they reached Melbourne the Giants were only one game in the lead of the total that had been played since the trip began.
Melbourne itself with its romantic history and magic growth proved very attractive. But Joe was destined to remember it for very different reasons.
While walking with Jim one day outside the town near the Yarra Yarra river, they were startled by hearing a cry for help, and racing toward the sound they saw a young girl struggling in the water.195
Trained by their vocation to act quickly, they threw off their coats, plunging into the water almost at the same instant. They swam fiercely, lashed on by that frantic wail, sounding fainter each time it was repeated.
The race for a life was almost neck and neck until Joe, showing his tremendous reserve strength, shot ahead at the very end, grasping the struggling figure as it was sinking for the last time.
Jim helped, and together they brought the rescued girl—the long dank black hair testified to her sex—back to shore, where a group of the native blacks, attracted by the cries, had gathered to welcome them.
Dripping and exhausted, the two heroes of the occasion staggered up the bank while willing hands relieved them of their burden.
“Let’s beat it,” whispered Jim, as the crowd of natives closed around the unconscious object of their heroism, “while the going’s good. If that girl ever finds out that you rescued her she’ll want to attach herself to you for life. That seems to be the fool custom of these parts.”
“She’d find it pretty hard work,” said Joe, with a wry smile. “Besides, we don’t even know that the girl’s alive. It would be pretty heartless to clear out without learning.”
“Oh, all right,” said Jim, uneasily. “But196remember, if there are any consequences you’ve got to take ’em.”
At that moment the crowd opened and the boys saw a remarkably good-looking black girl standing dizzily and supported by another native who might have been her father.
She looked dazedly from one to the other of the young men and Jim promptly “stepped out from under.”
“It’s him,” said Jim, neglecting grammar in his eagerness to shift the burden of credit to Joe’s broad shoulders. “He did it all.”
The girl walked unsteadily up to Joe and said, submissively: “My life is yours! Me your slave!”
Joe started, stared, and gulped, then turned to Jim to make sure he was awake, and not a victim of some bad dream. But Jim had suddenly acquired a peculiar form of hysteria, and with a choking sound turned his back upon his friend.
“N-no,” stuttered Joe, gently pushing the girl away, “no want.”
Another explosion from Jim did not serve to improve Joe’s state of mind. His face was fiery red, and his voice husky.
“Me slave!” persisted the girl stubbornly.
Then Joe turned and fled, manfully fighting a desire to shout with laughter one moment, and groan with dismay the next.197
Two very much subdued baseball players crept in at the side door of the hotel, and scurried along the corridor toward their rooms, hoping ardently to meet no one on the way. It was with a sigh of relief that they slipped inside, locked the door, and repaired the ravages that the waters of the Yarra Yarra had made upon their clothing.
A few moments later, with self respect considerably improved, they sauntered down to the writing room, where they found the two girls looking more distractingly pretty than ever, engaged in folding the last of their letters.
“Oh, back so soon?” queried Mabel, looking up.
“Goodness, how the time has flown,” said Clara. “It seems as though you had just gone. Have you another stamp, Mabel dear? I have used mine all up.”
“Say, you’re complimentary,” remarked Jim, dryly. “It’s great to be missed like that.”
“Well, we’ll miss something more if we don’t get a move on,” said Joe, practically. “How about some lunch, girls?”
After luncheon the quartette sauntered out for a walk up Elizabeth street to the post-office. The boys were just congratulating themselves that their uncomfortable, though piquant, experience of the morning was a thing definitely of the past, when it happened!198
Joe felt a touch on his arm, and, looking down, saw, to his horror, the black girl.
“Me yours!” she cried, eagerly.
Joe muttered savagely beneath his breath, and held the girl off at arm’s length, his misery increasing as, with a quick side glance, he saw the growing indignation in Mabel’s eyes.
“Me yours!” repeated the girl, with the maddening monotony of a phonograph.
But just then, when Joe was at his wit’s end, help came from an unexpected quarter. A big black man, glowering threateningly, elbowed his way through the curious group that had gathered about them, grasped the girl by the arm, and dragged her away. There was no mistaking the jealousy that prompted the action. Joe drew a deep sigh of deliverance, while Jim was crimson with suppressed laughter.
Mabel was the only one, except Joe himself, who could not see the joke. There were two pink spots in her cheeks, her eyes were very bright, her head was held high, and poor Joe had some explaining to do before the party left Australia, which they did soon after, and started on their journey to Ceylon.
They reached Colombo in Ceylon, the island of spices, the richest gem in the Indian ocean, and disembarked late one afternoon. At the hotel in the English quarter, while the women of the party199went to their rooms to refresh themselves and dress for dinner, the men, after a hasty toilet, went into the lobby of the hotel where, as always, their first thought was to get hold of the papers from home.
Joe’s eyes fell on a New York paper and he snatched it up eagerly and turned to the sporting page for the latest news of the diamond. He gave a startled exclamation as he saw the bold headline that stretched across the top of the page:
“Joe Matson, the Pitching King, Signs with the All-Star League!”
200CHAPTER XXIVTHE BLOW FALLS
Baseball Joe’s first sensation was one of unutterable surprise, followed a moment later by fierce indignation.
“What’s the matter, Joe?” asked Jim, coming up behind him.
“Matter enough!” growled Joe, thrusting the offending paper under his comrade’s nose. “Look at this!”
Jim looked and gave a long whistle of surprise.
“What does it mean?” he ejaculated, as his eyes went from the headlines to the story, which covered the greater part of the page.
“Mean?” snorted Joe. “It means a stab in the back. It means that those skunks are trying to do by lying what they couldn’t do by bribery. It means that while we’re thousands of miles away they are trying to gull the public and get other ball players to jump their contracts by a barefaced lie like this. I wish I had hold of the201fellow who’s doing this—I’d make him sweat for it!”
“Of course it’s a lie,” assented Jim, “and a lie out of whole cloth. But what beats me is why they should do it? It’s bound to be a boomerang.”
They sat down side by side and read the paper together, and the more they read the more bewildered they became.
For the story was circumstantial. It went into minute details. It embraced interviews with the backers of the new league, who confirmed it without hesitation. One of the paragraphs read as follows:
“Nothing in years has created such a sensation in the world of sport as the news just made public that Matson, the star pitcher of the Giants, had jumped the fold and landed in the All-Star League. It was known that overtures were made to this great pitcher at the end of his last season, when his magnificent work created a record in the National League that will probably never be surpassed. It was understood, however, that these offers, though coupled with a tremendous bonus and salary, had been definitely rejected. For that reason the news that he has reconsidered and jumped to the All-Stars comes like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. The major leaguers are202in consternation, while the new league naturally is jubilant at this acquisition to their ranks. Matson is a popular idol among his fellow players and it is believed that many stars who have been wavering in their allegiance to the old leagues will follow his example.”
“Nothing in years has created such a sensation in the world of sport as the news just made public that Matson, the star pitcher of the Giants, had jumped the fold and landed in the All-Star League. It was known that overtures were made to this great pitcher at the end of his last season, when his magnificent work created a record in the National League that will probably never be surpassed. It was understood, however, that these offers, though coupled with a tremendous bonus and salary, had been definitely rejected. For that reason the news that he has reconsidered and jumped to the All-Stars comes like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. The major leaguers are202in consternation, while the new league naturally is jubilant at this acquisition to their ranks. Matson is a popular idol among his fellow players and it is believed that many stars who have been wavering in their allegiance to the old leagues will follow his example.”
The rest of the page was devoted to a recital of Joe’s achievements in pitching the Giants to the Championship of the National League and, later, to the Championship of the World.
The two friends stared at each other in amazement and rage, and just then McRae and Robbie, together with a group of other players, came hurrying up, holding other papers which, though in different words, told substantially the same story.
There was a babel of excited questions and exclamations, and Joe felt a sharp pang go through him, as for the first time in his experience with the manager of the Giants, he saw in McRae’s eyes a shadow of distrust.
“Isn’t this the limit?” asked McRae, as he crushed the paper in his hand, threw it to the floor and trampled on it in disgust and anger.
“It sure is,” replied Joe. “I’ve had lies told about me before but never one that touched me on the raw like this.”203
“It’s a burning outrage,” cried Denton indignantly.
“What they expect to make out of it is beyond me,” declared Robbie. “They ought to know that they can’t get away with it.”
“But in the meantime it will have done its work,” Willis pointed out. “What if it is contradicted later on? By that time they’ll have a dozen stars signed and they should worry. As long as it’s believed that Joe has jumped, it’s just as good for them as though he had.”
“That’s the worst of it,” agreed Joe bitterly. “Of course I’ll send a cable contradicting it, but the lie has got a head start and a lot of damage has been done. What do you suppose my friends in America are thinking about me just now?”
“Don’t worry about that, Joe,” comforted Jim. “Your real friends won’t believe it, and for the rest it doesn’t matter. Nobody that really knows you believes you would jump your contract.”
“Whoever got that story up was foxy, though,” commented Mylert, the burly catcher of the Giants. “There are no ‘ifs or ands’ about it like most phony stories where the fellow’s trying to hedge in case someone comes back at him. It sounds like straight goods. It’s the most truthful looking lie I ever saw.”
“But it’s a lie just the same!” cried Joe204desperately. “All you fellows know I wouldn’t throw the Giants down, don’t you?” he asked, as his eyes swept the circle of fellow players who were gathered around him.
There was a murmur of assent, but it was not as hearty as Joe could have wished. If there was not distrust, there was at least bewilderment, for the story bore all the earmarks of truth.
“You know it, don’t you, Mac?” repeated Joe, this time addressing directly the Giant leader.
For a fraction of a second McRae hesitated. Then he threw doubt to the winds and gripped Joe’s hand with a heartiness that warmed the latter’s heart.
“Of course, I know it, Joe!” he exclaimed emphatically. “I don’t deny that for a moment the paper had me going. But in my heart I know it’s a lie. So just send your cable and then let’s forget it. Those fellows are just making a rope to hang themselves with. We’ll make it warm for them when we get back to the States.”
“You ought to sue the papers for libel,” growled Robbie.
“There won’t be any suing,” said Joe heatedly. “Just let me have five minutes alone with the fellow that started this and that’s all I’ll ask.”
He hurried down with Jim to the cable office205and a few minutes later this message buzzed its way across the seas:
“Report that I have signed with the All-Star League absolutely false. Will give a thousand dollars to charity if anyone can produce contract.“Joseph Matson.”
“Report that I have signed with the All-Star League absolutely false. Will give a thousand dollars to charity if anyone can produce contract.
“Joseph Matson.”
“Joseph Matson.”
“That ought to hold them for a while,” commented Jim.
“It ought,” said Joe gloomily. “But you know the old saying that ‘a lie will go round the world while truth is getting its boots on.’”
Still he felt better, and by the time he got back to the hotel and met the girls, he had so far regained his usual poise that he could tell them all about it with some measure of self-control.
“Why, Joe! how could they dare do such a thing as that?” exclaimed Mabel, her eyes flashing fire.
“It’s about the meanest thing I ever heard of!” cried his sister.
“They ought to be sued for libel, don’t you know,” broke in Reggie. “If you sued them, Joe, you might get quite heavy damages.”
“It’s a pity you can’t put somebody in jail for it,” was Mabel’s further comment.
“Yes, that’s what ought to happen!” cried Clara.206
Both of the girls were wild with indignation. Although Mabel at one time, influenced by the arguments of Braxton that Joe was not really bound by a one-sided contract, had spoken to him about it in a guarded way, Joe had shown her so clearly his moral obligation that he had convinced her absolutely. And now she was angry clear through at the blow in the dark that had been launched against him.
“Who could have done such a contemptible thing?” she cried.
“It must have been that horrid Westland!” exclaimed Clara.
“Maybe,” agreed her brother. “I rather hope it was.”
“Why?” asked Jim curiously.
“Because,” gritted Joe through his teeth, “he’s a big fellow and I won’t be ashamed to hit him.”
207CHAPTER XXVTHE COBRA IN THE ROOM
Ceylon was a land of wonders to the tourists. Here they were in the very heart of the Orient. Rare flowers and strange plants grew in glorious profusion, the air was odorous with a thousand scents, and it was hard for them to realize that at that very moment America might be suffering from zero weather or swept by blizzards. Here life moved along serenely and dreamily, lulled by the sound of birds and drone of locusts, wrapped in the warm folds of eternal summer.
“It’s an earthly Eden!” murmured Clara, as she and Jim walked along one of the main streets of Colombo, followed at a little distance by Joe and Mabel.
“Yes,” replied Jim with a laugh, “and not even the snake is missing.”
He pointed to a group of natives and Europeans on the other side of the street who were gathered about a snake charmer.208
“Ugh, the horrid things!” exclaimed Clara with a shudder.
“Let’s go over and take a look,” suggested Jim.
Clara demurred at first and so did Mabel. They were used to seeing snakes behind a network of wire and glass, and they did not relish the idea of standing within a few feet of the crawling serpents in the open street. But curiosity, added to the urgings of the young men, finally conquered, and they joined the throng on the other side.
The performer, an old man with bronzed face, was squatting on his haunches playing a weird tune on a reedy instrument resembling a flute. Before him was upreared a monstrous specimen of the deadly cobra species, swaying gently to and fro and keeping time to the music. Its malignant eyes looking out from the broad head whose markings resembled a pair of spectacles had lost something of their fiery sparkle, and a slight haze spread over them, as though the creature were under a spell.
The music continued and two other snakes crawled out as if in response to a call and joined their companion in his swaying, rhythmic dance. Then the tune changed, the snakes uncoiled, and the performer took them up without the slightest fear and put them back in the basket.209
“Suppose they should bite him!” exclaimed Mabel.
“He’s had their fangs drawn already,” returned Joe. “The old rascal’s taking no chances.”
“They say that a man lasts about half an hour after one of those fellows nips him,” observed Jim. “Somebody was telling me that over twenty thousand natives are bitten by them every year.”
A little further down the street, another fakir was giving an exhibition. He placed a small native boy in a basket that was a tight fit and put down the basket cover. Then after making mysterious signs and muttering invocations, the fakir drew a long sword and plunged it through the basket from end to end. A scream of pain came from within, and when the sword was withdrawn it was red. Again and again this was repeated until the screams died away. Then the fakir lifted up the cover and the boy sprang out safe and sound, and, showing his white teeth in a smile, went around collecting coins from the bystanders.
They wandered further among the bazaars, making purchases of curios as presents for the folks at home and adding to their personal stock of mementos. Jim secured among other things a cane made of a rare Indian wood, which while light was exceedingly strong and so pliable that it could be bent almost double like a Damascus blade.210
But through all the chaff and fun of the day Joe was unhappy and restless. What he had read in the paper from home about himself poisoned everything for him.
He had always tried to be perfectly straight and honorable in all his business relations. His word had ever been as good as his bond. Now, at one stroke, he saw his reputation damaged perhaps beyond mending. All over the United States he had been pictured as a contract-breaker. He could see the incredulity of his friends turning gradually to contempt. He fancied he could hear them saying:
“So Joe has fallen for that game, has he? Well, they say that every man has his price. No doubt Joe’s price was high, but they found out what it was and bought him.”
Of course he had denied it, but he knew how people smiled when they read denials. And months must pass before he could get back to America and try to hunt out the author or authors of the story.
He tried to hide his mood under a cover of light talk and banter, but the others felt it and sympathized with him, though all refrained from mentioning what each of them was thinking.
All through the day his gloom persisted, and when night came and he had retired to the room211that he and Jim occupied together he felt that it would be impossible for him to sleep.
“There’s no use talking,” said Jim with a yawn, as he set his cane so that it rested against the footboard and threw off his coat preparing to undress, “sight-seeing’s the most tiring work there is. I feel more done up to-night than if I had been pitching in a hard game.”
“I’m tired too,” agreed Joe, “but I don’t feel the least bit like sleep.”
Jim was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. But Joe tossed about restlessly for what seemed to him to be hours. The night was very warm and all the windows were open to get what breath of air might be stirring.
A broad veranda ran all around the building, not more than two feet below the windows, and from the ground to the veranda rose a luxuriant tangle of vines and flowers.
The moon was at the full and its light flooded a part of the room, leaving the rest in deep shadow.
Joe at last dropped off into a doze from which he woke with a start.
He had heard nothing, but he had an uneasy consciousness that something was wrong.
He glanced over at Jim who was peacefully sleeping. Then he raised himself on his elbow and his glance swept the room.212
Nothing seemed amiss in the lighted part, but in a darkened corner the shadow seemed to be heavier than usual. It was as though it were piled in a mass instead of being evenly distributed.
Then to Joe’s consternationthe shadow moved, reached the edge of moonlight, rose higher and higher with a sickening swaying motion. From a hideous head two sparks of fire glowed balefully and Joe knew that he was in the presence of a giant cobra!
213CHAPTER XXVIIN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDS
Joe’s blood chilled with horror and his heart seemed for a moment to stop beating.
He did not dare to move and scarcely to breathe. He might have been a statue, so rigid was his attitude. He knew that the least movement would provoke an attack on the part of the deadly reptile.
On the other hand, if he kept perfectly quiet, there was the chance of the snake gliding away through the window, which had evidently been its means of entering the room.
Whether the serpent saw him or not, Joe could not tell. The head swayed for a minute or two, while the glowing eyes seemed to take in every corner of the room. Then the coils unwound and with a slithering sound the snake began to crawl across the floor.
But instead of seeking the window it was gliding towards the bed!
If he had had a revolver Joe would have had214a chance, for at such close range he could scarcely have missed. Even a knife to hurl, though only a forlorn hope, might have pinned the snake to the floor. But he was utterly without a weapon of any kind.
Suddenly he remembered the cane that his chum had leaned against the footboard a few hours earlier.
He reached down stealthily and his hand closed upon it.
He did not dare to wake Jim for fear that the latter might leap from the bed and perhaps land squarely on the gliding death that was somewhere in the room. He had lost sight of it, but he could still hear the dragging body and it seemed to be now under the bed. At any instant that awful head might rise on either side prepared to strike.
Gripping the cane until his fingers seemed to dig into it, Joe had a moment of awful suspense.
The gliding sound had ceased. Then from the side nearest Jim a hideous head uprose within a foot of the sleeping man’s face.
Like a flash the tough cane hissed through the air with all Joe’s muscle back of it. It caught the reptile full in the neck and sent it half way across the room where it lay writhing.
In an instant Joe had leaped to the floor,215raining blows upon the head and floundering coils, until at last the reptile straightened out and lay still.
“What’s the matter?” cried Jim, awakened by the tumult and jumping out of bed.
He turned pale as he saw the snake stretched out on the floor and Joe who, now that the awful strain was over, was leaning against the wall as limp as a rag.
Jim turned on the light and they viewed the monster, standing at a respectful distance from the head.
“He seems dead enough, but you can never be sure of a snake,” said Joe, after in a few hurried words he had told of his experience. “Suppose, Jim, you get that Malay’s knife out of my trunk and we’ll make certain.”
Jim brought the kriss, which Joe had kept as a memento of his struggle with the maniac, and with one stroke severed the cobra’s head from his body.
“That knife never did a better bit of work,” he commented as he washed it off. “Now let’s get this thing out of the window and clear up the mess.”
They got through the repugnant work as soon as possible and then made a careful search of the room.
“That fellow may have had a mate,” remarked216Joe, “and one experience of this kind is enough for a lifetime. I’ve always felt a little doubtful about those stories of people whose hair turned gray in a single night, but it’s easy enough to believe it now.”
“We’ll close the window too,” said Jim, suiting the action to the word and letting the upper sash down only for an inch or two. “That’s the way that fellow must have crawled in. It’s pretty hot in here but I’d rather die of heat than snake bites.”
They went back to bed but not to sleep, for they were too thoroughly wrought up by their narrow escape.
“You must have hit that fellow an awful crack,” said Jim. “You sure batted .300 in the Ceylon League.”
“Broke his neck, I guess,” responded Joe. “It’s lucky it wasn’t a missed strike for I wouldn’t have had time for another one.”
“Don’t let’s say anything to the girls about it,” suggested Jim. “Not until we get away from India anyway. They’d be seeing snakes all the rest of the time we’re here.”
It was lucky that neither of them was slated to pitch the next day, for they would scarcely have been in condition after their night’s experience. A game had been arranged between the visiting teams at a date three days later. By that time Joe was in his usual superb form and easily carried217off the victory for his team. This put the Giants “on velvet,” for they now had a clear lead of two over the All-Americans.
But the satisfaction that this would have usually given Joe was lacking now. Victory had ceased to be sweet since the receipt of that newspaper from home.
Perhaps it was because of his sensitive condition that he thought he detected a subtle change in the conduct of his team mates towards him. While perfectly friendly in their relations with him, they did not “let themselves go” when in his presence, as formerly. There was no boisterous clapping on the back, no jolly sparring or wrestling. There seemed to be a little holding in, a feeling of reserve, a something in the back of their minds that they did not care for him to see.
This joyous freemasonry of sport had always been especially pleasant to Joe and for that reason he felt its absence the more keenly.
But what exasperated him most was that if the old standbys of the club were a trifle cool, Iredell, Curry and Burkett went to the other extreme and were more cordial than ever before. It was as though they were welcoming a newcomer to their ranks. They knew that they were under suspicion of planning to jump their contracts in the spring, and the apparent evidence that so renowned a player as Joe was planning to do the218same thing made them hail him as a reinforcement.
Where formerly they had often ceased talking when he approached them and made him feel that he was an intruder, they now greeted him warmly, although they did not yet feel quite sure enough to broach the subject of their own accord.
“All little pals together,” hummed Iredell significantly on one occasion with a sidelong glance at Joe.
“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Joe sharply.
“Just what I say,” replied Iredell innocently. “What is there wrong about that? Aren’t we Giants pals to each other?”
“Of course we are, as long as we stay Giants,” replied Joe. “But that wasn’t what you meant, Dell, and you know it.”
“Now, don’t get red-headed, Joe,” put in Curry soothingly. “You must have got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Dell didn’t mean any harm.”
“Tell me one thing,” said Joe. “Do any of you fellows believe for one minute that story in the paper?”
He looked from one to the other, but none of them looked him straight in the eye.
“You know that I’ve denied it,” went on Joe, as they kept silent, “and if after that you still219believe the story it’s the same as saying that I lie. And no one can call me a liar and get away with it.”
He stalked away leaving them dumbfounded.
“Do you think he really has jumped his contract?” asked Burkett.
“I don’t know,” replied Iredell dubiously.
“He’s got me guessing,” muttered Curry.
And the trio were still guessing when several weeks later the party reached Egyptian soil, prepared to play the most modern of games before the most ancient of monuments—baseball in the very shadow of the Pyramids!