CHAPTER XXIII.WHAT HAPPENED TO ABE.
“Abe,” said the sailor, as they reached the street, “I entertain palpitating fears that I shall never place my lily-white hands on the balance due me from William. I am afraid he will not settle. I shall have to charge it up to profit and loss.”
“Why, cap’n,” said the boy wonderingly, “I believe he expected you to give him something. I think he was disappointed.”
"Haven’t a doubt of it, my boy; but this world is full of bitter disappointments. I have encountered a number of them in my time. A person gets used to it after a while. Disappointments roll from me like water off a duck’s back. Once on a time they filled me with bitterness, and heartburning, and other painful emotions too numerous to mention. Once on a time I had a girl who threw me down for a homelier chap. Abe, it then seemed that for me the sun had eternally set and Stygian night lay spread before me for all time. I even thought of taking a shotgun and discharging it into that vacuum where my brains are supposed to be. I longed to rest in my cold, cold grave, where all would be peace, and silence, and relief. In my mind’s eye I saw above me a little mound of earth, with daisies, forget-me-nots, hollyhocks, cowslips, and other aristocratic flowers growing allover it. I saw the cruel, cruel girl weeping above that mound, and it gave me untold satisfaction.
“The only thing that saved me from destruction was my thirst. I was seized by an awful thirst, and when I had quenched it I felt a great deal better. What I drank helped me to forget my sorrows, and the next day I had another girl. As I inspected this other girl with my critical eye, I arrived at the conclusion that she just about knocked the spots off number one. And ever since that time I have faced disappointments with philosophical complaisance, firm in my belief that every disappointment and fizzle I made is simply a blessing in disguise. That’s why I stroll through life with such serene urbanity. That’s why I smile in the face of the finger of scorn and the tongue of gossip. Excuse me if my metaphor is slightly mixed.”
“What are you talking about, anyway, captain?”
“I don’t know, Abe. I often wonder what I am talking about. At one time I engaged a cultured person to translate my language for me. But when heexplainedexplainedit to me, some of the things I said so shocked me that I immediately discharged him. I concluded that it was better for me to pass through life in blissful ignorance of the real meaning of my own fluent conversation. But stay, Abe, stay! Methinks I have forgotten something. Even so, I have left my hundred-dollar meerschaum pipe in that restaurant. I placed it on the table at my elbow, and came away without it. It’s ten chances to one that the waiter has already gathered it unto his person, and is now chortling with glee over his good fortune. Pause here amoment, while I hasten back to recover my property. I will return before any elongated amount of time has evaporated.” Saying which, Wiley quickly dashed back into the restaurant, leaving the boy waiting upon the sidewalk.
Barely had the sailor disappeared when a closed cab stopped at the curb, and from it sprang two black-bearded men, whose slouch hats were pulled low down over their eyes. Before Abe could dream that he was in the slightest danger, these men seized him. One of them clapped a broad hand over his mouth, to prevent him from making an outcry, and in a most astonishing manner he was snapped up, carried to the cab, and lifted into it. If passing pedestrians observed this daring piece of work it was completed before one of them thought of interfering. The cab door closed with a bang. The driver whipped up his horses, and the astonished and frightened hunchback was borne swiftly away.
“Keep still, boy!” growled one of the bearded men. “If you raise a yell you’ll be sorry. We’re not going to hurt you.”
Abe had managed to cling to his fiddle, which was a habit of his at all times. He was terrified, shocked, and almost smothered.
“Don’t!” he begged. “What have I done to you? Let me go, please! Let me go!”
“We’ll let you go,” was the retort. “We’re just going to give you a little ride. You will enjoy it.”
“Look out for him,” cautioned the other man. “He may set up a whoop.”
“I know he won’t, because I’ll choke the gizzard out of him if he does. Don’t you even peep, kid!”
“I never hurt you,” whispered the agitated boy. “Let me get out. Cap’n Wiley will miss me. He told me to wait.”
“You didn’t have time to wait, kid. You was in a hurry. You met some very dear friends, who took a great interest in you, and you couldn’t linger for Cap’n Wiley.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Oh, we will take you to a nice place, where there are lots of pretty things, and you will enjoy yourself. Eh, Sam?”
“Sure, Bill!” agreed Sam.
“I don’t want to go.”
“Oh! yes, you do; yes, you do. Perhaps you think you don’t want to go, but you do. You will have a nice time—eh, Sam?”
“Sure, Bill! He will enjoy himself immensely.”
“Why did you do it?”
“Oh, it’s just a little joke—a fine little joke on Cap’n Wiley. Ha! ha! He will be all fussed up when he comes out and finds you gone. To-morrow morning you can go back to him. The joke will be all over then—eh, Sam?”
“Sure, Bill; it will be all over as far as we are concerned. We won’t have anything further to do with it.”
Then the two ruffians laughed in a manner that made the unfortunate boy’s blood run cold. He felt sure they were scoundrels, yet why they should seek to hurt him was beyond his understanding. Once beforehe had been kidnapped in a similar manner, and the experience through which he passed was so terrible that the memory haunted his waking hours and troubled his dreams. He was now terrified by the thought that he must again pass through a similar experience. Yet, somehow, the suddenness of what had happened robbed him of strength to struggle, and convinced him it would be folly for him to shout for aid.
The cab rolled on, turning corner after corner, and to the boy the ride seemed almost interminable. Finally it came to an end, and one of the men flung the door open as soon as the cab stopped. He sprang out and looked around.
“All right,” he said. “Chuck the kid out, Sam. No one near.”
The boy was thrust out by Sam, and instantly Bill caught him up, turned like a flash, and ran up the steps of a house. Even as he reached the door it opened for him, and then, for the first time, Abe uttered a cry which rang sharp and shrill, and full of unspeakable terror, along the dark block. He attempted to struggle, but his puny strength was of no avail, and a moment later the door closed heavily behind him.
In the darkness of that house the boy was carried up a flight of stairs andthrustthrustinto a room. The door closed upon him, and he was alone. For some moments he stood shaking like a leaf, his legs seeming almost too weak to bear him.
“What does it mean?” he breathed. “It must mean that Frank’s enemies have done this. What good could it do them to hurt me?”
His only satisfaction lay in the fact that his dear fiddle was still in his possession.
After a time he felt for the door and found it; but, as he expected, it remained immovable beneath his touch. There seemed to be no window to the room.
“I can’t get away!” he sobbed. “I will never get away any more unless Frank finds me. He found me once and saved me. He can’t find me now!”
Until he met Frank Merriwell, Abe had never heard the name of God save as an oath. He had known absolutely nothing of religion.
Frank himself, a firm believer in all things good, had found time to teach the lad, and now little Abe knelt in that dark room and prayed. It was a simple prayer, but who can say it was not heard by the One to whom it was addressed?
“Dear God,” he sobbed, “I am alone, a poor little hunchback boy. I never hurt nobody in my life. I wouldn’t hurt nobody if I could. Dear God, Frank says you know everything, see everything, and are good and kind to every one. I know what Frank says is true, for he couldn’t say anything that is not true. Please, God, don’t let the bad men take me away from Frank. If they do I shall die! Frank is the only one in the whole world who has ever been kind to me. I love him, dear God, and so won’t you please, please let him find me again! Amen!”
Even as he uttered the final word there came a sound at the door. He leaped to his feet, shaking with excitement, his heart filled with the belief that somehow his prayer had been answered thus quickly.
The door opened. Abe fell back with a little gaspof disappointment, for into the room stepped a masked man who carried a lighted lamp in his hand. This man closed the door behind him and stood with his back against it, the lamp held high, while he stared through the twin holes of the mask at the cowering hunchback.
There were some moments of silence. The man with the lamp was first to speak.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“It’s Abe, sir—only Abe.”
“Is that all the name you know?” came the harsh, cold voice from beyond the mask.
“That’s all, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy! Tell me the truth!”
“I am not lying. Frank says it is wicked to lie.”
“Where were you born?”
“I don’t know.”
“See here, boy, I want you to tell me all you know about yourself. It’s the best thing you can do. If you don’t know where you were born, at least you do know where you have lived.”
“Always, until Frank found me, I lived down in Camp Broncho.”
“That’s in Arizona, is it?”
“I think so.”
“How did you come to be in Camp Broncho? Who left you there?”
“Oh, I can’t remember much about it. Once there was a man named Black Dorson, and I used to play the fiddle for him and get money for him, and he beat me; but one night he was shot, and after that I lived the best way I could.”
The masked man advanced into the room and placed the lamp on a small table.
“You don’t remember anything about yourself before you lived with Black Dorson?”
“I don’t seem to remember much. Sometimes I almost remember, but it is like a dream.”
“What is it you almost remember?”
“Oh, I can’t tell! I can’t tell! It is all confused! I think it must be a dream, for I know it cannot be true. It seems that once I had a home and was not a little miserable hunchback that everybody kicked and cursed.”
Again the man stood still some moments, staring at the boy.
“What are you going to do with me?” asked Abe. “Are you going to kill me?”
“It may be true!” he muttered. “I believe he looks like her!”
Then he suddenly commanded:
“Boy, take off your coat!”
“What for?” panted Abe. “What are you going to do?”
“Take off your coat! Don’t be scared. I am not going to hurt you.”
Realizing the folly of refusing to obey, the boy pulled off his coat as directed.
“Shove up your right sleeve above the elbow,” ordered the man.
With shaking fingers the lad obeyed.
The wearer of the mask then gripped Abe’s wrist with his left hand, still keeping his right behind him,as he had done almost constantly since entering the room. He drew the boy nearer to the light and seemed gazing eagerly and excitedly at the thin, bared arm.
“Push your sleeve higher,” he directed.
Abe did so.
Suddenly a low, savage exclamation came from the hidden lips of the man.
“There it is!” he almost panted. “There is the mark!”
On the lad’s arm, just above the elbow, were the faint outlines of a blue star, as if it had been tattooed in the flesh years before. Hundreds of times Abe had gazed at this mark upon his arm and wondered over it. To him it was a mystery and one he fancied would never be solved.
Suddenly the man threw the boy’s wrist aside, and through the eyeholes of the mask Abe fancied he caught a reddish gleam. And now suddenly upon him fell a feeling of hopeless fear more intense than any he had yet experienced.
“He will kill me now!” he whispered. “I know he will!”
“It is her brat!” muttered the man. “Shawmut lied to me. The kid still lives!”
He turned as if to depart, and for a moment the hand he had so persistently held behind his back dropped at his side. In a twinkling Abe seized it, as he began wildly pleading for mercy. Only a few words escaped his lips, for the touch of that hand, cold, and clammy, and deathlike, silenced him. It wasas if he had grasped the fingers of a corpse, and he saw that the hand, scarcely larger than a child’s, was white as chalk.
With a terrible oath the masked man lifted his other hand and struck the boy down. Then he caught up the lamp and hurried out of the room, the door closing with a click behind him.