It was with a feeling of unadulterated satisfaction that Gene Skelding left the perfumed rooms of Rupert Chickering, after having expressed his opinion of the Chickering set, separately and collectively.
It had always seemed a little strange to any one who knew Gene that he had been one of the members of that crew of worthless cigarette-smokers. For Skelding was a fighter, and he was the only genuine fighter in the collection. The others were cowards of the most abject sort.
Skelding had a way of closing his mouth firmly, and keeping it closed, which was a most difficult thing for any other member of the set to do.
Indeed, Tilton Hull found it possible to keep his mouth closed only when it was held thus by his collar propping his lower jaw up. Take away his collar, and his jaw drooped at once.
Lew Veazie always carried his mouth open, breathing through it from habit. It would have caused him great discomfort, not to say agony, had he been compelled to close his mouth and keep it thus for three minutes without a break.
Of course, Ollie Lord imitated Veazie in everything,and he fancied that the insipid, brainless expression of a cigarette-smoker with open mouth in repose was proper.
Julian Ives breathed through his mouth from habit, but Chickering had a way of pressing his lips together, turning up his eyes, clasping his pale hands, and looking like a saint. This was the expression he wore as Skelding retired from the room, and he hoped it would be so impressed on Gene’s mind that the “rude fellow” would come to believe in time that he had done Rupert a great wrong. Skelding afterward spoke of that look as reminding him of a dying calf.
Gene descended the stairs, stepped on the steps, and drew several deep breaths, as if he would clear his lungs of the atmosphere that had defiled them while he was in that room. He was satisfied with himself and what he had done.
For some time he had been growing more and more disgusted with the Chickering crowd. Of late he had appeared in public with them as seldom as possible. Skelding was not a fool, and he saw at last that his folly in taking up with such fellows had given him his standing at Yale, and that standing was not pleasant to contemplate.
At last he had been taught the old, old lesson that a man is judged by the company he keeps. Most boys are told this early in life, but somehow it seems to have little impression on them until their eyes are openedby experience. Shun bad company; better have no friends than to be friendly with the wrong sort of fellows.
Skelding had never smoked cigarettes until he fell in with the Chickering crowd. Then it was nothing more than natural that he should take to them, for they were forever near him, being smoked by his companions and offered to him.
He had not found them agreeable at first, but surely he, big and strong, could endure as much as that little whipper-snapper Veazie, and so he had persisted in using them until the habit was set upon him.
A dozen times he had vowed that he would smoke no more, but always he had found the things at hand in Chickering’s room, and the cloud of smoke hanging there almost constantly led him to break his pledge. The man who does not smoke is annoyed to extremes by the smoke of others; but he soon ceases to notice it if he fires up and joins them.
Now, however, Skelding paused on the step and shook his light overcoat with the idea of getting the smoke smell out of it. Never before had the fresh air seemed so good to him. He drew it into his lungs with satisfaction and relief. Then he reached into a pocket of that overcoat and took out part of a package of cigarettes.
“There!” he exclaimed; “by the eternal hills, I amdone with you forever! You are the badge of degeneracy.”
He threw the package away. It seemed to him that at that moment he had severed the last strand that had bound him to the Chickering set.
There was untold satisfaction in the feeling of relief and freedom which came to him. He looked back on what he had been, and wondered at his folly. He contemplated his association with Rupert Chickering and his pals, wondering that he could have found any satisfaction in such company. No matter what happened, he was done with them.
It is hard to understand how great a thing this was for him to do. Skelding was a man who liked companionship. He was not given to the habit of solitude, and he desired friends. But he knew that, without doubt, he was cutting himself off from the only men who would be friendly toward him while he remained in college.
He had been stamped with the odious brand of Chickering, and other men would not care to associate with him. Nevertheless, he felt better.
“I’ll go it alone,” he said grimly. “It’s the best thing I can do now.”
Then he thought of Defarge, and he felt a sudden sympathy for him. They were both outcasts. Perhaps they might strike up a friendship. A few seconds later he was on the way to the room of Bertrand.
Skelding did not pause to knock. Turning the knob quietly, he entered the room. Defarge, thin, haggard, wild-looking, was standing by a table, loading a revolver. He muttered to himself:
“It’s my only way to escape! I feel that he has released me from the spell, so that I am my own master now; but he may put it in me the next time we meet, and I shall be the slave of his devilish eyes! He must die!”
“Defarge!”
Skelding spoke, and, with a little cry, Bertrand whirled round, pointing the revolver at the newcomer. The hand that held the weapon shook violently.
“My dear fellow,” said Gene, stepping forward, “you could not hit a house that was ten feet away. Your nerves are in terrible shape, my boy.”
Defarge lowered the revolver.
“I—I thought it was he!” he said hoarsely.
“Whom do you mean?”
“Merriwell.”
“Did you think he had come?”
“Yes.”
“Why should he do that?”
“He has done it before now. He came here once and looked at me with those eyes of his. I don’t remember much after that, but I know I talked and told him things I did not mean to tell. I thought he had come again.”
“What did you mean to do in case he had?”
“Shoot him!”
“You could not have hit him at a distance of ten feet. You were shaking like a leaf.”
“I know—I know! You see what I’ve come to. He is to blame for it all.” The eyes of Defarge were glaring and bloodshot.
“You may be somewhat to blame yourself. Do you remember what I told you the other morning, after fighting with you here all night to keep you still and prevent you from doing something that would ruin you forever?”
“Oh, I don’t remember much about it. I know you were here, but that’s all. I was rather nutty that night, wasn’t I?”
“Rather,” said Skelding dryly. “You thought you had choked and drowned Merriwell in Italy or somewhere. You were haunted by his eyes.”
“Curse those eyes! They haunt me all the time! Skelding, you don’t suppose the fellow has the power of second sight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, it seems to me as if he is watching me all the while, and that is why I can’t get away from those eyes. I have tried to get away from them in the dark, but in the dark I see them and they seem to see me all the plainer.”
“Absinth is what ails you, Defarge. You’ve got to quit it—or go up the spout.”
“I—I don’t believe I can quit it,” confessed Bertrand, with a pitiful expression of helplessness. “It’s the only thing that soothes my nerves.”
“It may seem to quiet them for the time, but it tears you all to pieces afterward, and you know it. And every time you take the stuff you are becoming more and more its victim. It has a fearful hold on you already.”
Defarge trembled.
“Oh, if I could do one thing I would be all right!” he cried.
“What’s that?”
“Get away from those eyes! I’ll do it, too! I’m going to get away from them! I know a way!”
Skelding thought of the revolver, which Bertrand had been loading. It was lying on the table now, beside two boxes of cartridges.
“How do you mean?” he asked. “You’re not thinking of shooting yourself?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then——”
“Of shooting him!”
“Merriwell?”
“That’s it! that’s it! It’s the only way, I tell you! Don’t talk to me! I’ve figured it all out. When hiseyes are closed they will trouble me no more. I’m going to close them forever!”
“He’s been drinking again to-night!” thought Gene. “He is full of the stuff, and it’s impossible to reason with him now. How can I handle him? I must find a way to do so without letting him know it.
“That is a desperate remedy, don’t you think?” he said aloud.
“Perhaps so, but it’s a desperate case. I can’t sleep nights, Skelding. The minute I put out my light and lie down I see those eyes watching me. Even though I close my own eyes tightly I see them just the same. Skelding, the only thing that can save me from the madhouse is the death of Merriwell! I’ve thought it all out, and I have arrived at that conviction.”
“And you bought a revolver for that purpose?”
“Oh, no! I bought that to use at the political celebration last fall. Bought a box of blanks to go with it, but I did not fire them all. There are some of them in that box there. I bought the other box to-day.”
“The others are not blanks.”
“I guess not. Told the man I bought them of that I wanted to use them to shoot a dog. That was right, too! I am going to shoot a dog with them!”
“You have loaded the revolver with the new cartridges?”
“Sure thing. It’s all ready now.”
“Well, let’s talk this over a little. Sit down, Defarge.”
Skelding had taken a seat by the table.
“Wait,” said Bertrand. He took a bottle from a little closet and looked at it. It was empty. “I must have a drink,” he declared, his hand shaking. “Wait a minute till I come back. I know a fellow who has something in his room.”
He slipped out of his room, leaving Skelding there. In less than five minutes he was back, his face flushed and a changed expression in his eyes.
“I found something,” he said. “Now I’m all right for a while! Now I have nerve! It’s when I feel this way that I’m ready for anything! It’s when I feel this way that I shall do the job! I’ll put out those eyes so they’ll never bother me any more! Look at my hand. See how steady it is.”
He held it out, and Gene saw that it did not shake.
“Good,” nodded Skelding. “Now you should be able to sit down and talk without getting daffy.”
“What’s the use? I know what you want to say to me. You fool! Why, Skelding, I thought you were one of Merriwell’s bitterest enemies!”
“I was—once.”
“But you’ve lost your nerve, just like all the others.”
“It’s not that. I have had my eyes opened.”
“Bah! Don’t tell me! You do not love him any more than you did before, but you have lost your nerve.I am the only man left with any nerve, and I get that from the right kind of stuff. They think Merriwell is the only thing that ever happened here! He has put them all under a spell—all, all! I believe he has put you under a spell! You’d never have changed like this if he hadn’t—never! But his time is limited! I swear it! Why did I load that revolver? Ha, ha! Why, for a dog, of course. When is the best time to shoot dogs? Tell me that, Skelding. Tell me!”
Gene saw that Defarge was in a condition of excitement bordering on frenzy, and he wondered how he was going to control the fellow. It would not do to leave him then, for he might do any desperate deed.
“The night is the best time to shoot dogs!” declared Bertrand. “It’s night now. Now is the time, and I’ll do it!”
He caught the revolver from the table.
“What are you going to do?” gasped Gene, starting up.
“I am going to shoot that dog!” cried Defarge, as he bolted like a madman from the room.
“Stop!” shouted Skelding, leaping after him.
Down the stairs went Defarge, taking four and five at a time. Skelding sprang after him with reckless haste, determined to overtake and stop him somehow. It was a wild chase. The deranged fellow reached the foot of the last flight and bounded out of doors.Gene was not far behind. Away they went toward Vanderbilt Hall.
“He’s going to try to shoot Merriwell now!” panted Skelding. “That last drink turned him into a madman.”
It happened that they met no one. Up to Merriwell’s room rushed Defarge, with Skelding gaining on him. But Gene was not able to overtake the maniac.
As Gene came up he saw the door to Merriwell’s room standing open. A light was shining from within. Defarge had just leaped into the room, and Merriwell, who had been writing, had risen quickly from his desk.
Then Skelding saw Defarge thrust the muzzle of the revolver right against Frank Merriwell’s breast and fire. There was a flash, a puff of smoke, and the muffled report of the weapon.
Merriwell had made absolutely no move to save himself, and the madman had fired pointblank at Frank’s heart, the muzzle of the weapon being not more than six inches from the breast of the intended victim.