CHAPTER XVIIITHE MYSTERIOUS LITTLE STICK.
“Well,” said Starbright grimly, “what do you think about it now?”
“Just what I thought before,” answered Frank calmly.
Dick seemed astonished.
“Impossible!” he exclaimed. “Why, Merriwell, didn’t you see how confused she was? And she did not introduce him! She was all broken up about it.”
“For which I was very sorry.”
“Well, hanged if I can understand you, Merriwell! It must be plain to you now that she has fooled us both.”
“Nothing of the kind is plain to me, Starbright. I have known Inza Burrage a long time, and I trust her fully.”
Dick flung out one hand in a gesture of despair.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” he said. “Talk about obstinacy! Why, Merriwell, you cannot explain her actions! Everything demanded that she introduce the man, and yet she did not. What have you to say to that?”
“Simply that there must have been some good reason why she did not.”
“And when she spoke about our calling, and I said we might call, she was more confused than ever. She did not wish us to call, and you know it.”
“I think you are right about that.”
“Why didn’t she wish it?”
“You know as well as I.”
“Did she act natural?”
“No.”
“Aren’t appearances against her?”
“They seem to be,” Merry was forced to confess.
“And still you have confidence in her?”
“I trust her fully, Starbright. That girl has been my friend and I have been hers ever since we first met in Fardale. I have saved her life on more than one occasion. In return she watched beside me when I was raving and delirious with a fever that threatened to end all in this world for me. It was her care that brought me back to life and health. And then, when I—forced to earn my living by daily labor—when I had no work and no money, she got work for me.
“When people who regarded a day-laborer as something far beneath them refused to recognize me, she found a way to compel them to do so. Starbright, that girl has been to me the best friend a man could have! Do you think I would doubt her now? I trust her as fully as I would trust my own mother, were she living! She has a reason for anything she has done, and a good reason it will prove to be. I am willing to wait until she explains. If she does not see fit to explain, I shall still believe in her!”
Dick Starbright was silenced at last. He wondered at the great faith of Frank Merriwell, and again he told himself:
“He loves her! There is no longer a doubt of it. And love is blind! It is useless to make a further attempt to open his eyes.”
Then, after a little, he spoke aloud:
“You may be right, Merriwell—I hope you are. Nothing could give me greater satisfaction than to know you had made no mistake. That’s all I can say.”
“Then we will say no more about her. Do you understand? Do not speak to me again of her, Starbright!”
Inza and her mysterious escort had disappeared along the street as Frank and Dick turned to leave the corner. Then Merry stooped and picked up something lying on the sidewalk.
It proved to be a peculiar little black stick, about five inches long, having strange characters, like hieroglyphics, upon it.
“What is it?” asked Dick.
“Hanged if I know!” confessed Merry, gazing at it curiously. “It’s a queer thing, anyhow.”
“Those characters look like Chinese writing,” said Starbright.
“Something,” nodded Frank.
They gazed with increasing curiosity at the little black stick.
“Well, I’m going to keep it,” said Frank, as he dropped it into his pocket. “It is a curiosity, at least.”
They walked eastward to Broadway, neither of them having much to say. Near the Fifth Avenue Hotel they paused at a lighted window, and Frank took the stick from his pocket to examine it again. Standing there, he turned it over and over, feeling a strange sensation of mystery settling upon him.
“Starbright,” he said, “I’d give something to know just what sort of a find I’ve made.”
“I don’t think it will ever prove very profitable,” said Dick.
Two men were passing at that moment. They were dressed in ordinary clothes, but beneath their hats were coiled queues, for they were Chinamen.
One of them espied the stick in Frank’s hand. He seized the other, held him fast, and pointed. Both stared in great excitement. Then they darted forward with catlike footsteps.
It happened that Starbright saw them in time, and he knocked aside the yellow hand that was outstretched to grasp the mysterious stick.
“Look out, Frank!”
The other fellow tried to snatch the stick, but Dick’s warning cry had put Merry on his guard.
“No, you don’t!” said Frank, springing back.
“Glivee tlo me!” chattered the Celestial, his face betraying the greatest excitement and eagerness.
“Get out!” returned Merry. “Why should I give it to you?”
“I wantee it! I wantee it! Give tlo me!”
“Yah, yah!” chattered the other. “Yah, yah!”
He danced in great excitement.
“I don’t understand that kind of talk,” Merry confessed. “Chinese is not one of my accomplishments.”
“Glivee tlo me!” commanded the other, his hand still outstretched.
“Is it yours?” asked Merry.
The Chinaman nodded madly.
“It b’longee tlo me,” he asserted.
“Where did you lose it?”
“Yah, yah!” chattered the other again.
“Where did you lose it?” persisted Merry.
“Me no lemembal,” said the one who spoke pidgin-English. “Me lostee it. Glivee tlo me!”
“Not unless you can satisfy me that it belongs to you,” asserted Frank obstinately, for he had conceived a desire to retain possession of that curious stick. “If I knew it belonged to you, I’d give it up in a minute.”
Again the Chinaman nodded as if his neck worked on hinges.
“B’longee tlo me,” he asserted. “Glivee klick! Melican mlan gitee into double if no glivee klick.”
“Yah, yah, yah!” parroted the other, still dancing.
Frank put the stick into his pocket.
“I think I’ll keep it a while longer,” he said. “I am stopping here at this hotel. If you wish to find me to-morrow, come round early and show this card.”
He offered his card to the one who could talk some English. The other gave a howl and chattered something that sounded like a command.
A moment later both Chinamen made movements as if to draw weapons from beneath their coats.
“Look out for them, Merry!” burst from the freshman. “They cut sometimes!”
He sprang upon one of the Celestials, and Frank grasped the other.
“Bounce them!” shouted Dick.
Biff! biff!—two kicks, two howls, and two Chinamen went flying toward the gutter.
“Let’s retire before we get into further trouble,” suggested Frank laughingly. “This is getting altogether too swift for me.”
They turned to enter the hotel, but the Chinamen had picked themselves out of the gutter, and came running across the wide walk.
The two Yale men turned, expecting a furious attack; but, instead, the Celestials threw themselves on their knees and bowed down at the feet of Frank, jabbering strangely.
“Well, of all the queer things that ever happened, this takes the first money!” gasped Starbright, staring in astonishment at the prostrated Chinamen.
The heathens were bowing low, now and then pressing their foreheads to the cold flagging of the walk, while they chanted in a strange, chattering monotone.
“I’m in it!” laughed Frank. “I think I must be a Joss.”
“Oh, gleat Melican mlan,” sobbed the one who could speak English, “glivee up to us an’ we pay heepee mluch.”
“Hello!” whistled Frank. “Now the thing has a money-value! What do you think of that, Dick?”
“It’s marvelous!” asserted the Andover man. “I don’t know what to think of it.”
It was a very queer adventure, and Merry found something fascinating about it, for it was mystifying.
The Chinaman who could make himself understood continued to implore Frank to give up the stick, increasing his offers of money with bewildering swiftness.
“Glivee tlo hundal dollal—thlee—floa—fivee!” he declared. “Pay quickee! Glivee up.”
“Well, it seems that I’ve found a prize,” said Frank. “Five hundred dollars for a little black stick? You are crazy, John! Get up and stop that business of wiping your face on the sidewalk.”
“Will glivee?”
Now, five hundred dollars was an object, but Frank was willing to give the stick up for nothing the moment he was convinced that it belonged to either of these men. If it did not belong to them, there must be something very remarkable about it to cause them to offer five hundred dollars for it.
“I don’t believe the heathen has that much money to his name,” said Dick.
“Yes, yes!” asserted the Chinaman eagerly, straightening up, but remaining on his knees. “Glot monee. Look!”
He exhibited a wad of bank-notes and bills.
The actions of the Chinamen had attracted attention, and Frank felt like getting away.
“I don’t want your money,” he said. “Come to me to-morrow and bring my card. I’ll see you then, and, if you can convince me that the stick belongs to you, you shall have it.”
But the Chinamen seemed filled with terror at his desire to leave them.
“We glo now! We keepee with you,” they said.
“Not to-night,” came firmly from Frank. “Come, Dick.”
But when they entered the lobby of the hotel, the Chinamen followed like two dogs. Not relishing this, Frank called attention to them, and they were promptly compelled to leave the place.
“There,” said Dick, with a breath of relief, when the Chinamen were gone. “I’m glad to get rid of them. What in the name of all that is wonderful do you suppose they wanted of that queer little stick? I believe that one of them would have paid the five hundred for it.”
“I believe he would have paid more,” said Frank. “He went up to five hundred with a rush. It would have been scarcely less surprising had he offered five thousand.”
“And I was sure at one time that they were going to draw weapons on us. I believe they did mean to do so.”
“If so, they quickly changed their minds. Let’s go up to the room and see if Diamond is there. We can look the stick over, and see what can be made of it.”
Diamond was not in Frank’s room. When they had removed their overcoats, Frank produced the remarkable stick, and they began to inspect it. Merry fancied there might be a hidden spring that would cause it to fly open and reveal a secret of some sort, but a search failed to show that there was anything of the kind connected with the stick. Indeed, the stick appeared to be nothing more than a simple piece of solid black wood, upon which were some very strange characters.
While they were engaged in examining it there came a knock on the door. On opening the door, Merry saw a hotel-boy, behind whom stood the stranger who had accompanied Inza.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Merriwell,” said this man; “but I took the liberty to come right up with the boy. You have something that belongs to me.”
“I have?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“That!”
The man had stepped forward and was pointing at the little black stick in Frank’s hand. Starbright uttered a smothered exclamation.
“I’m in luck to find it,” said the stranger, passing the boy and entering the room. “I congratulate myself.”
“This?” muttered Frank—“this yours?”
“It is. I presume you must have picked it up on the sidewalk near where the encounter with those mashers took place?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I lost it there.”
“You dropped it?”
“I did. But I did not discover the loss till some time later. When I did so, I turned about and ran back to that corner. You had gone.”
“Then what?”
“I searched all around for it, but could not find it.”
“After that?”
“I tried to find you. I hastened along Twenty-third Street, and I was in luck. After turning into Broadway I saw you.”
“The Chinamen——”
“Were doing their best to get you to give up the stick. If you had shown an inclination to do so, I was determined to step forward and object, even though it would place my life in the greatest peril.”
“Place your life in peril? How?”
The bell-boy had disappeared, and Frank closed the door, which the stranger left open on entering.
“The life of any American, or any man not a Chinaman and a member of a strange secret order, is in constant peril if that stick remains in his possession,” asserted the stranger seriously.
The mystery was growing deeper.
“Then my life must be in peril?” questioned Frank.
“It is.”
“And this stick is somehow connected with a Chinese secret society?”
“Exactly. It was stolen three years ago from a temple in the very heart of China. Since then members of the order, which is the largest and most powerful in the whole world, have searched for it everywhere. It somehow fell into the hands of an Englishman whom I had the good fortune to befriend. He lost every dollar he possessed at Monte Carlo and blew out his brains. Before doing the latter trick, however, he gave me the stick, telling me its real value, and I have treasured it highly ever since. It was in my pocket when the encounter took place on that corner, and somehow it fell out.”
“I have no doubt that it belongs to you, sir,” said Frank, “and, therefore, I shall take pleasure in restoring it to you. But why did those two Chinamen make such efforts to obtain it?”
“They must be members of the society.”
“That is something I do not fully understand at the present time, but the high priests of the society are sorcerers and magicians of the highest degree, and with that stick they somehow work out their most difficult feats of magic. Without it they are powerless to do the mightiest things.”
“I am beginning to understand how a superstitious Chinese society might come to set a great value on the thing, but I fail to see why it should be of any remarkable value to an American or an Englishman.”
The stranger smiled a mysterious smile.
“Some Englishmen and some Americans are superstitious,” he said. “The man who owned this stick formerly was a gambler. When it came into his possession he was down on his luck. While he possessed it he made a fortune. Money rolled in on him. Everything seemed to come his way.”
“But fortune turned against him at last and he lost all.”
“Yes.”
“Did not that cure him of his superstition?”
“Hardly. He carried it to death. He claimed that he lost because at the proper time he failed to do the proper thing in connection with the stick.”
“But why did he kill himself? With such a marvelous talisman in his possession, he should have believed himself able to regain all he had lost.”
“Not all. Money he might have regained, and he knew it, but not his wife. When he lost his wealth he lost her, also. She was young and beautiful, but heartless. She loved a man for what he could give her. When my friend lost his last dollar over the table, he had her near him. He looked into her eyes, and saw anger and disgust there. He knew she hated and despised him for losing his money. He also knew she had been greatly admired by the Prince of Monaco.
“Then he resolved to make one last stand. He spoke to the prince, called him aside, offered to stake his wife against a sum equal to one hundred thousand dollars. The prince quietly accepted. The cast was made, and again my friend lost. Perhaps that was the real reason why he put a bullet in his head. Before he died he gave me this stick, and told me all about it—that is, he told me all he knew about it. Not everything can be known by a person outside the mysterious order to which it belongs. I have heard that not everything can be known in the order, save to a very few high priests. But every member of the order is sworn to protect and guard the stick with his life, and they believe a failure to do so means ever-lasting torture for the one who fails.”
“That explains the queer actions of the two Chinamen,” said Merry.
“And makes me dead sure they were reaching for weapons when their hands went under their coats,” nodded Starbright.
“I was watching their every move,” asserted the stranger. “I feared they would attack you with knives, and I was ready to chip in if they did.”
“But if they did not——”
“I preferred keeping in the background, for I did not care to have those Chinamen discover I was the real owner of the stick.”
“But you are not the real owner!” exclaimed Starbright. “It does not belong to you at all! You have acknowledged that!”
The stranger looked surprised, and then frowned darkly.
“If I am not the rightful owner, there is no rightful owner in this country. I am an American, and I lost that stick. I presume you will give it to me, Mr. Merriwell?”
“It seems to me that it is Frank’s duty to return it to the society from which it was stolen in the first place,” said Dick grimly.
The stranger looked startled, but there came to his face an expression of sudden savage determination.
“I hope Mr. Merriwell will not agree with you,” he said instantly. “I have proved that I lost it, and——”
“You have confessed that it was stolen, in the first place.”
“Well?”
“A receiver of stolen goods——”
“Be careful, sir!”
Frank saw that Dick was willing to get into trouble with the stranger—that he was seeking it. It is probable that the stranger understood this, also.
“You are going a little too far, Starbright,” said Merry sharply. “This gentleman has satisfied me that he lost the stick. Whether it rightfully belongs to him or not is not a question for me to decide. I know no members of the secret society——”
“The two Chinamen.”
“May or may not be members. It is possible they are enemies of the society.”
“That is true,” nodded the stranger, “though it is not likely.”
“If enemies of the society,” pursued Frank, “they might wish to get hold of the stick in order to obtain a power over the rightful owners.”
“Even if they are members of the society,” said the stranger, “that is not a reason why Mr. Merriwell should return the stick to them.”
“Why not?”
“Because that society stands for all that is bad in China. It has ever been opposed to Christianity, and is the persecutor of Christian missionaries. It was at the head of the late Boxer rising. It did its best—or its worst—to kill every missionary in China. The destruction of this society, which lives and thrives on all that is superstitious, magical, heathenish, and degrading, would aid in the advancement of Christianity in China more than any other thing possibly could. Without the aid of this little black stick their head men cannot work their most powerful charms or perform their most amazing feats of black magic. Now, decide whether the stick should be returned to them or not.”
“If not,” muttered Starbright, “it should be destroyed.”
“And the man who destroyed it would forever have a hideous shadow hanging over him, as such an act would doom him to strangulation by some member of the society, and every member is sworn to know no rest till the guilty one is found and punished. The persistence with which these men follow up such a hunt is terrifying. They are like bloodhounds on the scent.”
“You have said quite enough,” laughed Frank. “Had you not said half as much, I should have returned the stick to you. I have no fancy to be harassed and hunted by a lot of Chinese thugs. Here, sir, is the stick.”
The stranger bowed low and expressed his thanks as he received the mysterious little article from Merry’s hand.
“But now,” he said, as he slipped it into his bosom, “it will be well for you to be on your guard, Mr. Merriwell.”
“What do you mean?”
“The stick has been seen in your possession.”
“Well?”
“You will be hunted and dogged by men determined to obtain it from you.”
“Whew! Then I am not getting rid of the hoodoo when I give it up to you?”
“No.”
“But I shall tell them I have given it up.”
“To whom?” smiled the stranger, in a mysterious way. “You do not know my name. You do not know where to find me. You do not know anything about me. You see——”
“Then why don’t you give your name?” cried Starbright.
“Because I do not wish to—because this trail must be broken here. I do not wish to be hunted by those cursed Chinese cutthroats!”
“Was that the reason why you did not give your name when we first met a short time ago?”
“Perhaps so; perhaps not.”
“It was not!” roared Dick. “I know the reason, and I——”
“Stop!” commanded Frank, his eyes flashing. “You are forgetting yourself, Starbright!”
The big Andover man stood glaring at the stranger, who was quite unmoved. Dick’s eyes were gleaming, and he seemed to long to attack the possessor of the mystic stick then and there.
“Your friend is excitable, Mr. Merriwell,” said the unknown. “Why should he care to know my name?”
“Oh, I have a reason!” asserted Starbright.
“And I have a reason for declining to give it—just now. Some time, perhaps, I may choose to make myself known to Frank Merriwell.”
Merry felt convinced that he had seen this man before—that he knew the man. In vain, however, he tried to remember when and where they had met.
“Don’t bother about it,” said the other, as if he surmised that Frank was trying to recall him. “It’s of no consequence, and you may be mistaken.”
Merry shook his head.
“I know I have seen you some time,” he said unswervingly.
A faint smile seemed to hide itself in the stranger’s beard.
“Still I assure you it is of no consequence.”
“But it’s very perplexing. I have a way of remembering faces perfectly.”
“But you cannot see much of my face.”
“That’s so! The beard hides it! If it were not for that beard I might recognize you.”
“Possibly. If I shave the beard, I may come round to see you. Just now I have to leave you, for I have an appointment that must be kept. This night the little stick may pass from my hands forever.”
“You—you will get rid of it?”
“If I get my price.”
“Who wants it?”
“A certain half-crazy doctor who dabbles in things occult and investigates everything mysterious. He is believed to be a wizard and sorcerer by many who have seen him work his strange incantations. But the man has located diamond-mines, found buried treasure, and is wonderfully wealthy. Thus his black art has paid him in a certain way, though some claim he has sold himself to the devil to obtain his ends. He wants this stick. He found out about it a number of years ago, and once he nearly lost his life in an attempt to steal it from the temple where it was kept. It is possible the thing was stolen afterward at his instigation, but failed to reach his hands.”
“He knows you have it?”
“I have communicated with him, making the claim. He has promised to investigate. If I can convince him that I speak the truth, he will pay me liberally for it. Liberally means that he will give up a fortune just to get the stick into his hands, for he fancies it will enable him to explore all the dark things he has hitherto found impregnable.”
“Well, if I were you,” said Frank, “I should lose no time in getting to him and making a trade.”
“I think I shall not. It is most fortunate for me that you found the stick to-night. I am indebted to you, and if I can pay the——”
Merry cut him short with a gesture.
“Don’t speak of pay! I’m glad to get rid of the thing!”
The stranger laughed and retreated toward the door.
“Perhaps I shall be,” he said. “Good night.”
He opened the door and turned to go out. Then he leaped backward, for just outside the door stood a tall Chinaman!