Only one of the gamblers was missing.
"He must have climbed out of the window," said Shagarach, sotto voce.
Stupefaction is a weak word to express the feelings of Saul Aronson when a messenger awakened him at 1 o'clock Thursday morning with a request from Shagarach that he would come to police station No. 5 at once. The attorney's assistant was never a sluggard, but the celerity with which on this occasion he scrambled into his street clothes would have done credit to a lightning-change artist.
The police captain received him courteously, explaining, as he conducted him to Shagarach's cell, his hesitancy about discharging the lawyer without permission from McCausland, who had maliciously disappeared. Both he and Shagarach were agreed that the most judicious course was to accept a temporary release on bail, and later to secure a quashing of the charge by an explanation to the district attorney. So Aronson set out again to secure bail, and at 4 o'clock had the joy of seeing his master pass down the station steps with his bondsman.
It was fortunate that the affair turned out so well, for the very next day had been set down for the hearing in the Probate court on the settlement of Benjamin Arnold's estate.
Hodgkins Hodgkins, Esq., flanked by the other two members of the firm of Hodgkins, Hodgkins & Hodgkins—namely, his brother and his nephew—was already on his feet to address the court when Shagarach, as representative of Robert Floyd's interest, arrived and pushed to the front. Except for the fact that he was Prof. Arnold's oldest acquaintance in the city, it was hard to understand the selection of Hodgkins for the responsible position of executor over a property of $10,000,000.
A tall, withered specimen of nearly 70, thin-whiskered and jejune of speech, you would have looked instinctively for the green bag at his side if you had met him on the street. "Whereas" and "aforesaid" and a dozen other legal barbarisms disfigured his rhetoric and the trick of buttoning his coat with an important air over documents mysteriously shuffled into his breast pocket was as natural to him as crossed legs to a tailor.
But all this pomp, ridiculous as it was, gave no promise of the disloyalty that was to follow. From the first words of his address it became evident that Hodgkins Hodgkins, Esq., was there not to execute the will of his friend but to oppose its execution. Like many another intrusted with the same office, he had transferred his allegiance from the forgotten dead to the living who had bounty to bestow. Mrs. Arnold, sitting among the spectators, alone, might well congratulate herself upon a clever stroke in engaging the services of the quondam executor for her son.
"As counsel for the petitioner, Mr. Harry Arnold," said Hodgkins, ahemming huskily, "I desire to explain to the court briefly my relation to the case. As your honor has been informed, I enjoyed the privilege of the testator's—or, more properly, the intestate's—acquaintance during a period of nearly fifty years. During that period nothing, I believe, ever occurred to mar our mutual trust and confidence. Up to six weeks ago the deceased had never expressed any desire to alter the natural distribution of his property after his death. Up to that time, although approaching his seventy-ninth birthday, my honored friend had been entirely satisfied, entirely satisfied, I repeat, with the prospects of a division of his estate according to the laws of descent in this commonwealth."
"A statement which we deny," broke in Shagarach, sotto voce. Hodgkins was a little nonplussed.
"Am I to understand that Brother Shagarach, representing, I presume, the interests of the other nephew, refers to some previously existing testament?"
"Not at all. I refer, your honor, to oral expressions of an intention to will his entire property to the nephew who lived with him, Mr. Robert Floyd."
"There was a will drawn, which is not extant, I believe?" inquired the judge.
"There was a will drawn," answered Shagarach, "but since unfortunately destroyed, by which Floyd was disinherited."
"I opine, then"—Mr. Hodgkins frequently opined—"that Brother Shagarach concedes the destruction of the document and is here——"
"To argue for its upholding."
The whole firm of Hodgkins, Hodgkins & Hodgkins looked as if a thunderbolt had struck them at this announcement. Shagarach was throwing away Robert's share, amounting to $5,000,000.
"We were not aware of this intention," said the senior member, after a consultation, "and as to the alleged oral expressions of a purpose to leave the—the accused nephew sole legatee—er—er in any case we should have contested such a will on the ground of undue influence. Six weeks ago," Hodgkins was now frowning as formidably as possible, "I received a letter from my honored friend, informing me that he had made a will and requesting me to assume the function of sole executor—a request which I felt it a duty, as well as an honor, to accept."
"May I see the testator's letter?" said Shagarach, breaking in.
"I trust the court will accept my assurance——"
"It is no question of your word. I desire to see the terms of your appointment as executor, and request that the letter be read."
"As the first step toward establishing the existence of a will," said the judge, "upon which, I believe, both parties, all parties"—there were several other lawyers present—"are agreed——"
Hodgkins and Shagarach bowed.
"The letter had best be read in evidence."
There was a great diving into green bags for awhile among the Hodgkins firm, at the end of which the senior member read the following letter:
"Friend Hodgkins: You are the only one of your cursed tribe to whom I ever got nearer than swearing distance, and our intimacy began before you were admitted to the vulpine crew. Here I am, a youngster of 78, anticipating death by thirty years at least and indulging in the folly of will-making. Can you conceive anything more absurd? I might as well think of getting insured so early in life. But I was always excessively cautious, you know—hence my odium advocatorum, I suppose. Can you superintend the job? Most of my hoard goes elsewhere, but there will be some for the executor to distribute, and you will find legal pickings in it that will pay you. Write at once."BENJAMIN ARNOLD."
"Friend Hodgkins: You are the only one of your cursed tribe to whom I ever got nearer than swearing distance, and our intimacy began before you were admitted to the vulpine crew. Here I am, a youngster of 78, anticipating death by thirty years at least and indulging in the folly of will-making. Can you conceive anything more absurd? I might as well think of getting insured so early in life. But I was always excessively cautious, you know—hence my odium advocatorum, I suppose. Can you superintend the job? Most of my hoard goes elsewhere, but there will be some for the executor to distribute, and you will find legal pickings in it that will pay you. Write at once.
"BENJAMIN ARNOLD."
This eccentric epistle raised a smile among the lawyers, but Shagarach was busily occupied drafting a verbatim copy while Hodgkins continued his plea.
"I was remarking," he repeated, one of his favorite introductory formulae, "that upon receiving this request I made haste to indite a favorable response, as I felt bound in duty and honor——"
"And the prospect of pickings," added Shagarach, sotto voce, still copying the letter. The senior member glared.
"It is needless to relate the unfortunate circumstance, in which Brother Shagarach's client is so deeply implicated, which has relieved me of this welcome if laborious trust. The will under which I was to serve in the capacity of executor has been destroyed—destroyed, presumably, by the party whose hopes of a fortune is cut off, and we stand here to-day facing the same status which existed up to six weeks ago. I say the same—I am in error. There is an important, a melancholy difference. Six weeks ago my friend's nephew was not an accused and all but a convicted murderer."
Hodgkins paused, as if expecting a rejoinder from Shagarach, but the latter appeared profoundly absorbed in a telegram which Jacob had just brought him.
"The property now stands in no man's name. There is no person to whom its dividends, its rents, its interest, constantly becoming due, can safely be paid. Under the laws of descent its title vests equally in the heirs-at-law, the nephews of the deceased. But there is need of an administration, in order that the two shares may be apportioned in a satisfactory manner. I need not again allude to the circumstance which renders a joint administration improper and impossible, the circumstance which explains the absence of Brother Shagarach's client——"
"I do not see Brother Hodgkins' client in the courtroom," Shagarach retorted to this sarcasm. As he spoke his eye fell on Mrs. Arnold's haughty face.
"It is certain, however, that he is not occupying a felon's cell," answered Hodgkins. "Briefly, your honor, there is only one course open. An administrator is urgently needed for this immense estate. In the absence of a will, the heirs-at-law, being of age, would naturally be selected, but under the circumstances I respectfully suggest that the younger of the two nephews is debarred and that your honor's choice should fall upon the elder, a college graduate, a young man who moves in the highest social circles, and who has not, I believe, the honor of an acquaintance with the inmates and turnkeys of the state prison."
Hodgkins had hardly sat down after this acrid peroration when Shagarach was on his feet.
"I have only a few words to say at present. The case is by no means so simple as my learned brother imagines. My learned brother assumes that the physical destruction of the will has involved the extinction of its contents. So mature an advocate does not need to be reminded that parol proof of the contents of a will, of its accuracy in technical form, and of its existence unrevoked at the time of the testator's death, are equivalent in law to the presentation of the document itself.
"We have in the court-room today a number of witnesses who will testify to the contents of the will. We have the witnesses who signed it to prove its compliance with statutory requirements as to form; and I do not understand that Brother Hodgkins denies that the paper was in existence until destroyed at the Arnold fire."
"You object, then, to the issuance of administration papers to Mr. Harry Arnold?" asked the judge.
"Emphatically. We desire to uphold the will. Brother Hodgkins has introduced evidence as to the making of a will in the letter which he read. I should like to put in evidence now the testimony of the three witnesses to the signature."
When the three witnesses had sworn to Prof. Arnold's acknowledgment in their presence of the will, to their own attestation of his signature, and to the date, June 7, of these occurrences, another lawyer, who appeared to act in concert with Shagarach, briefly announced his guardianship of the interests of the heirs of Ellen Greeley, a legatee in the sum of $1,000. After recounting the long and meritorious services of the dead domestic, he called upon her sister to testify to several conversations in which she had referred to the professor's generous remembrance of her in his will.
"It is proper to state at this point," said Shagarach, "that the other servant, Bertha Lund, is not represented here by counsel, but there is evidence to show that she was remembered in the same manner as her colleague."
Mrs. Christenson was thereupon called and deposed, exactly as Ellen Greeley's sister had done, to the several conversations in which Bertha had referred to her employer's liberality.
"Until yesterday evening," said Shagarach, "Bertha Lund was employed in the country house of Mrs. Arnold at Hillsborough. A telegram, however, sent to the station-master at that place, brings the answer that Miss Lund took the outward-bound train at 5:21 this morning, being alone and accoutred with a large baggage trunk. I doubt, therefore, if this important witness as to the contents of the will can readily be found."
While he made this statement Shagarach searched Mrs. Arnold's face. Her gaze shifted and she perceptibly whitened. Then the rise of still another lawyer, also seeming to act in concert with Shagarach, drew attention to the court. The new attorney represented, as he immediately informed the judge, certain charitable institutions which had been remembered under the clauses of the will—namely, the Duxborough institution for the blind, of which the professor, who had himself been operated on for cataract, had been throughout his life a conspicuous supporter; the Woodlawn home for consumptives, the dipsomaniac hospital, the Magdalen reformatory, the asylum for idiots and the Christian orphanage. Letters were read from Prof. Arnold to the superintendents of each of these institutions, requesting them to accept legacies of $20,000 each under the will which he had just drawn. The letters were couched in a stereotyped form and all dated alike.
But the most significant testimony of the day was contained in the last document which this attorney presented—a letter.
"Dr. Silsby himself," he explained, "is detained from attendance at this hearing by important scientific labors in the west."
The mention of Dr. Jonas Silsby's name caused the eyebrows of the Hodgkins firm to elevate themselves unanimously in a manner which amusingly accented the facial resemblance of the members. Jonas Silsby had been a pupil of Prof. Arnold and was at present the most distinguished arboreal botanist in the country. Along with some of his master's eccentricities, such as vegetarianism, he had imbibed much of his independence and noble honor. He was, moreover, Robert Floyd's most intimate friend, bridging, as it were, by the full vigor of his fifty-odd years, the great gap of half a century which separated the boyish nephew from his octogenarian uncle.
Mrs. Arnold's quick smoothing with her finger of an imaginary loose lock—the characteristic feminine gesture of embarrassment—did not escape Shagarach's lustrous glance. The letter was worded as quaintly as the other:
"My Dear Jonas: Rob has gone back on me, God bless him, the rogue, and you've got to take my dollars. I know you don't want them, but I'm going to commit inverse larceny just the same. I'll grab you by the throat and stuff your pockets with gold, though you bellow like an ox. You know what it's all about. We've talked it over often enough. And I want it called the 'Arnold academia,' too. If agriculture stops going to the dogs in this country through the preaching of the dons my hoard keeps in shoe leather, then I want the credit of it for my ghost downstairs. It'll need some comfort, Jonas. But don't suppose I dream of quitting you yet, my boy, and don't expect all of the pudding I've baked. There will be some plums for the asylums, and some for the servants, and Rob, the young rogue, has got to be provided for, willy-nilly. This is only a hint, but verbum sap. We'll talk it over when you come east again, with your pouches full of seeds. Here's good luck to you, Jonas. It is God's world, anyway, and not the devil's. Your old friend,"BENJAMIN ARNOLD."
"My Dear Jonas: Rob has gone back on me, God bless him, the rogue, and you've got to take my dollars. I know you don't want them, but I'm going to commit inverse larceny just the same. I'll grab you by the throat and stuff your pockets with gold, though you bellow like an ox. You know what it's all about. We've talked it over often enough. And I want it called the 'Arnold academia,' too. If agriculture stops going to the dogs in this country through the preaching of the dons my hoard keeps in shoe leather, then I want the credit of it for my ghost downstairs. It'll need some comfort, Jonas. But don't suppose I dream of quitting you yet, my boy, and don't expect all of the pudding I've baked. There will be some plums for the asylums, and some for the servants, and Rob, the young rogue, has got to be provided for, willy-nilly. This is only a hint, but verbum sap. We'll talk it over when you come east again, with your pouches full of seeds. Here's good luck to you, Jonas. It is God's world, anyway, and not the devil's. Your old friend,
"BENJAMIN ARNOLD."
"Dr. Silsby explains," added the lawyer, "that the allusion in the text to an academia refers to a cherished project for elevating the position of the American farmer. The idea was to establish a great agricultural university. It had been a frequent subject of discussion between them, and nothing could be more natural than that Dr. Silsby should be selected as president of the institution."
"And trustee of its funds," added Shagarach, looking at the senior member of the bewildered firm of Hodgkins, Hodgkins & Hodgkins. Then the court adjourned for lunch.
At the afternoon session Mrs. Arnold was found at her place, still unaccompanied by her son. Five lawyers had already outlined their standpoints to the judge, but still there were new complications in store. Lawyer Howell was Shagarach's earliest opponent, the Goliath of his first great duel. He contented himself with stating his intention to attach Floyd's share of the property in behalf of the insurance companies and proprietors who had suffered loss through the crime with which he was charged. He was of opinion that the evidence offered to uphold the will lacked particularity and was insufficient——
"Brother Howell is not here as associate justice." Shagarach was on his feet in a flash. "His opinions are impertinences, too manifestly dictated by his interests. Naturally the insurance companies and burned-out proprietors desire to break this will, in order that Robert Floyd may take the $5,000,000 which he does not want and they may join the hue and cry of the other conspirators against an innocent man."
Howell was protesting against such a suggestion, when he was interrupted by a roar from one of the learned brethren who had been impatiently waiting his turn.
"I speak for the murdered girls," he cried, "whose pure young blood stains the hands of that guilty monster, and in the name of their bleeding corpses and young lives, ruthlessly done to death, I utter my protest against the imputation of innocence to their slayer."
The auditors, who had begun to drowse over the technical details of the case, were stirred to attention at once by this declamatory opening. Even Saul Aronson, sleepy from his restless night, checked a yawn midway with his fingers and turned around. The new speaker was a middle-sized, burly man, whose most conspicuous feature was a projection of the flesh beneath the outer corners of his eyebrows, so as to bury the eyes and give his whole face an expression almost Mongolian in its cunning. His clothes were seedy, and his remarks punctuated by amber-colored shots at the cuspidor. Altogether it was a decidedly rakish craft and the look on Judge Dunder's face was by no means propitious.
"It is an axiom of law," said the orator, waving his hand and executing a demi-volt toward the spectators, "that no man can take advantage of his own tort. I hereby accuse Robert Floyd of the murder of my clients——"
"Who are your clients?" interrupted the judge.
"Mary and Florence Lacy, two virtuous maidens, the sunshine of a happy home, the pride of a loving and admiring circle of friends"—just here came one of the orator's punctuation points, which produced a sadly antithetical effect—"the comforts of a bereaved mother's heart——"
An old lady in the audience burst into tears. Presumably it was Mrs. Lacy. This tribute to his eloquence warmed the orator to a mighty outburst.
"Woe, I say, to that ruthless hand! Perdition gripe that marble heart——"
"Will you kindly make your statements relevant?" The judge's manner was arctic. "We are considering the disposition of Benjamin Arnold's estate."
"I beg to interpose." Hodgkins had seen a ray of hope in the utterances of the last two speakers. Slack, the grandiloquent, was a bibulous shyster, who made a precarious livelihood by imposing on just such victims as Mrs. Lacy, but at this juncture he might prove a useful ally. "Brother Slack is not unnaturally, I may say most creditably, carried away by his feelings on behalf of his clients; and I, for one, heartily join him in opposing the efforts which have been made here today to put the means of redress for those—er—unhappy victims beyond their reach—or, rather, to reduce them to a paltry $20,000."
"Twenty thousand dollars!" shrieked Slack. "Who dares insult the sanctity of human life by estimating its value at such a bagatelle. I say not $20,000,000 would recompense that weeping mother for the loss of the children of her bosom."
With pointed finger he held up the grief of the now blushing and embarrassed woman to the curious gaze of the crowd. Then, wearied of his vulgarity, and confident of a case already complete, Shagarach rose and immediately drew all eyes and ears.
"Brother Slack has unwittingly uttered the strongest argument of the day in favor of the request which I make—a request, be it understood, for postponement only, until sufficient time elapses to permit the contents of this will to be demonstrated. Brother Slack assumes the guilt of my client in a criminal cause now pending. Brother Howell assumes it; Brother Hodgkins, in asking you to exclude him from the administratorship, also assumes it. This is a new doctrine of law, to adjudge a man guilty without according him an opportunity for defense. I ask your honor to consider the stigma which the choice of Harry Arnold as sole administrator would cast upon Robert Floyd, and the prejudice it would work him in the cause I have mentioned.
"But, aside from this, I ask you to consider the chain of evidence presented as to the will itself. Let us keep in mind that will is only legalized wish. I am aware that great particularity is required in such cases as ours. But when your honor reviews the statements of Martha Greeley, of Mrs. Christenson, of the six superintendents of institutions of charity, and of Dr. Silsby—yes, and I will add the letter to Brother Hodgkins, who, it now appears, was to stand as executor only of that small residue of the estate which did not go to the founding of the Arnold academia—when your honor reviews these I am convinced that you will agree that the disposition of this vast property is not a matter to be hastily determined.
"My brother has referred to the supposed advantage reaped by Floyd from the destruction of the will. Floyd is not here to speak for himself, but he has contended consistently that the reduction of his legacy to $20,000 was made at his own request, and that even that small sum was in excess of his wishes. Read as I read them, the expressions of endearment in the letter to Dr. Silsby support this statement. They are not the language of an irate testator, used in reference to a disinherited heir. Allow me, moreover," Shagarach was now looking straight at Mrs. Arnold, "to point out that Robert Floyd was not the only gainer by the destruction of Prof. Arnold's will. What atom of evidence has been adduced to show that the testator remembered Harry Arnold?"
Mrs. Arnold started and reddened at the mention of her son's name. Then she put her handkerchief to her lips and coughed nervously. Shagarach's glance was just long enough to avoid attracting general attention toward her.
"For these reasons I ask that your honor schedule a second hearing of this important cause, to take place after a complete survey of the evidence shall have demonstrated that not Robert Floyd but another is responsible for the death of Mary and Florence Lacy."
Mrs. Arnold's trembling was painfully apparent, and there was nothing in Hodgkins' feeble and desultory reply to give her hope.
"I will take the matter under consideration," said Judge Dunder, when he had closed, and Shagarach knew that a severe blow at Robert's reputation, as well as a timely relief to the Arnold purse, had been prevented by that morning's work.
There were fewer clients than usual in the office when he returned. One of them, a large man, immediately arose.
"I am Patrolman Chandler," said he.
"What can we do for each other?"
"Not much, perhaps." The policeman drew an envelope from his pocket and showed a lemon-colored glove inside. "Will that help you any?"
"Perhaps. It has a story?"
"A short one. That glove's been in my pocket ever since I was taken to the hospital when the girl fell on me. Never thought of it; hardly knew it was there. Had broken bones to think of, you know."
"I read of your bravery at the fire."
"Pshaw! Well, here's the history of that article. I know Floyd; have known him ever since I took that route. Things look blue for the boy, but I never heard harm of him before, and says I to myself, yesterday when I found the glove, perhaps Mr. Shagarach can turn this to good account, and perhaps he can't. It's worth trying, and if it saves Floyd's neck, why, it's no more'n I'd like to have him do for me if our positions were just right about."
"That's the golden rule, stated in the vernacular. Where did you find this?"
"On the stairs in the Arnold house."
"After the fire?"
"When I went into the house at the beginning."
"How was it lying?"
"About the middle of the staircase, I believe."
"A little to the left, with the fingers pointing to the door?"
"Exactly—close to the wall."
"It is a right-hand glove. He was carrying it in his left hand and dropped it when running downstairs." Shagarach said this sotto voce, as if to himself.
"Who? Floyd?"
"The incendiary."
"I don't know that I ever saw young Floyd with gloves on except in winter. Seems too loud for him anyway—more like some swell's."
"You will leave this with me?"
"Glad to, glad if it helps you," said the officer, rising to go. Shagarach took his hand and thanked him, then tried on the glove and studied it for fully five minutes before admitting his regular clients. If it were Floyd's the case had neither gained nor lost. But he felt that the kid was too fine, the make too fashionable, for the eccentric young radical, who, as Chandler had noticed, never wore gloves except for protection against the cold. There was no hint of identity about it. Had it belonged to Harry Arnold? If so, how did it happen to lie on the stairs of his uncle's house immediately after the fire?
The island fort was a many-angled specimen of ancient masonry, following the shore line of an islet in the harbor. It was useless now. No flag streamed from its pole. Passing vessels no longer saluted it, only a lame old sergeant being about to protect the property. By an arrangement with the local authorities it had been converted into a pleasure-ground and connected with an adjacent peninsular of the city by a pier or bridge of half a mile's length. This was the rendezvous mentioned by the anonymous correspondent.
When Shagarach stepped from the car on his way to meet Mr. Skull-and-Crossbones he found that he was early. It still wanted twenty minutes to the appointed hour. The humanity of the district was just rising from its supper tables in teeming tenements to enjoy the cool liberty of the twilight air, and Shagarach listened to the sayings of the multitude whose current he found himself stemming. They were flowing to an open-air concert at some point behind him. The correspondent had timed his evening well for a lonely conference.
As he approached the pier the crowd thinned and at last he found himself walking near the water alone. Ships were putting into port, with red and green caution lights hung aloft. The sea, now violet, melted into the sky and a gathering dimness subdued everything to one tone. Only the black tree-masses and the outlines of the houses stood out somberly distinct.
"We violate nature," said Shagarach to himself, "with our angular, unsightly houses, but she puts her own fairer version on all at last—mosses the manse, curves the beach, litters the ruin, bathes the hard carpentry and mason work of the city with soft twilight balm." He looked back upon the sad accumulation of misery, amid whose foulest reek he was doomed to live. A greenish tint hung over it where the sunset had sunk. It was a rare hue for the heavens to wear—something bizarre yet beautiful, like yellow roses.
Thus far Shagarach had walked alone. Leaning over the railing on the right, he saw three boys fishing in a dory below. One of them was just lighting a lantern, for the thick dusk had begun to gather. The penetrating silence favored their occupation and he paused a moment to watch the silver-bellied mackerel slapping their bodies in the basket. A little farther on an oafish monster stood against the railing on the left. Shagarach thought he leered mirthlessly when their eyes met.
Then at the middle of the pier he came to a closed gate, shutting off access to the island.
"No admission to the fort after 7 p. m.——" He had started to read the placard, when suddenly he felt himself seized from behind. A hand over his mouth throttled the outcry he launched. It was too late to reach for the revolver. A brief, fierce trial of strength and he found himself forced over the railing into the water. The shock, to one who had never entered the ocean before, was icy as death.
His senses did not depart from him. He made an effort to lie still on the surface and to hold his breath. A hideous face projected over the railing, printed itself on his memory, and then disappeared. He knew that he clutched his assailant's cap in his right hand, and that the lights of the city were dancing before him as he rose and sunk. Then the only thing he felt was the gurgling of the deep, dark water nearer, nearer, nearer. How to fight it off? His hands wildly strove to push it away. All the sweetness of the world he was leaving flashed through him in one pregnant second, whereupon his resolution yielded. He opened his lips to utter the fatal "Help!" of the drowning man, and the element rushed in and made him its own.
Friday was to be the last day of Warden Tapp's tenure, and Robert was aware that the convicts had determined to celebrate his removal by some demonstration of their joy. Everybody was dissatisfied with his government—the public, his deputies, his charges, alike. Stalking about with that inveterate preference for his own company which had won him the nickname of "The Pelican," he gnawed his huge mustache in a manner that seemed to betray that he was not oversatisfied with the results himself.
The prison which he had taken from his predecessor, as orderly as any barracks the world over, he left to his successor (a military man) slovenly, rebellious and tunneled with secret avenues of communication to the outside world. He had begun with leniency and a smiling face. Vice, indolence and a thousand weedy growths flourished up under his elevated chin. When he awoke at last his rigor in uprooting them was intemperate and ineffectual. Several felons escaped. A riot broke out and the warden had been helplessly holding the reins behind a runaway horse ever since.
He had flogged men for not saluting when he passed, yet he was hooted at every time he showed his head to the crowd. He had strung three brushmakers up by the thumbs for idling, yet every shop except the harness-makers, in spite of free labor, showed a deficit for the last half-year. The cells were so littered with storage that it was almost impossible to enter them. Contraband tobacco, gift books, tools, bird cages, shirts and shoes smuggled from the workshops, even knives and revolvers, were found in them.
The "block," or dark dungeon, was always full. If some dozen of the conniving deputies had been sent there, Warden Tapp might have had less to extenuate.
"It's quiet this evening," said Robert to Dobbs on Thursday.
"That's the lull before the storm, my boy," said the cracksman.
"You think we'll have trouble, then?"
"Keep your 'ead in, my boy, when it rains. These 'ere coves 'll get a wetting that'll spoil their Sunday duds. They 'aven't no hart."
"No what?"
"No hart, no hingenuity. They hask first and then try to take it. We'll take what we want first—honly a little fresh air, Bobbs—and then we'll hask for it, as a matter of form. Hi'm horfully punctilious on forms, Bobbs."
Dobbs chuckled at the prospect of writing a letter to the warden, requesting his release from the safe distance of 3,000 miles.
"Hi ain't the fool of the family, ham Hi, Bobbs?"
"Who's that talking now, Dobbs?"
"The thick-mouthed cove wot gets choked with 'is hown Adam's happle? That's Quirk."
"Quirk?" It was the familiar voice he had often tried to place, but Floyd knew nobody named Quirk.
"What is he grumbling for? Is he a ring-leader among the men?"
"Ring-leader, ho, no. Ee lost 'is temper the first time ee saw 'is mug in the quicksilver and ee's never found it since."
This conversation had been conducted face to face in the dark through the aperture formed by the removal of four bricks on each side of the partition. Dobbs had already outlined a general plan to Robert by which they were to escape. He was only waiting, he said, for his "chummy" to "drop the sweet hinnocence game and hown up ee wasn't a lamb."
"So you expect me to climb through that hole, Dobbs?"
"If you won't gnaw your hown bars, you must."
"It's too small."
"Then we'll stretch her till she fits, as the 'aberdasher said when 'is royal 'ighness' trousers didn't meet round 'is royal 'ighness' waistband."
"I doubt if even six will be wide enough. The bricks are only eight by four apiece, and I think I'm more than sixteen by twelve."
"Can a cat jump through a keyhole? No-sirree. But a corpuscle can wiggle through a capillary."
About 11 o'clock the next morning the entire prison force was summoned to the rotunda to hear the farewell address of the warden. The rotunda was a great round hall at one end of the bastile, or prison proper, communicating through two double doors with the warden's office, from which it was only a step to the street. Looking around at the desperate gallery of 600 faces, all shaven, but ill-shaven, and most of them brutal from the indulgence of hateful passions, Robert thought how small a chance the forty keepers stood if that sullen herd should ever stampede.
But the walls of the rotunda were undressed bowlders of granite and the windows all around were double-barred with iron rods that looked strong enough to hold up a mountain. Only the rear doors were vulnerable at all, and these simply led through the kitchen to the cells, or right and left into the yard, at the end of which, and all along one side, abutting the rotunda, were the workshops, while the other side was impregnable with its twenty-foot wall.
Flanked by Gradger and Longlegs, the Pelican rose to address his mutineers. At his approach there was such a tremendous joggling in the crowd, that for a time it looked as if the volcano would burst then and there. But three spokesmen who had wriggled their way to the front stepped forward with their hands clasped over their heads as a token of peaceful intentions and requested the privilege of a word to the warden. They were all marked men, undergoing long sentences and recognized as dangerous criminals. The difference of type between them was conspicuous as they stood in front of the surging crowd—Dickon Harvey, the Right Spur and Minister Slick.
Dickon Harvey was a diamond thief, polished in person and of fluent address. Like those madmen in asylums whom the casual visitor finds perfectly rational and indeed delightful companions, Dickon Harvey never failed to convince callers at the prison of his moral sanity. He admitted past misuse of undeniable talents, though stoutly denying the particular crime upon which he was sentenced. His legends of early temptation and ambition to reform had softened the heart of many a philanthropist to pity. But his cold eye glittered with a point of light sharp enough to cut the Koh-i-noor, and a turnkey of exceptional ability was assigned to the ward which contained Dickon Harvey.
The Right Spur derived his sobriquet from his position as head of the rooster gang. There was little of what Dobbs called "hart" in his line of work, which consisted simply in sandbagging and garroting picked-up acquaintances or passers-by. But in the crude occupation of the footpad he had displayed a brute daring that had surrounded his name with associations of terror, and this diabolical halo had been brightened and enlarged by his turbulence in jail. He was middle-sized and barrel-built, with the complexion of a teamster, a wicked smile and a scar.
Minister Slick's career would be pictured by a line more excursive than the diagram with which Sterne represents the history of Tristram Shandy. His criminal twist had begun just where most men's end. Up to the age of forty he had been able to delude several congregations into a belief in his fitness for the sacred ministry. His sermons had been noted no less for unction than for orthodoxy, their only heresies being grammatical ones. Then came a fall, sudden and irretrievable. In a few months he had developed unusual skill as a confidence man, in which he was aided by a certain oiliness of manner and insinuating ease of speech. He was tall and dignified, with a long gray beard, which Tapp permitted him to wear on account of a chronic quinsy, though his kennel-mates whispered this was all in your eye—a strange location to be sure, for a clergyman's sore throat—but minute veracity was never expected of Minister Slick.
"Mr. Warden," said Dickon Harvey, "I am desired, with my fellow-spokesmen, by the entire community, to tender you our deepest respect upon your retirement from the office whose duties you have so conscientiously fulfilled."
Tapp's lips quivered. Was this irony or praise?
"If you have not always met with success, if our interests and yours have seemed to clash at times, believe me there are few among us who do not appreciate that the fault is in the system and not the man."
"The system, the system," there rose a murmur among the men, which died away like a stifled cry when Longlegs raised his gun.
"We have read with interest the article on 'Prison Discipline,' contributed by you to the last number of the Penological Quarterly, and the petition we present is, we believe, in line with most of the reforms you suggest."
"You desire to present me a petition. Of what value is that? Col. Mainwaring enters to-morrow. It belongs to him."
"A recommendation from yourself, Mr. Warden," answered Minister Slick, "would surely have great weight."
"What is the burden of your document?"
Dickon Harvey removed a paper from his "budge."
"A seriatim schedule of the reforms which we respectfully ask to be enacted."
"Take the paper to your office," whispered Longlegs to the warden, but the obstinate official only flushed angrily at his presumption.
"I will hear what you have to say," he said, weakly clutching at this last hope of favor among the convicts. Dickon Harvey proceeded to read his production.
"To the Warden of Georgetown State Prison: We, the undersigned, being inmates of your institution and the chief sufferers by its irregularities of government, hereby offer and present the following schedule of reforms which we regard as necessary——"
"To the Warden of Georgetown State Prison: We, the undersigned, being inmates of your institution and the chief sufferers by its irregularities of government, hereby offer and present the following schedule of reforms which we regard as necessary——"
"Necessary," emphasized the Right Spur, and nearly 500 heads wagged approval.
"Necessary to the quiet and welfare of the community."1. That the grotesque, degrading, uncomfortable and unhealthful striped garb which we are at present condemned to wear be exchanged for a uniform of gray woolen goods."2. That the practice of shaving, designed to destroy our self-respect and efface all evidences of our former and better identity, be abolished, and each man allowed free choice in the matter of his personal appearance, which concerns himself so deeply and nobody else at all."3. That intervals of conversation be allowed among the whist parties. (This was the local name of the shop-gang, who, under the existing system, were compelled to work amid a silence as absolute as that of a Trappist monastery.)"4. That the dunce-cap rule be suspended and workers who happen to be unemployed for a few moments be allowed to sit at their benches instead of standing face to the wall."5. That the cat-o'-nine-tails and thumb-screw be abolished and punishment limited to the block or extension of sentence, and that the rules for shortening of sentence on account of good behavior be made more liberal."6. That the tobacco rations and weekly prune stew be restored."7. That the cells be lighted until 9 o'clock with a gas-jet in each, and reading or writing allowed."8. That Ezra C. Hawkins, Kenneth Douglas, Murtagh McMorrow and Johann Koerber be discharged for inordinate and unnecessary severity and cruelty."
"Necessary to the quiet and welfare of the community.
"1. That the grotesque, degrading, uncomfortable and unhealthful striped garb which we are at present condemned to wear be exchanged for a uniform of gray woolen goods.
"2. That the practice of shaving, designed to destroy our self-respect and efface all evidences of our former and better identity, be abolished, and each man allowed free choice in the matter of his personal appearance, which concerns himself so deeply and nobody else at all.
"3. That intervals of conversation be allowed among the whist parties. (This was the local name of the shop-gang, who, under the existing system, were compelled to work amid a silence as absolute as that of a Trappist monastery.)
"4. That the dunce-cap rule be suspended and workers who happen to be unemployed for a few moments be allowed to sit at their benches instead of standing face to the wall.
"5. That the cat-o'-nine-tails and thumb-screw be abolished and punishment limited to the block or extension of sentence, and that the rules for shortening of sentence on account of good behavior be made more liberal.
"6. That the tobacco rations and weekly prune stew be restored.
"7. That the cells be lighted until 9 o'clock with a gas-jet in each, and reading or writing allowed.
"8. That Ezra C. Hawkins, Kenneth Douglas, Murtagh McMorrow and Johann Koerber be discharged for inordinate and unnecessary severity and cruelty."
This article was greeted with a swell of cheers and taunts which Tapp seemed impotent to quell.
"9. That favoritism and privilege shall be a thing unknown."
"9. That favoritism and privilege shall be a thing unknown."
Another bellow greeted this, and Floyd knew from the glance that the clause was a blow at himself. The cell he occupied was known as "the parlor" from its greater width, its ventilation and its possession of a reading-table and cupboard. There was jealousy, moreover, because he had been allowed to do light work about the greenhouse (which he was entirely competent to supervise, from his botanical knowledge) instead of being put at a bench. They forgot that his status was different from theirs. The labor was quite voluntary.
"10. That the indeterminate sentence be put into effect, so that through the specious pretext of punishing crime, the abominable crime of depriving peaceable and perfectly harmless citizens, who have bitterly atoned for some past peccadillo and earnestly desire to demonstrate their change of spirit to the world, be not committed under the sanction of law."
"10. That the indeterminate sentence be put into effect, so that through the specious pretext of punishing crime, the abominable crime of depriving peaceable and perfectly harmless citizens, who have bitterly atoned for some past peccadillo and earnestly desire to demonstrate their change of spirit to the world, be not committed under the sanction of law."
Harvey handed the petition to Tapp. It was, on the whole, an enlightened document. Two of the men who prepared it were probably as able as any of the officials of the prison. Robert could see the different hands at work in its composition. The "past peccadilloes" were Dickon Harvey's "flim-flam" adventures, while the demands for more tobacco, for Hawkins' removal and the reduction of his own "privilege" were a concession to the ruffian element, represented by the Right Spur of the Rooster gang. Yet several of the recommendations were as wise and sound as though all the prison associations in the country had indorsed them.
"Prisoners——" Tapp started to reply.
"No gammon," interrupted the Right Spur, scowling, while a hundred other scowls immediately gathered on the foreheads of his particular followers.
Tapp colored again. His obstinacy was aroused. He was not a timid man.
"It would be a breach of courtesy toward my successor to offer him such suggestions. I do not propose to recommend the discharge of employes whose only offense is their fidelity to duty; neither do I propose to constitute myself the spokesman of a mob of law-breakers."
A hiss—the most hateful sound that issues from the human throat, with its serpentine suggestions and its vagueness of origin—greeted this challenge. The keepers gripped their guns, awaiting an order, but the Pelican stood helpless, furious, perplexed.
"To the shops!" he cried at last, and the triumphant convicts were driven like a herd of cattle to their tables and tools. There were muffled yells from the offenders buried in the block when they passed it; and at dinner, when the men filed up to the kitchen slide and carried off their platters of bread and pork, a dozen unruly boarders were only subdued to moderate quiet at the rifle's point.
At 2 o'clock the alarm bell rang out thirteen ominous notes. This was the fire-box of the prison. The flames had broken out in the wicker-workers' shop, where the younger and lighter convicts plaited summer chairs, flower-stands and all kinds of basket articles. On a high throne set against the middle of one wall sat Johann Koerber, the deputy in charge, overseeing everything, pistol in hand. He was a Titan of 300 pounds, who might have proved admirable in his proper work of putting maniacs in strait-jackets. But his selection as overseer of the work-rooms was another instance of Tapp's want of judgment. For all his formidable strength, Koerber lacked the power to govern. The slenderest boy did not fear him, while even "papa," the giant negro who loaded the teams, stood in awe of "Slim" Butler, the lightweight deputy who had charge of the harness-makers. Right under Koerber's eye, the match was applied in several places, and almost before he smelled smoke the canes and osiers were on fire.
Then came the wild riot. In every shop but "Slim" Butler's the officer in charge was overpowered before the alarm bell had ceased ringing. Butler held his men down by sheer strength of will, until the sight of others rushing about in the yard below drove the men at the windows to frenzy, and with the loss of one of their number the brave deputy was disarmed, mangled, crushed. Brushmakers, tailors, shoemakers, saddlers, teamsters and handy men, all streamed from the workshop doors, making by concert toward the wire pole in the middle of the yard. Here the Right Spur was executing a dangerous but ingenious maneuver.
Astride of the cross-bars of the pole, which he had climbed in full view of a dozen deputies, he was cutting the thick telephone wire with a huge pair of shears. The thing could be done in twenty seconds if his confederates mobbed the keepers below, and it might mean a delay of twenty minutes in the arrival of re-enforcements from the nearest station. Stupefied and absorbed, the convict crew were gazing upward at their chief on his perilous perch, when the tall form of Hawkins was seen striding down from the bath-room entrance. The other deputies had contented themselves with fronting the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, rifles leveled, like a herd of musk-bulls with lowered horns defending their females against wolves or men. Hawkins raised his rifle and fired.
The bullet missed its mark and the crack of the powder roused the convicts from their stupor. With a bestial cry and faces on fire, the forward rank, pushed on by those behind, swept down on the group of deputies. Chisels, mallets, hammers, tools and weapons of all kinds from a wheel-spoke to a blunderbuss were brandished in their hands. One volley and the deputies fled—all but Hawkins. Almost simultaneously, it seemed, the second barrel of his rifle hurled its missile, the Right Spur was seen to drop from his post, dragging the severed wire with him to the ground, and "Longlegs" himself was felled, bleeding and senseless, with a heavy bottle.
The mob would have been glad to outrage his body, but time was precious and Dickon Harvey had already sped to the north corner of the "bastile" and was beckoning and summoning his men to follow. They rushed in his wake, turned one corner of the bastile and then another, gave a great shout of joy as they saw the wide outlet of freedom before them.
The bastile was the great granite castle which contained the cells, a continuation of the rotunda. It projected into the yard, leaving a wide space at one end and at both sides. On the opposite side from that in which the shops were located stood the greenhouses, where Robert Floyd was accustomed to work whenever he wearied of writing. He had been crouching under the slant glass roof of the conservatory, snipping off the dead leaves, when the alarm bell sounded. The cries on the other side of the bastile brought him out on the open grass plot, and he was standing there, scissors in hand, when the convict pack swept toward him around the angle 100 yards away. At the same time he heard the impatient bells of the fire-engines jingling up the street.
The riot had been ably planned. Over on this side of the yard stood the entrance for teams. It was this point that the fire engines from without and the convicts from within were making for together. The alternative offered was that of letting the workshops burn or of emptying the jail of its inmates. Outside there was a ponderous iron gate, guarded by a deputy. Within this a stout one of oak wood, which a convict was detailed to open and shut. This convict was no other than Minister Slick, who had persuaded the warden to assign him to this light duty on the score of advancing age and feebleness.
Minister Slick's door was only open a crack. He was too cunning to give the deputy outside a view of the convicts racing down the yard. Not until the outer iron gate was swung back and the fire horses came galloping along did he throw his own gate in, without any marked evidence of "feebleness." The fire engine burst through; the convicts were at hand. Before the heavy iron gate outside could be shut they would be down upon its guardian and he would be swept aside like a sapling before the moose.
Floyd was quick to take in the situation and quick to choose his course of action. The deputies were flying in every direction before the victorious mob. A hundred yards can be covered in a very few seconds, even by men who are not professional sprinters. The wooden gate must not remain open.
The fire engine shielded him from the gaze of Minister Slick, who had drawn a revolver, but, not daring to attack the outside deputy alone, stood awaiting the onset of his fellow-prisoners. Robert was upon him in an instant and drove the greenhouse scissors into his neck, then thrust him aside, swung the door to with a mighty shove and turned just in time to dodge the rush of the maddened convicts.
Fifty of them flung themselves against the gate. It groaned but held firm. The original oak had buffeted winter gales fiercer than this, when the sap was in its veins and its green leaves rustled about the spreading branches. Like a wave of ocean breaking into foam against a cliff the oncoming mob scattered and reeled back in indecision. Several of them made at Robert, hurling their weapons at his flying form. Others ran along the great wall, like tigers along their cage bars, as if feeling for an opening. Only Dickon Harvey, from the moment that the inner gate clanged, had stood still in the middle of the clashing throng, turning his head to and fro and studying the situation. He was not slow to make up his mind.
"Out by the rotunda!" he shouted, waving his hand, and the whole rabble was making for the rotunda before the fire-horses had rounded the angle of the bastile at the other end of the yard.
Now Robert, hemmed in by a broad line of 400 armed opponents, had already chosen this outlet of escape for himself. He had foiled their plan and it would go hard with him if he and they should remain within these prison walls alone. There was a possibility that the flying deputies had left the rotunda doors ajar, since they were so heavy as to require several seconds to open and shut. So through the kitchen, up the iron stairs and across the tiled floor of the rotunda he sped, with the foremost of the pursuers almost at his heels. Only one deputy, Gradger, opposed himself to his progress, gun in hand, and Robert eluded him with the ease of a football dodger.
Both doors were ajar, the outer one, however, only a dozen inches or less. Perhaps twenty feet lay between him and safety. He had almost flung himself upon the knob, when a man coming toward him from the outside forestalled his purpose and drew the door to with a clang. It was Tapp, who from his office, unable to rally his routed deputies, was rushing to the scene of the riot, determined to retrieve by a last act of courage the numberless shortcomings of his administration.
Robert's predicament was fearful. The door barred egress, the dogs were at his heels. Something of the cowering awe that benumbs the stag when his legs at last tremble under him and he turns to face the baying pack swept through his breast for an instant. But it was no more than an instant, for the young man's blood was roused and it was not unmixed with iron. With a leap at the knob and a mighty tug he drew the inner door between himself and the criminals.
A snarl, hardly human, burst from hundreds of throats when they saw this last avenue closed. The thick glass of the door was splintered in a jiffy and vicious hands, armed with bludgeons and cutting tools, stretched through the bars at the traitor who had twice cheated them. As green displaces yellow in the chameleon's coat, so a wave of revenge suddenly swept aside the hope of escape in the temper of the crowd. Fortunately the space between the two doors was so wide that Robert could back away and avoid the blows intended for his vitals.
But he had not reckoned on Dickon Harvey. Harvey had been the first to hurl himself on the door that Robert drew between the convicts and himself. Without a word, without a moment of hesitation, he had turned back diagonally, the others making a lane for him, and thrown himself on the turnkey Gradger. The struggle was fierce. Had Harvey been alone, he would have gone down underneath in the bout. But he was not alone. Twenty hands reached at the keeper and presently Harvey came pushing through the others, waving a huge bunch of keys over his head with a shout that the whole hall echoed.
Robert looked behind him through the outer door. Tapp had disappeared into his office. There was only the clerk and some idlers about and none of these, if they could have opened the door, dared to exercise the power. It was only a question of time when Dickon Harvey would find the right key. He could see the weapons waving in bared right arms and the shouts of the rabble once more had a hopeful ring. He said nothing, did nothing. There was nothing to do. But a rippling in his cheek showed that his teeth were clenching and unclenching. Instinctively he spread his arms out, backing against the outer door, clutching the bars and facing his hunters. It was the attitude of crucifixion.
"Ha!" Dickon Harvey was silent as death, but the shriek of exultation told that his wrist had turned on the handle of the key. It fitted the wards. Slowly, all too slowly for the convicts, all too quickly for Floyd, the inner door was drawn ajar and the foremost men crouched to spring. Then came a crash in the glass behind Floyd at his very ear. A long tube of steel passed by his cheek, and, turning, he looked into the eye of Warden Tapp sighting along the barrel of a rifle. The report rang out and Dickon Harvey fell forward, the keys jangling at his feet. Robert wrenched them from his unclasping hand. They were his only weapon. He had lost the scissors.
At the fall of Harvey the men recoiled for an instant. Quickly another rifle, and another, and another were thrust through the bars behind Robert, and he was cautioned to stand motionless. Like a mountebank's daughter, whose body outlined against a board the father fringes with skillfully cast knives, each missing her by only a hair, the prisoner stood with his arms outspread, protected by the chevaux de frise of protruding guns. Several of the defenders were kneeling and one thrust his muzzle between the young man's legs.
"Retire!" said Tapp. "Clear the rotunda!" The men sullenly stood.
"One! Two——"
Before the fatal "Three" was added they broke and turned. Then the muzzles were drawn in, the door behind Robert opened and the warden, at the head of half a dozen deputies and a dozen policemen who had just arrived, charged in upon them. The odds were twenty to one, but with the Right Spur lying senseless under the telephone pole, Minister Slick wounded at the gate where Robert had stabbed him and Dickon Harvey dead on the threshold to freedom, the rabble was merely a torso of Hercules, formidable in physique but powerless without head or limbs. The clubs of the officers made heavy thuds and the red blood starting here and there splashed curious spots of color in the dingy crowd. At one stairway Robert saw the tall form of Hawkins, bleeding but revived, thrashing around with an empty gun barrel. Then the mob was driven down the stairs, dividing itself into two portions in the right and left yards.
"Open the team gate," cried Hawkins, leading the deputies and officers to the left, through the kitchen, instead of to the right through the bath-rooms, whither Tapp had started. This time the warden was content to follow and the reason became at once apparent. The solitary fire engine stood over against the burning shops, helpless without its hose. From the outside several streams were playing on the buildings and the firemen, mounting by ladders, were climbing along the roof. But access from within was necessary if any headway were to be made. The engines stood outside the gate, occupying the interval of delay by getting up their fires.
Hawkins stationed his men in a cordon across the gate and admitted the engines and hose carriages and ladder trucks. One by one they dashed by till as many as could be supplied with water from the hydrants in the yard had entered. Then the tall deputy locked the others out, detailed one squad to guard the rotunda and another to close all doors of the bastile. With the remainder of the company, re-enforced by more policemen and keepers, he began to corral his steers.
In order to do this it was necessary that his own men should maintain the solidarity of a phalanx, while deploying out like a line of skirmishers from wall to wall. Spread over the width of the yard at one side, they began their march with rifles and revolvers ready. The stragglers fled before them. Their gait was slow. Turning the upper angle, an ambush was to be feared, but the spirit of the convicts was broken and they only hurled their weapons and fled. Hawkins wheeled his line to the right, making the pivot-mark time, and passed along the end of the yard, which was deserted. Turning the second angle, a more desperate resistance was shown. Here all was confusion, the engines and burning shops offering places of refuge, while the presence of the firemen made it impossible to shoot. Hawkins halted his command.
"All firemen in the yard fall behind this line!" he shouted. The firemen left their engines, several of them only tearing themselves away by force. Three were captured and held in front by the convicts. The others, seeing this murderous purpose, could hardly be restrained from rushing to their rescue.
"Club guns!" cried Hawkins, and the breeches instead of the muzzles were presented to the mob. But they seemed to dread this end of the weapon as much as the other, for they released the firemen and slowly withdrew, Hawkins' line continuing its Macedonian march. Suddenly from a thick nucleus among the rebels, a spokesman started forward with a white handkerchief tied to a pole. Hawkins motioned him back and the march was continued. The men were penned up against the bath-room entrance, leading into the rotunda and the bastile, where four deputies with leveled rifles prevented escape. Hawkins had cleared the hydrants and the firemen resumed their work.
"Deputies at the bath-room door fall back and guard the stairs leading up to the rotunda! The prisoners will file into their cells in the bastile!"
This was the last straw. A yell of rage burst from the mob. To be flung back into their kennels with the bitter crust of disappointment to gnaw, and the prospect of punishment for the day's misdoings, this was too much to endure without a last resistance. They turned upon their keepers with the courage of the beast at bay.
"Now!" cried Hawkins, and his line rushed forward. The hand-to-hand struggle of the rotunda was renewed more equally, for there were resolute men in the mob, men reckless of life and maddened by the goading around the yard. Nor was their accoutrement of iron tools despicable. Dozens slipped through the line, and policemen as well as convicts were seen staggering under blows. But the timid ones speedily fled into the bastile, and, thinning the multitude, robbed it of that consciousness of numerical superiority which had given it confidence. At last not more than twenty desperadoes remained, backs to the wall, in front of the line.
"Club them down!" cried Hawkins.
There was no choice but to obey. The men were of that mettle which breaks but does not bend. One by one they were beaten to the ground.
The whole of the afternoon was required to lock the mutineers up properly. With the aid of those prisoners who had not joined the riot the fire in the shops was finally put out and a good deal of the property was saved. Only one life had been lost, that of Dickon Harvey, but the hospital beds were full that night.
When Warden Tapp called Robert to the office and thanked him in person for his behavior at the team gate and in the rotunda there were tears in the proud man's eyes. This was a shameful legacy of ruin and rebellion which he was leaving to his successor.
Passing out of the warden's room, through the rotunda, Robert heard the familiar voice which had puzzled him so often.
"Aisy, Misther Butler, aisy, for the love o' heaven," the uncouth fellow groaned.
Floyd turned and looked. "Slim" Butler, the overseer of the harness-shop, was superintending the transfer to the hospital on an improvised stretcher of the prisoner whom he had shot when his section rose against him. His own head was bandaged and his clothes were burned. The firemen had rescued them both with difficulty. But the face of the prisoner caused Robert to start, for he recognized in the convict whom Dobbs called Quirk his uncle's coachman, Dennis Mungovan.
"I've got him! I've got him! Take his other arm, Toot!"
"Let go; she's tipping!"
"Will I let go and see the bloke drownded? You're a spunky feller, Toot Watts. Anybody'd think you never rocked a dory before yourself. Get up in the stern, Turkey. Now pull her in to the bridge and hold on to the logs. That'll balance her."
With one hand the Whistler held the drowning man's arm, while with the other he lifted his chin out of the water. It was a dangerous position, leaning over the bow in this manner, but the man in tow was unconscious and could not struggle. In a half-dozen strokes Turkey had brought the dory's stern up against one of the piles of the pier. This support he clasped with might and main, while Toot and the Whistler drew the body over the bow. Both were breathing hard when it was finally boarded.
"Turn him over," cried the Whistler. "You take the oars, Turkey, and row like fury for the beach. Get the bloke's head around, Toot, up against the bow. That's it. Now work his left arm up and down; I'll take the right—not so fast—about like this. That'll make him breathe."
"Do you think he's dead?" asked Toot in an awestruck whisper.
"He ain't dead. I felt of his heart."
"I seen a bloke at the bath-house that was in the water half an hour and they brought him round," said Turkey, panting at the oars.
"Keep the arm going, Toot. Never mind if you're tired."
"Are we near the beach?" asked Toot. He was the youngest of the trio, not much more than a child, in fact, and even the slum child, precocious in many kinds of knowledge, does not peep without tremors behind the veil of the mystery of mysteries. No one answered his query. An answer was not necessary, for over his shoulder the white line of the surf could be seen. When they got near the Whistler jumped to Turkey's side, seized the right oar and gave the added impetus of his lithe young arms to the headway of the boat. The water hardly rippled the glorious ribbon of moonlight behind them and wind and tide were set toward shore. Under these favoring circumstances the dory was carried high and dry upon the sands.
"Lift him out," cried the Whistler. Shagarach's body was laid upon the beach, dripping and disheveled. "You run up to the refectory, Toot, and tell the cop there to bring some whisky. Turn him over, Turkey, and let the water run out. Now slap his cheeks. Slap them hard."
"He's breathing."
"How did he tumble in, I wonder? Gee, didn't he come down flopping?"
"P'raps he was loaded."
"Lucky he didn't hit on them rocks there."
"He would if the tide was dead low."
Neither the Whistler nor Turkey had checked their vigorous efforts to resuscitate the limp body. Even the catching of their boat on a high-crested wave did not seduce them from their work.
"I'll swim after her," said the Whistler, watching the dory drift slowly off the sands.
Soon Shagarach's eyes opened and his lips muttered indistinctly. Presently he moved his arms. How cool the air was! He had often longed to lie like this on a soft, white sand, and let the shallow water play over him, while he pierced with his gaze the deep blue sky. But the stars were above him now—not pendulous tongues of flame such as throbbed in the oriental heavens of his childhood, but the smoldering embers of the northern night, paling in the moonlight. And whose were those two strange faces thrust darkly over the golden disk?
"Are you better, mister?" It was unmistakably an earthly tone, the voice and accent of the city gamin, but warm with that humaneness of heart which a ragged jacket shelters as often as a velvet one.
"Take my coat, mister. You're shivering," said the Whistler, suiting action to word, so that Shagarach found himself embraced by a garment, not dry by any means, but more grateful than the soaked apparel which was chilling his skin.
"If you can get up, mister, and run around, it'll warm you. Toot'll be here soon with some whisky."
Shagarach gathered his strength to rise, but the effort was fruitless.
"How did I come here?" he gasped.
"You fell over the bridge, right near us. We were fishing for smelts and rowed over and saved you."
"That was fortunate. I thank you," murmured Shagarach.
"Can't yer swim?" asked Turkey in a pitying tone, but Shagarach was preoccupied with his recollections. He had made a mistake of judgment. He should have declined the rendezvous. But who and what was the assailant, the leering oaf he had passed on the pier? Was it some agent of the Arnolds? The anonymous letters pointed to that source. They were all seamed with allusions to the trial of Robert Floyd. And they formed his only clew. Stay, the hat he still clutched in his hand. He raised it feebly—for the mental energies of the lawyer were more elastic than the physical—and his teeth were still chattering though his brain was clear. It was a round, rimless cap of a common pattern.
"Here comes Toot." The Whistler, who was all eyes, had been the first to espy him, running at the top of his speed. Out of the darkness behind him loomed the powerful form of a policeman.
"The cop's comin', fellers. Here he is," cried Toot.
"Gimme the whisky," said the Whistler. "Take a swig, mister. It'll warm you up."
Shagarach applied his lips to the bottle and took a sparing draught.
"Well, how is the gentleman?" sang out the policeman, cheerily.
"He's all right now," answered the Whistler, a strange uneasiness coming over him.
The officer stooped down to the man's face.
"Why, Mr. Shagarach——" Surprise prevented him from saying more and Shagarach looked up at hearing his name.
"You're not on the old beat now?" he said.
"No, I'm on the park force till I get strong again. This is a bad accident. Coming round all right, though, by the look o' things."
"Yes, give me a hand and I'll try to rise."
Officer Chandler's great hand swung Shagarach on his feet. For a moment his knees sunk. Then he shook himself like a draggled dog. The liquor was working its way to his marrow and banishing the deep-seated chill.
"I owe my life to these boys," he said.
"Hello, what are you stripping for?" asked the officer, turning around.
"My dory," answered the Whistler. He had already reduced himself to the minimum of wearing apparel and stood ankle-deep in the surf.
The dory was twenty yards out, showing a dark broadside against the moonlit waves.
"Oh, all right," laughed Chandler. "Give me your arm, Mr. Shagarach. We'll furnish you a new outfit at the refectory. How did it all happen?"
"One moment, till the boy comes back." Shagarach knew that his assailant had had time to escape and that search for the present would be useless, but he saw no advantage in keeping the incident to himself. So he sketched the story of the letters, the rendezvous and the struggle, in his curt, forcible style.
"Find the head that cap fits and you'll do me a service," he concluded, showing Chandler the headgear.
"There was nobody on the bridge?"
"Nobody but the oaf I described."
"Wade out, Turkey," the Whistler was calling to his barefoot companions. He seemed shy of putting his boat ashore. Since the arrival of the officer all three urchins had become singularly distant and distressed. Was this only the natural awe which slum children feel in the presence of the police? Or was it conscience that made cowards of them all?
"Come ashore, young feller. The gentleman wants to thank you," said Chandler.
"We must look for the fishing-pole under the pier," answered the Whistler. It was true that he had thrown his rod away when they heard the loud splash of Shagarach's body in the water. But his manner indicated that while what he said might be true, it was not the fact. Turkey and Toot also had shown unseemly haste in wading out to the dory with the Whistler's outer raiment. The Whistler was digging the blade in for his first stroke when Shagarach addressed him in a tone that made him pause.
"My young friends, I am too weak to thank you to-night. To-morrow is Saturday. Could you call at my office in the morning, 31 Putnam street? Mr. Shagarach. Can you come?"
"Yes, sir," answered the boys, with more submission than gladness in their voices. All the gamin's impudence melts at a touch of true kindness. The boys waited a moment, then disappeared into the night, while Shagarach, with the policeman's assistance, made his way through the gathering crowd to the refectory.
It was the misfortune of Jacob, Shagarach's office boy, to be the owner of a most preposterous nose, the consciousness of which led him to fear society and shun the mannerless multitude. Boys of his own age in particular he dreaded, as a tame crow is said to fear nothing so much as a wild one. So when our three mischiefmakers entered the office the next morning and seated themselves till Mr. Shagarach should return, the poor lad began squirming by anticipation in his chair as if its seat were a pin cushion with the points of the pins protruding. As a matter of defensive tactics, this was the worst possible attitude to take, as it courted assault. But Jacob was not a strategist.
Before long his torture began, first by side comments and giggles, suppressed in deference to the decorum of the surroundings. Then he was subjected to a running fire of personal questions, the tone of which speedily began to mimic the muffled nasals of his own richly accented responses. This would have been acute torment to a sensitive lad and a spirited one would have ended the comedy by an appeal to arms. But poor Jacob was stolid and peaceable. So his tormenters had things their own way. The Whistler especially seemed to have neither conscience nor reason in his make-up, but an enormous funny-bone which usurped the functions of both. It was not until Aronson came in that Jacob was able to make his escape.