Part 12

At these brutal, downright words, leaving the poor young thing nothing to say, no little pretence even to herself that she had guarded the proprieties, had comported herself circumspectly, leaving her with not even a little rag of a claim that she had conducted herself with seemly decorum, she sprang from him and began to cry. Whatever the cause, Mr. Middleton could not look upon feminine unhappiness with composure and here where he was himself responsible, he was indeed smitten with keen remorse and hastening to comfort her, gathered her into his arms and there he was abasing and condemning himself and telling her what a dear, nice girl she was--and kissing away her tears.

"Let me give you a piece of advice," he said, fifteen minutes later, as he was about to release her and depart. "It is not best ever to let a man hug you. Never," he said, pausing to imprint a lingering kiss upon the girl's yielding lips, "never let a man kiss you again until that moment when you shall become his affianced wife."

Mr. Middleton departed in that serene state of mind which the consciousness of virtue bestows, for he had given the young woman valuable advice that would doubtless be of advantage to her in the future and he reflected upon this in much satisfaction as he fared away with the eyes of the young woman watching him from where she looked out of the parlor window.

Reaching into his right coat pocket to transfer the copper bottle to the opposite pocket, in order that his coat might not be pulled out of shape, as he grasped the neck, one of his fingers went right into the mouth! The seal of Solomon was gone! A less resolute and quick-witted person might have been alarmed, but reasoning that the seal must have been knocked off during the fight at Mr. Smitz's and nothing had happened since, he boldly examined the bottle. He could see a white substance as he looked into it, and by the aid of a stick he fished out a wad of wool tightly stuffed in the neck. A metallic chinking followed the removal of the wadding and set his heart thumping rapidly. He looked up and down the street. No one in sight. He tilted the bottle up to the light of a street lamp and saw a yellow gleam. He shook it and into his hands flowed a stream of gold sequins! He could not sufficiently admire the ruse of Prince Houssein. Money on the first messenger there had been none.

In a center more given to numismatics, or had he been willing to wait and sell the coins gradually, Mr. Middleton might have secured more than he did for the gold pieces, all coined at Bagdad in the early caliphates and very valuable. But he disposed of them in a lump to a French gentleman on La Salle Street for fourteen hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Calling on the young lady of Englewood within the next few days, he made no reference to these events, though she asked him several times during the evening what he had been doing lately. He did, however, hint at having profited by a certain fortunate "deal," as he called it, but not a word did he say concerning the mournful girl or anything remotely connected with her.

Hesitating to hurt the emir's feelings by exposing the obtuseness of his ancestor Noureddin and the foolish superstition of his descendants ever since, Mr. Middleton said nothing of these transactions when once more he sat in the presence of the urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe of Al-Yam. Having handed him a bowl of delicately flavored sherbet, the emir began the narration of The Pleasant Adventures of Dr. McDill.

The Pleasant Adventures of Dr. McDill.

It was twelve o'clock on a blustery winter night and Dr. James McDill was where a married man of forty ought to be at such an hour in that season, sleeping soundly by the side of his beloved wife. But his wife was not sleeping. At the stroke of the hour, she had suddenly awoke from refreshing slumber and become aware of sounds as of persons moving softly about the room, and after a little, seeing against the windows faintly illuminated by a distant street light, two dark figures, she perceived her ears had not deceived her. Shaking her husband unavailingly for a considerable time, in her terror she finally cast discretion to the winds and shouted:

"Burglars, Jim, burglars!"

Hardly had these words ceased, when the electric lights were turned on and Dr. McDill sat up in bed to find himself staring into the muzzles of three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over the footboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with two revolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the other began to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if not eloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitous conditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed to obtain by force, if they obtained at all, any share in the privileges and riches of the wealthy. As he discoursed, at times carried away by his theme, he gave over his search and paused to enforce his points with earnest gestures. This caused the other robber some disquietude and he cursed his compatriot and the doctor and his wife with a use of epithets that will not bear repeating and which showed him to be none other than a low ruffian. At last all the treasure in the room being taken and the doctor being forced to accompany them and disclose the repository of other valuables, the robbers took their departure.

Some weeks after this, two persons suspected of being responsible for certain robberies were taken into custody and the doctor called into court to identify them if possible.

"I noticed," said he, "that the shorter of the two masked men was prone to gesticulation and that he had a fashion of holding his arms close to his body, as if tied at the elbows, and with hands fully open, fingers apart, thumbs extended, and palms upward, waving his forearms----"

At this juncture, the smile on the face of the defendant's counsel, occasioned by thus putting his client upon his guard, was dispelled by an angry exclamation from the person in question, and denying with some loquacity and even more vociferation that he ever made such a gesture, at the close of his statement, behold, he made the gesture!

By the doctor's testimony was a chain of incriminating evidence established that led to a sentence of ten years' imprisonment being imposed upon the robbers. When he had heard the sentence, he of the gestures turned fiercely toward the doctor and cried:

"You'll be killed for this, like other dogs before you for the same cause. If you're not killed before I am discharged or escape, I'll kill you. But I am only one of many, a tried band who avenge;" and hereupon he smote the rail in front of him, "Knock, knock--knock; knock, knock--knock." And from several parts of the silent room came answers, faint, but distinct, two quick taps, a pause, and a third, then all repeated. "Tap, tap--tap; tap, tap--tap."

The evidence of confederates, the quick response to the appeal of their comrade, the taps that came from everywhere and nowhere, manifestation of the desperate men surrounding him, might well have daunted the soul of any man. Three sentences had been pronounced that day, a term of years upon Jerry McGuire and Barry O'Toole, but death upon James McDill. You may depend upon it that the doctor was none the more reassured when on the morrow he learned that McGuire and O'Toole had escaped. With their anger and resentment yet hot within them, these men would doubtless at once set about to encompass his destruction, and he knew that when once one of these societies had decreed the death of a person who balked or incensed them, every endeavor was used to put the decree into effect. But, after a little, he took courage from the very fact that was most threatening. If these men, these desperate and despicable scoundrels, could escape from the barriers of stone and steel and the guardians that surrounded them, why might not he fight for his life and win in the struggle which both reason and instinct told him was inevitable?

That those he loved most might not be involved in the perils he felt certain he was about to encounter and that his resolution and his movements might not be hampered by their presence and their fears, he found means to persuade his wife to take the children for a visit to their grandfather, and setting his affairs in order and providing himself with two revolvers, a bowie knife, and an Italian stiletto, he even began to look forward to the approaching struggle with something of that pleasure which man experiences in the anticipation of any contest; and there is indeed a certain keen zest in playing the game where one's stake is one's life.

On the evening of the day of his wife's departure, he was called to assist in an operation at a hospital with which he had once been connected, and unexpected complications arising, it was not until two in the morning that he started away. His man and carriage, that he had ordered to await him, had gone. The night was mild and it must have been weariness or restiveness, that had caused the departure. Although some distance lay between the hospital and his home, he started afoot. Not a soul was to been seen in the street, which, thanks to the light of the moon late rising in its last quarter, lay visible to his sight. As he passed an alleyway, shortly after leaving the hospital, his attention was attracted by the sound of snores, and he discovered a man whose features were well shrouded in the upturned collar of an ulster, seated with his back against a house wall, asleep. The man stirred uneasily as he bent over him, but thinking it best not to disturb him, the doctor passed on. As he did so, he became conscious that the snores had ceased, and looking back, he beheld the man walk drowsily across the sidewalk and finally stand gazing in the direction of the hospital. The doctor began to hasten his steps, but ever and anon glancing back, and presently he saw the man was now looking after him, that he leaned to the right and leaned to the left, and stooped down in his scrutinizing. Suddenly the man reached forward with a cane, smote the sidewalk, "rap, rap--rap; rap, rap--rap," and taken up on either side of the way, louder and louder as it came up the street toward the now fleeing doctor, from sequestered nooks between buildings, ran the fateful, hurrying volley of "rap, rap--rap; rap, rap--rap." The last raps came right behind the doctor's heels at the mouth of an alley he was clearing at a bound, and glancing back, he saw a succession of men hurrying silently after him at all speed. He was encumbered with a long ulster, while his pursuers, if they had worn overcoats, had now cast them aside. The man just behind, apparently did not wish to close in alone, preferring to allow others to catch up and assist him, and at the second block the doctor could hear two pairs of heels behind him and a third pair just beyond. The pursuers were gaining. Though he would have to pause to do it, he must throw off his overcoat. At the third corner, he tore at the long garment, it swung under his feet, and he pitched headlong----. He heard a cry of savage joy and a rush of feet, a sudden great soft whirr, and he arose to see an automobile halted between him and his pursuers. A gentleman of a rotund person, clothed in correct evening dress and whose speech was of a thickness to indicate recent indulgence in intoxicating liquors, alighted from the carriage.

"I do not believe thish ish the place. No, thish ish not the place I told you to come to, driver. I'm glad it isn't anyway, as I'm afraid we're too drunk to sing a serenade. Here's another man as's drunk, too. So drunk he fell down on hisself. Couldn't leave him here. Never go back on a man as is drunk. Get in brother. Take you home with us. Get in."

It is needless to say that Dr. McDill responded to his invitation with the greatest alacrity and gratitude. For the first time did the rotund gentleman become aware that there were other persons present. Some four of the doctor's pursuers had now gathered at the curb of the crossing and the rest were coming thither, though with no great haste, for they were gentry to whom caution was second nature and it was by no means certain what the arrival of the automobile might portend. The four at the curb, deterred from retreat by that sense of shame which is not entirely absent even in the lowest and most depraved, were now insistently giving their rap to incite their comrades to hasten. The rotund gentleman walked around to that side of the carriage and gazed at them with some degree of interest and curiosity. "Rap, rap--rap; rap, rap--rap," went the sticks of the four and down the street came answering raps and soon the four were joined by two more.

"Don't let him go now, we've almost got him. We'd had him, if Red hadn't gone to sleep and let him get by. Come on, come on."

The six rushed at the carriage, whereat the rotund gentleman, with an agility not to be looked for in one of his contour and condition, received the foremost with smash, smash--smash, in each eye and on the nose, and the second likewise, when bidding the driver be off, he leaped into the carriage with his comrades. A single bullet whistled after them as they whirled away.

"Rap, rap--rap. I rapped 'em," said the rotund gentleman. "I always did hate a knocker."

With your permission I will here interpolate the remark that the further adventures of the eminent surgeon with the mysterious confederacy that sought his life, bore evidence that these depraved and ruffianly men were not without a certain rude artistic temperament as well as a tinge of romance, and a dramatic sense that many who write for the stage might well envy them.

The elation of the doctor over his escape from the toils of the thieves was not of long duration. His breakfast was interrupted by a call to the telephone and over the wires came to his startled ears a hollow "knock, knock--knock; knock, knock--knock." At his office door down town softly came "tap, tap--tap; tap, tap--tap," and snatch the door open as hastily as he might, he saw nothing, heard nothing, heard nothing but the electric bells on the floors above and floors below calling for the elevator: "buzz, buzz--buzz; buzz, buzz--buzz." He walked along State Street at the busy hour of noon and all about him in the throngs was the dull impact of canes upon the pavement, "thud, thud--thud; thud, thud--thud." As he rode home in the street car at nightfall, back of him in the train at street corner after corner he heard passengers jingle the bell for stopping, "ding, ding--ding; ding, ding--ding."

Although Dr. McDill was a man of great native resolution and intrepid in the face of known and seen dangers, the horrors of the invisible forces of death everywhere surrounding him so wore at his soul that he returned down town and spent the night at a hotel. On the morrow, he severely condemned himself for this yielding to fear, for on the front steps of his house lay the dead form of his great watch dog, Jacques. There were evidences of a struggle in which the assailants had not been unscathed. Bits of cloth lay about and examining the stains of blood that plentifully blotched the walk, he discovered that some of it was human blood.

"Ah," he said, in deep self-reproach, "if I had stayed here as I should, I would have been able to fight with poor Jacques and brought low some of my enemies. How easily I could have fired from the upper windows as Jacques made their presence known. It is evident that the noise of the struggle was so great that the fiends were afraid to continue the attack and ran away."