Beadle's Dime Library, Vol. III, No. 29 — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

oe er a ———_—— 30 * Oh! he will die! he will die! to us only to die after all!’ With his brain in a whirl, the father lifts herin his arms and carries her to the sofa. She clings about his neck and hides her face in his breast, with an abandon of grief that frightens him into silence and inactivity, while his mind labors to grasp the staggering fact that his eyes have beheld Cecil Beau- mont in the flesh, He masters it, at last, and then, like the rolling of a weight from his heart, comes the consciousness: “ FREDERICK IS NOT A MURDERER!” With feverish eagerness he begins to question his daughter as to how Cecil Beaumont came into his resent position. His earnestness forces her out of foe grief, and she answers him, at first wildly, then more coherently. , ve “We must bring relief to him immediately, May,” he says, rising. “But, papa, how can you, without betraying him? He said that his life might depend upon it.” “That was only an insane fancy. At any rate, no penger can reach him here; and he will die, if neg- ec A 7 So it was announced to the world that Cecil Beau- mont yet lived, He has come back CHAPTER XT, AN AWFUL PERIL. TiaerR Dick and Shadow Jim walked briskly for two or three blocks, and then entered a pawnbroker- shop. Wien they peoppeeren it was on the next peraiie! street, and their own pals would not have nown them, so completely were they disguised. They proceeded directly to the stables where Pat Donavan’s hack was kept. While they were waiting for a couple of saddle-horses, they passed among the animals as they stood in the stalls, commenting =4 on them with a manifest knowledge of horse-fles that engaged the attention of the hostlers, while Shadow Jim surreptitiously took the throat-latch from a halter in an empty stall. The Tiger, who ce in the character of an English sporting gentleman, took a sudden fancy to a lithe-limbed hound that had been kept about the stable, and before he left the premises had paid the money that made him the happy possessor of the animal. At Griggs's Hollow the object of this sudden fancy and purchase transpired. The throat-latch was held to the nose of the intelligent animal, and then he was set upon the track of Pat Donavan’s hack. We have seen that they came up with the object of their pursuit just after the consummation of the mockery of a marriage. When Cecil Beaumont leaped through the win- dow, Tiger Dick let the insensible form of Florence Goldthorp down on the floor, and sprung to the door of the hut. “Stop him, Jim! Shoot him down! The devil has killed her!” he cried. But Shadow Jim lay insensible at the corner of the house, while Cecil Beaumont was already in_ the act of mounting. As he swung into the saddle, Tiger Dick’s pistol was discharged, the bullet graz- ing his breast. With a wild laugh the maniac dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and sped away into the darkness, . Leaving Shadow Jim to take care of himself, the Tiger sprang back into the house with an oath of disappointment and rage. A glance of his experi- enced eye—practiced in the wild life of the Rocky Mountains—told him that the wound received by Florence was of a very trivial character. Her fainting and the blood trickling over his sleeve had at first deceived him. She had been with her back directly toward Cecil when he fired, and the bullet, striking the steel of her corset frame, had Vomit her side, merely abrading the skin along one of the ribs. She was soon restored to consciousness, and grasped the Tiger’s hand in gratitude. : “Ou “air.” she said, ‘‘from how horrible a fate you have preserved me!” : ‘*Madam, say no more,” said the Tiger, with eas suavity: for he could play the gentleman, when it served his turn. ‘Iam only too happy to have been in time to render you assistance.” “Your coming was most opportune, sir,”’ she said, shuddering at the recollection of her recent peril. “He is a wicked man, who abducted me avd was forcing me into a marriage with him, through the instrumentality of this villain here,whom he called a minister.” , She turned, but the late officiating clergyman had step xed from the room. : Hold on here, sport! We'll have further use for you,” said the Tiger, leveling his pistol at the cab- man, who was on the point of imitating the exam- ple of the divine. : The appeal, so forcible urged, was heeded; and offering Fiorence his arm, the Tiger placed her in the carriage with the grace of an accomplished gen- tleman, and followed her. Shadow Jim, who by this time had regained bis scattered wits, mounted his horse; and with a quiet intimation to the cabman that it would be quite a leasant diversion to blow the top of his head off, if e didn’t “give ’em a square deal,” instructed him to crack up his horses. A little way up the road they came upon the hound, which, upon seeing the light in the Aut, they had tied to a tree, lest he should betray their approach to the occupants. Some distance further on they turned into a cross- road, and, after a drive of four or five miles, came to a country tavern, where the Tiger procured for Florence that refreshment of which she stood so sadly in need, through excitement and loss of sleep. ‘*As I presume you do not wish to be the subject of gossip, I will remain silent about the peculiar cir- eumstances in which I met you, and, to save appear- ances, represent you as my sister, if agreeable to you.” “Thank you, sir. You are very considerate,” re- plied Wlorence; and by this little piece of adroit ma- neuvering the Tiger had silenced her, As for the cabman, Dick threatened to blow his brains out at the first symptom of indiscretion, and taking him in- to the room with himself and Shadow Jim, made him submit to be securely bound, while they slept. At ten o’clock the next morning they set out again, but went so slowly and made so long a stop in the middle of the afternoon, that it was well along in the night when they passed within # mila of the cave. a — + tree een ee The cabman, plied with drugged liquor, had lain in a drunken stupor since sunset; so there was no one the wiser, when the hack was driven off the road among the trees and secured. No one but Shadow Jim saw Tiger Dick lift an insensible form from the carriage, and place it on the back of the horse that had been led since Jim had taken the place of the stupefied driver. Then supporting it in his arms, though the greater portion of the weight was borne by the animal, Tiger Dick walked beside the horse, while Shadow Jim led him, and in this way they reached the vicinity of the cave. But before they drew too near, the Tiger lifted the limp form from the back of the horse, and carried it the rest of the we on foot. hen Jim went back alone and drove the hack four or five miles back again, over the track that they had come. Here he ragged the driver from his po- sition, and pitched him into a brook that ran beside the road, but drew him out again in time to prevent suffocation. Two or three eepatitions of this pro- cess completely restored the fellow to consciousness, Then Jim advised him to get upinto his seat and “lirht out! and, if yeu don't want to git plugged, you'd better not look round till you git to town! And, harkee! my chicken, if you ever go to yarning it about what you've seen in the last forty-eight hours, you'll go to kingdom-come a-sizzlin’, you kin bet your bottom dollar! Tell ‘em you don’t know anything about the other hoss, but that a red-eyed stoker from the bottomless pit, a-breathin’ fire an’ brimstone, requested you to take charge o’ this plug! Now, git!” Not a little impressed by the somewhat peculiar speech of Shadow Jim, the cabman showed no re- luctance to act upon the gentle hint conveyed in his words, and drove off with the horse tied to the back of the vehicle. When Florence Goldthorp first met Tiger Dick, on the day of the runaway, she had invested him with that halo of chivalry which romance has thrown around the character of Dick Turpin, and of other noted outlaws since his time. The correctness of her estimate of his character was now to be tested. When she recovered from the effects of the drug which he had administered, she found herself lying on a shakedown of grass covered with a blanket. The chamber was evidently a cave lighted by a torch of resinous wood stuck in the rocky wall. Ti- ger Dick sat on a stone, beside a larger one, whose at surface served as a table. Before him were food and wine, evidently taken from the hamper which had been in the carriage. ‘““Ah! my dear, awake?” he said, seeing her move. Florence sprung to her feet, and lcoked around at him. There was a maudlin smile on his face. His disguise had been removed, and she recognized him. What is the meaning of this, sir? Where are we? And why have you not taken me home?” she asked, with the dignity of a queen, yet with blanched cheeks and heart in her mouth. * One question at (hic!) a time, my dear,’’ replied the Tiger, smiling beamingly upon her. ‘In the firs’ place, it means ‘at we've put (hic!) up f’r th’ night in a botel where th’ (hic!) *°commodations ’re ver’ lim’t- ed—ver' lim’ted! S-secon’ly (hic!) we’re here—yes’m, we're (hic!) 'eve/ W’'y didn’t I take ye home? (hic!) My dear, thereby hangs a tale—a (hic!) long tale—a ver’ long (hic!) tale!” ‘ He closed one eye and smiled at her with 4 horrible grimace, as his body swayed unsteadily toward her. “To begin with,” he pursued, “that glor’s (hic!) beauty, tha’s made such havoc with s’ man’ (hic!) ‘arts, has foun’ ‘nother victim in this, your faith— tic!) —f’l slave! This vuln'r’ble bos’m was not proof hic!) ’gains’ th’ arrows ‘at dart (tic!) f’'m y'r starry eyes'!—tha’s it; f’m yr star’ (hic!) eyes! Miss Gol’- thorp, I love you—love you, d’ I s—(hie!)—say?—I ‘dore you! Iwor’sh’p th’ groun’ b’neath y’r f—(hic!) —feet? Oh! my lovel’ (hic!) one! fly—fly to th’ 1’ teesh’n (hie BB arms! Le’m’ clasp yout’ (hic!) his throbbing heart!” He got upon his feet and reeled toward her with extended arms, his villainous face distorted Pe a smile that sent the blood in an icy current to her heart. Ifshe had felt terror when in the power of Cecil Beaumont, she now experienced a shuddering, sickening agony of disgust, such as would be inspir- ed by contact with a loathsome serpent. With a cry she evaded him, and darted into one of the dark galleries that led from the cave, Blindly she groped on, not knowing whither, only seeking to escape the drunken demon who woke the echoes of the horrible place with his hideous laughter. Reel- ing, stumbling over unevennesses in the floor; fail- ing, bruising and laceratinug her hands and knees on the jagged rocks; up and on, to bring up violently against some angle in the paren e€; on again, ever pursued es that fiendish laughter, that seemed caught up by a thousand tongues; until the wall of her prison suddenly converged, and she could go no further! Then, in her agony and terror, she beat with her feeble hands the impassable barriers of stone, and cried aloud to that God who sometimes seems so deaf to our ae eals! Then she thought of her helplessness, should he follow her; and shudder- ing at the thought of meeting him in so confined a place, and with a horrible, creeping sensation of his arms closing about her, she staggered back, to find him standing at the entrance of the gallery, awaiting her return. ‘Ha! ha! ha! Was you flying f’m y’r own true love? (hic!) Flor’nce, y’r treat’n’ me shameful’— (hic!)—shameful’ !” He spoke with a sudden assumption of drunken in- dignation that was horribly ludicrous, Florence was impressed by it, even in that terrible moment. She tried to spring by him, but he caught her as she oassed. The impetus threw him from his feet, and te fell dragging her to the ground with him. She struggled to her feet again; but he clung to the skirt of her dress, and arose to his knees. There was aleer of triumph in his eyes, and on his lips oaths, half-angry, half-amused, altogether devil- ish, as he began to draw her toward him. She strug- led wildly, mutely, impotently, in his grasp, Slow- y, yet with fatal certainty, he was ragging her within his reach. Suddenly, in a frenzy of desperation, she sprung Beadle’s Dime Library. | | | _——_ est the rock table would lead her to safety. Snatch- ing the torch as she passed, and catching up a pistol that lay on the table, to defend herself, should this passage terminate like the other, she sprung toward the opening. But there was a sound of rushing feet—a dark form started forth from the gloom, confronting her— thinking of Shadow Jim, she fired, and for the third time within a little over forty-eight hours, swooned dead away! The torch dropped from her nerveless grasp and went out in Cimmerian darkness. CHAPTER XIII. THE TIGER CAGED. WuHen Shadow Jim returned to the cave, after his summary dismissal of Pat Donavan, he found Flor- ence unconscious from the influence of the drug, and Tiger Dick given over to such a fit of convivial- ity as he had never before seen upon him. Jim, never loth to “ place himself on a footing with the gods,’ joined him; and when he rose to go on a re- connoissance to the city, though his own well-sea- soned brain knew no such thing as succumbing, he left the Tiger ‘‘on High Olympus.” Shadow Jim felt no qualms of conscience at leav- ing a helpless girl in the power of the drunken fiend he had just quitted. As he expressed it, “ he played his own hand, and calculated to put a head on the sharp that didn’t foller suit.’’ It was well-nigh daylight when he entered the city, and some time after sunrise his new disguise en- abled him to pass the stables where Pat Donavan stayed, and here he saw the hound lying in his ac- customed hig while a hostler was rubbing down the horse that Cecil Beaumont had ridden, Then Shadow Jim set himself to ascertain the whereabouts of Cecil. Within an hour he was in possession of the facts that were spreading like wildfire through the city, Then he set out on his re- turn to the cave. Meanwhile, Charley Brewster had been amon those earliest informed of Cecil’s return. He burs in upon the detective with the exclamation: ** Draper, you’re right; he’s alive!” “Eh? Who's alive? Not—” “Cecil Beaumont! He is now in Mr. Powell's house.” ‘** The deuce he is!” tae detective stared at Charley in blank amaze- ment, *“He came back last night, and is now in astate of delirium,” ** Jim-jams?”’ “Fu ge! Brewster, that’s a lay.” You wouldn’t think so, if you were to see him.” = ne heye oy raght “Yes. e is all the time raving about Tiger Dick and Fred Powell and Miss Goldthorp. Miss Selig the only one who can keep him quiet. I may as well tell eon that she was en ed to him,” * The deuce she was! y, he ruined her brother, and would have let him hang.” “She hasn't an idea of the sort. She thinks wat. he has been in some way persecuted by Tiger ck. “Fish! Those devils were hand and glove te years ago. They have been workin fecotheb in this whole affair, depend upon it. i Goldthorp veburnad?™ . Bt Aaawelics ‘No; nothing has been heard of her. Cecil keeps linking her name with Tiger Dick’s, all the time warning her of him, or assuring her of protection from him,” “Look here, Brewster, there’s some devilment be- hind this.” “It looks a great deal Jike it, certainly. He's got a blue line across his breast, that he says is the mark of a bullet fired from Tiger Dick’s hand.” ‘‘ By Jove, Brewster, those devils have had a split, and it’s over this girl, I'm going to have another lay for this slippery gentleman, and if I don’t ae ee this time I’m a long way out of my calcula- The detective sprung to his feet. Charley w quick to take the infection; and a few Saiouton jater aetendive Dre er’s leak force was on its way war iger Dick’s retreat, under tw , san- ag eects 3 a ay Si n their way Draper suddenly cried: ** Halt!’ ¥ e The next instant he fired his pistol and set off on arun, with the exclamation: ‘Shadow Jim, by the Almighty!” _ Rallied by Charley Brewster, the whole force joined in the pursuit. But Shadow Jim and the de- tective soon outstripped the rest, and were lost to view in the undergrowth. As the chase had deviated from adirect line to the cave, Charley gave over the pursuit and led his com- mand straight for the opening, hoping to cut off Shadow Jim. There he was joined by Draper, who was not a little chagrined to have to report that the slippery outlaw had succeeded in eluding him, Anyway,’’ said the detective, ‘“‘ we've headed him off; and his running to this hole in the ground shows that here’s where we’re going to fin Tiger Dick. You, Davis and Thompson, stay outside, and shoot the devil if he shows his nose, It won’t do to let him aa this time. Now, men, steady, and we'll bag This hunting human game was new to Charley Brewster’s pec leace and he trembled with excite- ment, as he followed the detective through the dark and silent passage. A faint glimmer of light from a dark-lantern thrown on their pathway enabled them to advance without making a noise by stumbling. But it was an unnecessary | Dorney for as they turned the first angle a wild burst of laughter came echoing and re-echoing down the gallery, sounding hollow and weird. “That's our game!’ whispered Draper, now ad- vancing more rapidly and with less caution, Suddenly a woman’s cry arose, with terror and rage and despair all blended in one. Charley Brew- ster sprung by the detective, and turning a second angle came into view of the lighted cave within, Looking down the passage he was traversing, and upon him, and grasping him by the shoulders, ust | across the lighted chamber, he saw Florence Goid- his head against the rocky wall with stunning force. Then, as his grasp relaxed, she tore her dress from his hands and darted away, : She felt a sudden conviction #hm #he gallery near? thorp thrust Tiger Dick against the wall and snatch her dress out of his hands. Then she ran across the chamber, passing from view at one side, but imme- diatcly reappearing at the mouth of the galicay, ElNOO] KS com com