Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 306 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

4 Ea ae am 12 —_ = = - : nt ae The Roughs of Richmond. rf rr because I have placed a shadow on him. And now, Call, let us do that little piece of investigation I suggested. [ am sure that there is no one in the house of Arban, the astrol- oger, sincs I saw our quarry come out of it dressed as a man of fashion. Come.” ‘‘T am ready.” **T havea Maehasent too, to see the wonderful sabotage have hinted at in the subterrane- ous depths of that building—” ‘Wait a moment,” said Call, stepping to a cupboard. e came forward, presently, with a small green bag over his arm. Tuff knew that the bag contained a complete set of the most approved burglar implements of the kind that could be carried in such a limited compass. The two started forth from the agency. Call looked at his watch. It was after the bour of eleven. ** Tf your Signor Murguio makes the Exchange his bona fide sleeping place, he is no doubt asleep by this time,” Tuff remarked, as the moved away rapidly toward the gloomy build- ing on Fourteenth street below Main. “Yes. We shall bave a fair field, I guess. And unless [am greatly mistaken, I can show ‘ou the mint whence issues all this spuriously mpered-with coin that isin the market lately. ‘We shall lead the police detectives slightly though I gave Bob Boswick a pointer, as | to d ou. At that hour, when they arrived before the building of mystery, the locality was darkly deserted and uninviting. Pausing fora hasty glance around—for they did not’ wish any interference even from the police with whom they could have easily ar- nae matters had they chosen—Call advanced up the broad flat step. After a fow minutes’ work at the lock of the door, he said: “Come. It is all rigbt.” In a trice they had gained the interior with the aid of the tools brought along. For a few seconds the daring duo of detectives paused in the pitchy dark hallway, listening. Then Call opened the blaze of his bull’s-eye with a click and flashed it around. CHAPTER XIII. BEARDING THE BEETLE IN ITS BURROW, No sound broke the grave-like stillness of the surroundings. The building appeared to be entirely de- serted. ‘*Go ahead,” whispered Call. Tuff led the way, under the Eyton instruc- tions he had previously received from Call. At the landing where Call so narrowly es- capod being hurled to his death, they took to the massive banisters and passed, like crawling monkeys, over the dangerous : And Call observed that the spot was so won- derfully well contrived that the fatal trap could scarcely be detected even by a narrow seurch. ‘We can take the steps again here,” he said, when they were safely over. At the top of the staircase they came to the door which was, as we have seen, the entrance ‘to the room of the astrologer. Call knew the way well. He had not forgotten a single item of the manner of his former hasty exit from the place. Once more the tools were brought into requi- sition by Call, for the door was locked; and during the operation Tuff kept a keenly alert glance about for any possible menace. Soon they stood within the — apart- ment, amid the various and oo ar articles that composed his means of consulting the stars: telescopes, revolving globes, terrestrial and celestial, massive charts and volumes, all scat- tered about in confusion among the rich fur- wishings of oriental magnificence, “This way,” Call said, now taking the lead. Followed by Tuff, he advanced to the cur- tains which screened the descent to the under- Sor chamber of the Order of the Golden Beetle, _ There were no lamps burning beside the nar- row inter-mural way; and when they had noiselessly, in their rubber-soled gaiters, de- scended to the strange and wondrously beauti- ‘ful chamber, this too was involved in darkness through which almost dully flashed the intense rav of the cpg he Even this scant light, however, revealed to a great degree the superb draperies and tinsel- eeneing appurtenances of the mystic ro- tunda. Call was attracted by seeing a door at one side, which be was sure had not been visible when he had previously passed through the place under the forced guidance of the Indian y. ‘‘Where is this slab you were telling me @bout—the slab that opens over the stairway to the lowest room?” Tuff inquired, guardedly. “Waita moment. I have a notion to look beyond that door.” ** What door?” Call pointed, It was an iron door, but apparently not a for- midable one. Call felt that he could easily pry open the jamb with the tools they had with them. ‘*Go ahead, then; ’m with you. We might as well see the whole show while we’re in.” The tools were equal to the ampeegenen It was not long before the welded ‘ keeper” —which was on the side toward them—was forced, and the bolt of the lock relieved from its hold. The door was then easily swung open. ‘‘Look out for pitfalls. I bave reason to apprehend them at every step we take,” cau- tioned Call, as he paused at the threshold of the blackest compartment he had ever looked into, and vainly endeavored to penetrate the depths beyond with his usually keen eyes. ‘* Hold the lantern, Tuff.” Even the bull’s-eye did not wholly dispel the darkness beyond. It seemed that, so intense was the loom, the brilliant rays were completely swallowed up within the distance of a very few yards—and that they were at the entrance to a very large room was instantly apparent. “Why, this must extend beneath the building adjoining this one,” he said, lowly. *Hark!’’ admonished Tuff. As they listened, standing like. statues, and Tuff at the same time shutting thé slide of the bull’s-eye, they heard a rasping, ratchety noise, like some one sawing. It was faint, though, as if the operator—if it was some one sawing—bad in some way dead- ened the blade of the saw with cloth. Enough noise was this hidden person making, though, to have shut from his ears the slight sound occasioned by the cautious detectives when they opened the door. No further word passed between the ventur- ous pair, but Call beckoned and started into the room, boldly followed by Tuff, and the latter let on just a faint ray from the lantern to guide them over what was another floor of ags, ‘Then there was another pause, Before them, close to the extreme wall, was a boyish figure. " The figure was on its knees beside an opening that had been made by some means in the flags, one of which was turned over. The sound they had heard was the sound of sawing. It was the Indian boy, Ischan. At the moment they came upon him—their presence xpos. at unknown to him—he was at work, hard and steadily, sawing through one of the monstrous and thick girders that ap- peared to be the mainstay to the flagged floor. And by the depth attained by the saw at the moment in the ponderous timber, it was appar- ent that he would soon accomplish his singular task. ‘*What are you doing there?’ demanded Jo Call, stepping forward and laying an arresting hand on the boy’s shoulder. A startled a burst from Ischan. He leaped to his feet, leaving the saw sticking in its cut. Tuff turned on the lantern fully, flashing it on the lad. - “What are you doing, sawing that timber through? Do you want to bring the whole house down around your ears and be crushed to death instantly?’ ‘“Yes! Yes! Let it fall! Death—death to allof them! I will die if I can also accomplish their deaths! The fiends!—devils! I know you are not of them—I knowit by your voice. I have heard your voice before. Let me go on with my work—” “Hold on! Not while I’m in the house, if I know myself,” catching the boy forcibly by the arm as he would have stooped again to his task of sawing the girder. And, while he held Ischan thus, he asked: ‘““My boy, what does this mean? What has happened to you?” For both he and Tuff were struck to shudder- ing by the strange and awful appearance of the Indian boy’s countenance and had been gazing at it with something like a feeling of horror from the first. “You ask what has happened?” cried Ischan, in an accent of wailing misery and rage. ** Look—look at my eyes! Do vou not see? am blind. I bave no eyes, They are gone— gone forever!” He turned squarely up into the light of the bull’s-eye such a face as might well cause a cold chill to creep over their veins. A face of blood and tears, where were seared marks as of burns, and thesockets of the eyes no longer containing the orbs of sigbt, but two oozy and horrible lumps of sickening aspect! ‘“*My eyes! My eyes! Do you not see? They have burned them out!” ‘“Your eyes burned out!” both exclaimed, suppressedly. ‘ Yes,” and a torrent of painful sobs burst from the bruised lips of the boy, though he closed and gritted his teeth to hide them ina combined torrent of savagerage. | **I want vengeance on them! Let me go on ‘with my sawing. I will bring the house down * ~ ox about their ears as they work, and all, every one, will be killed, I shall have my vengeance. After that, I care not to live. hat will life be to me without my eyes? Let me have my vengeance,” and he was determined to proceed with sawing the gir- der in twain. Call held bim firmly. By their united efforts and kindly assurances, they succeeded at last in bringing Ischan into something like a subdued mood. ‘* Your eyes bave been burned out?” ** Yes—yes! They are gone forever. agony of that hour, that awful hour!” “Who bas done this!” ‘*They—the Order of the Golden Beetle. Ah, now I know your voice. You are the same man I cast down the trap at on master’s bid- ding, and who afterward compelled me to lead him from the building.” ‘* Yes, lam he,” ‘* Ah, if you bad never come in here at all! It is all because of that act of mine, which you compelled at the point of your pistol. You are to blame.” ‘*In what way am I to blame?” ‘* T tried to explain to them, when they came rushing up, that tbe shot had been fired by me by accident, aod I showed them the weapon. with one barrel empty. Ay, I swore to my words to save my miserable life. But they would not believe. I was seized and cast into this chamber until an investigation could be made. Fatal investigation! They discovered, at the bottom of the curtains where the secret way leads upto the room of the trap-fall, and where the dust has long gathered, the imprint of my gaiters and of yours—two imprints, one large and the other small. The trap-room was examined, and the m:n whom my master ex- pected to find there was peor To them all was plain. I had liberated you. They came into this chamber and told me that I should be tor- tured. Oh, how I begged for my life! They were merciless, With hot irons they approach- ed me and made to burn out my eyes. shrieked in misery—but what use in these chambers of thick walls below the surface of the earth? I struggled with all my strength. What use, when they were many and powerful men. In the struggle the irons burnt many times all over my poor face. And at last—oh, God!—at last they struck into my eyes, burning, singeing, biting like the fires of the furnace of Hades. My eyes were gone in an instant! I fainted. When I recovered, I was alone—alone in the blackness and left todie. But I remembered, in the midst of my writhing torture, that I had once brought in here a saw that had been used when they made some repairs in the council- chamber. With the saw I pried up one of the flags; with the sawI could have cut through the main girder of the floor and brought the whole house down upon their heads, even as Samson destroyed his persecutors. Let me go on with it, I beg of you. I will give you time to get out, When the crash comes you can be safe—” ‘*Not much!” broke in Call, at this point in the horrible recital. ‘‘We have another des- 7 for those you seek to destroy—though they richly deserve such destruction at your bands. You will go with us, my poor lad, and we can at least lead you to a haven where your misery can be leseened.” Turning to Tuff, he said: ‘*In the cause of bumanuity, had we not best take this boy to the hospital without delay?” ‘* Whatever you say, Call, But he said some- thing about bringing that floor down upon the heads of those who were working below. Those we seek may be at their business at this mo- ment, and we could at least pause for a sly peep upon the mysterious gang, couldn’t we?” “True.” And he said to the lad: ‘ There are some of the Order of the Golden Beetle working in the apartment beneath this floor?” “Yes, It is upon them that I would hurl this whole floor by sawing the girder, The weight is very heavy and it would not be long in crashing down. I would rather do that tban go with you.” ‘*Guide us to the trap and show us how it may be raised, so that we can takea look at the gang below, Then we will lead you to safety, my lad. You will find that life, at any sacri- fice, is sweet, after all, when the pain of your eyes bas been soothed and nursed. Come.” Yielding to their kindly urging, Ischan moved away with Call’s gripe gently on bis arm. ‘‘You will have to lead me,” said the boy, hushedly, *‘ to a flag in the center of the council- chamber, where the other flags will count six each way.” ‘“‘T have it,” said Tuff, presently. But ere the boy could give any direction as to how the slab might be raised, a thrilling inci- dent transpired. A sound that was a combined laugh of a dozen sepulchral voices filled the chamber. Forth from the two entrances to the ball— the entrance leading to the room of the astrolo- ger and that leading to the room of the trap- fall—glided swiftly and surroundiogly a dozen white-clad and hooded fi , each carrying a trident of gleaming and s steel, Oh, the gan a struggle as if he '