Beadle's Dime Library No. 366 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

a Ne EEE boldly and ascertain his father’s fate and that of the woman he loved. He was about to descend to the main floor of the stable when he saw the door leading to the garden open and two forms, dimly outlined in the dark- ness, enter. He recognized the voice of Revere, speak- ing in quick, excited accents: ‘Light the lantern!” A match was scratched, and the man who had been watching in the garden entered the stable and lighted a lantern. Its rays illumi- nated the place, and revealed the pale face, gleaming eyes and disarranged apparel of Revere, ‘““Wake up the driver!” ordered the latter, *“and have him harness the horses to the car- riage at once.” He stood, uneasy, until his companion, going into an apartment off the main stable, returned with the driver, who revived to full wakefulness as he caught sight of Revere. “Get the carriage ready at once,” com- manded Revere, sharply, ‘‘and drive to the front ofthe house. You’’—to the watchman in the garden—‘‘leave your post; the girl won't attempt to escape now; and go with him to the front of the house. When I get realy to leave, come back here, get the keys to the cellar and go there.” The man stared curiously at Revere. ‘‘'There is some one to attend to?” he ask- ed, significantly. ‘“‘ Yes, and see that he’s settled. A cool thousand awaits the announcement that the man I have just thrown there is dead.” Inhis excitement he spoke plainly, horri- fying Marvin at his deliberate villainy, but the watcher in the garden seemed familiar with evil work, for he replied: ‘* T’ll attend to it; never fear. the keys?” The driver jerked his head over his shoulder in the direction of his sleeping apartment. ‘All right!” and Revere left the stable for the house, while the two men hastily began to get the horses and carriage ready, Marvin was enduring a slow agony of tor- ture and suspense as the men proceeded about their work. He saw that Adrian Re- vere had determined to remove Constance Thorndyke to some other place, and he also realized that his father was, in all probabili- ty, the prisoner alluded to in the cellar of the old mansion. As the two men drove the carriage from the place, he leaped through the opening of tie loft to the floor, and, seizing the lantern, ran toward the apartment occupied by the driver. He glanced around eagerly, and a cry of satisfaction escaped his lips as he caught sight of a bunch of keys hanging from a nail near a window. Seizing them he extinguish- ed the lantern, but keeping it still in his hand stole to the stable door communicating with the yard and glanced anxiously at the rear portion of the house. There was a light, and persons moving in the kitchen, but he ventured to steal across the garden intervening between the stable and the house. Four stone steps led down a lit- tle area to a heavy oaken door, and with trembling hands he began to apply the keys from the bunch in his hand to the rusted lock, At last he found a key that fitted. It turn- ed; the door opened, and he stepped within the damp, dark cellar, the door closing af- ter him with a sharp snap in its long-unused lock. He endeavored to glance around him, but the darkness was intense; no ray of light penetrated the place. He could not discover his father, perhaps insensible in some dark corner Of the cellar, so he opened the lantern in his hand and lit a match just as a kind of murmur greeted his ears. He held the lighted lantern high over his head and glanced quickly aroundhim. The rays deeply illuminated the place, but he ad- vanced with wildly beating heart as he caught sight of a form seated on the hard stone floor of the cellar, leaning on one hand and glaring at the approaching light with such eyes as only a madman possesses, and, too, with a madman’s wild, incoherent mut- terings. Around him lay several kegs and packages, while the dark background, the damp stone W here are , ‘ a et rr ee ee ee ee ee ee ee lh le et. om ee ee ee ie _— es walls, formed a frame to a picture which im- pressed the detective terribly. ** Father !” He hastened to the man’s side and placed the lantern on the ground. Love, tender- ness, respect, all the joy of a long-waited-for reunion, all the agony of a heart torn to pity for his forlorn condition were drawn to the highest pitch of interest in Willis Mar- vin’s heart, as he threw himself on the neck of his parent. There was a wild cry of rage, a sudden spring—so sudden that it flung the eager son back, his head striking the stone floor of the cellar, and driving sensibility temporarily from his brain. “T know you!” cried Robert Marvin. ‘‘You are Torrance come to taunt me. The old place. Ha! I remember it! The cellar where you first placed me, and, too, the same casks of powder—powder—powder!” It had come at last! The tortured mind of the victim of the Dynamite League under the terrible strain of long imprisonment and recent excitement, augmented by the fall in- to the cellar, had given way. The dazed brain was unable to cope with the aggrega- tions of the hour, and, for the time being, at least, Robert Marvin was a maniac. He paid no further attention to the pros- trate figure on the floor, His eyes gleamed like two coals of fire, and were fixed on the nearest kegs of powder. With a scream of insane delight he seized one of the casks and lifted it high over his head, throwing it down with crushing force on the edge of an- other, The frail head gave way, and the dark grains of powder poured out in a_ black stream on the floor. He capered over it in glee, dragging the other barrels to the spot and piled them high over the scattered ex- plosive. Keeping up a wild muttering, his hands went searching his clothing as if for some object he desired, and as he drew from his pocket a folded paper he twisted it into a cone and placed it among the powder, sur- rounding its base with the dark grains, until it sustained an upright position, Fateful hour of misfortune incalculable of a friend to Constance Thorndyke destined to be her deadliest foe at tiis moment, for the piece of paper was the stolen marriage cer- tificate of Adrian Revere and Arminie Roy- ale forgotten, amid his excitement, by the villain who, in dooming his victim to a vio- lent death, stood himself over a mine which, fired at a madman’s caprice, might end all his evil schemes in a moment of time. Willis Marvin, his sensibility returning, moved, moaned and gained his feet unper- ceived by his father. [His exclamation of horror alarmed the maniac, and told the de- tective that he was discovered. For the sight which met Willis Marvin’s eyes was one calculated to make the strongest heart quail. His father had removed the candle from the lantern, had ignited the piece of paper, and stood gleefully fanning the flame every moment coming nearer to the black grains with a mocking laugh of oy. x Their own means of destroying others shall destroy them in turn!” hecried. ‘Ha! Torrance again!” he screamed, as he caught sight of his son rushing to seize the burning use, His arms encircling the detective’s form with insane strength, he dragged him back toward the rear of the cellar. ‘‘ You shall die with me!” he cried, ‘‘ You shall see all your confederates blown to pieces, building and all,” Struggling wildly, his eyes horrified as he saw the piece of paper splutter and burn nearer, nearer to the fatal powder, Willis Marvin, as he found he could not overpower the man, as he found his ears deaf to the ap- pealing cry of ‘‘Father "—staggered back against the rear wall, held firmly by the other. ‘‘The door!” murmured the. detective, as his free hand went over its surface. A groan deep and awful escaped his lips as he found no knob or interior latch, Horrors! in full sight. of the deadly blast, Detective. = = *. Se Soe en S|: ae __. ie. eS * BS. SSS se ee Ee ae ee 2 eee ee eee 21 CHAPTER XX, AFTER THE ACT. Wits Marvin closed his eyes with a groan as he realized the situation. Held firmly against the door of the cellar by his insane father, he only awaited the death which seemed inevitable, The glamour of delirium only seemed to intensify the glee of the maniac. He forgot personal peril and awaited the expecicd ex~| plosion with wild delight. At that very moment, braced against the door, Willis Marvin felt a movement which thrilled his heart with wild suspense, [oot- steps hurriedly descended the stone area, from without; he could hear the sound of a key in the lock; then a violent push sent the door inward, throwing father and son to the ground with a crash. Even amid his peril and excitement the Telegraph Detective knew that speedy action might yet save them both. As they went down his father’s grasp was released as he fell beyond him. One glance at the slowly burn- ing paper, one spring toward his prostrate father, and imbued with giant strength amid the terrible exigency of the occasion, Willis Marvin seized his father’s form and sprung With it through the doorway, past the start- led accomplice of Revere, who, returning from the carriage and unable to find the keys in the stable, had come to the cellar door, and finding the keys there, had unlocked it just in time to enable the escape of the vie- tim. “Stop!” he cried, as he caught Marvin by thearm. ‘‘ What are you doing here?” “Fool! fly for your life!” cried the detective, excitedly. ‘‘ See the powder there!” The warning was enough, for he too sprung away with a cry, while the detective, bear- ing the struggling form, dashed through the now open stable doors and gained the alley- way just as a deafening explosion flung himself and his burden violently to the ground, For a moment the air was thick with fire and smoke and crashing timbers and mason- ry. Then a ruddy glare shot athwart the dark sky, and he knew that the building was in flames. Staggering down the alleyway, forcing his. father to accompany him, fearing that he might be pursued and recaptured, the detec- tive never paused until he reached a street near by. He signaled toa carriage driving by, ordering the driver to convey him to his new quarters, while mind and body were oc- cupied in compelling his father to remain in his seat in the vehicle. It required the assistance of the driver to get Robert Marvin to his son’s apartment, and once there the detective was at a loss how to control the maniac. He directed the driver to go fora physician, and when, half an hour later, the doctor arrived, explained the situation without giving the details to him. ‘‘T esteem the patient’s violence more the result of excited delirium than insanity,” said the doctor, gravely. ‘*He must have been subjected to some terrible mental strain quite recently.” ‘‘He has,” replied the detective, ‘‘Can ou administer some sedative that will quiet 1im, as, in his present condition, I dare not leave him alone?” The physician nodded assentingly, left the price, and Marvin dismissed the driver. Jhen the former returned from the near-by drug store, he brought and administered some medicine with no little difficulty to Robert Marvin, and assuring the detective © that he would send him a male nurse, as he desired, the physician left the place, promis- ing to call the following day. It was an hour later when the nurse—a brawny, hard-muscled fellow, used to violent patients—entered the room. Robert Marvin had subsided under the influence of the sedative, They made him quite comfortable, and the detective had given the nurse instructions as to watching his patient carefully, when his check blanched to the whiteness of marble, | * Oh, merciful heavens!” he cried in a tone of wild anguish. held at a madman’s mercy, he realized that | engrossed with my father, has forgotten the the door had a spring-lock—that in no man- | ner could he hope to escape the terrible doom | which threatened him, For the door was locked from the outside! fate of Constance Thorndyke.” Constance! ished attendant, bitterly reproaching himself (ECO paylicel NOVO) KS > ** My distressed heart, He started from the room — | without a word of explanation to the aston- | il - e ‘i ¥ cor Ae 5 \ : en « 2 , "ae “i ‘ 1 y ? eee ‘J 24 aa a