Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 419 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

. ; ; ‘ : i ar a" = = AW + a <= * ax , . ME age atl a oa Se. 2 ar y The Bat of the Battery. upon myself to play a leading part and turn the | comedy into a tragedy.” No movement on the part of Phenix, but in his eyes a peculiar expression, a far-away look, that puzzled the woman for a moment, ‘‘ Has the drug affected him differently from what it should? Is he dying?’ she questioned. It was little wonder the woman got this im- pression, for Phenix looked far more like a corpse than aught else. ‘*Do you understand me?” There was a faint quiver of the eyelids; a parently the only way in which the man could give assurance that he was alive. ‘‘ It is very strange that he shoul be affected in this way,” she murmured. “The drug has evidently thrown him into a trance-like state, rendered him incapable of moving, and yet he is able to see and understand a!! that is passing around him. It is a really marvelous case! But now to business without loss of time. Do you know me, sir?’ Again the movemen* of the eyelids, ‘““You do not, of course, but | know yow. Joseph Penia! Thatis a very good name, and you are from Rio, too,” she added, ‘* but you are not a native of that city, not even a resi- dent, and the name of Joe Phenix, the detec- tive, would become you much better than the other. You were playing a bold and skillful game, my hero, and yet you were foolish to be- lieve that such a man as yourself could be for- gotten in so shorta time. Oh, no, Phenix, you man-bunter, you have run down too many poor fellows—have made yourself too terrible a name t0 easily pass from the memory of men, You were an old friend of Irving, and when ou returned from abroad and found that the unter had been caught in his own snare, the engineer hoist by his own petard, you deter- mined to try your luck, You would discover and bring to justice the unknown who laughed to scorn all the efforts of the police, and yet with all your wisdom you conld do no better than to attempt to play the same game which had resulted so fatally RO ons old-time pal, and the end is, you are snared fully as easily as he was! ‘ “Oh, it’s a rare joke, if you look at it in the right way!” the woman cried, with an outburst of merriment that sounded really fiendish. ** To think that you, Joe Phenix—Phenix, the re- nowned!—should be the dupe of so shallow a trick! And you walked into the trap without the slightest suspicion! Irving was caught in exac ly the same way, excepting that I allowed him to make my acquaintance on the street, lured him to my den, and there drugged and killed bim, I did not dare to try thet game on you, for, warned bv the fate of your brother detective, you would have been a fool indeed if you bad not been upon your guard, but thanks to the good-nature of this meddling donkey of a clerk, the trick was worked to perfection. * Phenix, I do not doubt that you must have been very near death a hundred times in the course of your life of adventures, but never since you came into this world of sorrow have you been as near as you are at this moment, ‘6 You seek the assassin who slays the victims with a single blow, piercing the heart! The se- cret slayer, who has covered up the track so well that no one has yet succeeded in gaining the slightest clew. But you—you, my bold and vigilant Phenix, are more successful than the rest, for now you are face to face with the per- petrator of these deeds of darkness! Look well at me—feast your eyes with the sight of the ae pea you boped to place behind a prison’s rs **Do you doubt my words? If so, behold the weapon with which the deeds were done!” In the coils of her lustrous, jet-black hair shone a diamond cross, a beautiful ornament, fully three inches long. She plucked it out, and lo! the pin, which had been hidden in her hair, was a polished steel dagger, nearly six inches in length, and a mn pe el round than an ordinary knitting- needle. She brandished the weapon before the face of the detective, while her eyes seemed to glow with unnatural light. “Tt is a toy, and yet it has drank the heart’s blood of many a strong man, and burried him before his time into the cold, damp grave!” she cried, ‘‘ And now, Joe Phenix, it is your turn, and after you, this miserable fool, although he is barely worth the killing, but I crave blood—I cannot have too much of it; if I cannot get plunder, I can at least slake my thirst for gore One blow is all I need, Phenix, one single low, and I will pierce your heart at the very hb stroke, for | know exactly where to strike, ow And with determined arm she drove the dagger into his breast, right at the heart. CHAPTER XVIIL A DISAPPOINTMENT. BLOUNT dismounted from bis horse the mo- ment the fisherman’s words had revealed to him that the abductor of the girl was near at hand; no need to fasten the animal, for he was too well trained to stir from the spot, The fisherman was met upon the threshold by his wife, a matronly-looking dame, with a good, honest face, ‘* Well, mother, how’s the man?” the fisher- man asked. ** All right, I guess; he wanted a cup of coffee a few minutes ago, and I made him a good strong one, which be took wiih a relish,” “That was right; thar’s nothing like a eup of strong coffee to put life into a man arter he has been out exposed to the weather,” the veteran observed. ‘“ This gentleman has come to see him, mother; he thinks he knows bim, leastways he knows the boat, and as the craft is the one he is arter, I reckon tke man is too.” ‘You'll find him jest where you left him, up- stairs in the back-room.” ‘‘Come right up with me, sir,” said the man, leading the way to the upper story. Blount followed, while the woman brought up the rear. ‘**In this room, sir,” and the old salt opened ps door, which was fastened only by a simple teh, A step more and Blount would be face to face with the abductor; the blood in his veins fairly tingled at the thought, and, involuntarily, his hands clinched, anxious to take the ruffian by the throat. He crossed the threshold, and, as he did so, an exclamation of amazement came from the lips of the fisherman, who was some three steps ia advance, The apartment was empty. There was the humble bed, with its coarse covering, the impression still visible where the man had been lying, but the man himself was not to be seen. ‘*Hello, mother! I thought you said the crit- ter was in here?” ** So he was—only a minit ago,” and the wo- man looked around her with a bewildered air, as if asking where on earth her guest had gone. “He must have come down-stairs without your seeing him,” **Sakes alive! he couldn’t!” she declared, in answer to her husband. * [6 war only a minit azo [ brought up his coffee, and he sot on the edge of the bed while he drank it; I axed him how he felt, and he allowed he felt pretty near all right; then I went down-stairs, and I’ve been in the room ever since. I didn’t stir out of it, and he couldn’t have come down stairs without my seeing him—that is jest as sure as we're all standing here!” And as the stairs led right into the lower apartment, it was clear the woman was correct. There was a small window at the back of the room. Blount advanced to it and looked out, Right under the window was a shed-like exten- sion, and the moment the sailor saw it the mys- tery of the man’s disappearance was revealed, It was perfectly easy, even fora child, to get out of the window to the shed and then descend to the ground, “This is the way your man went,” he re- marked, ‘““Thunder! what on earth possessed the crit- ter to git out of the winder?’ the fisherman queried. ‘** He needn’t ’a’ bin afeered for to come down the stairs. We wasn’: a-going for to charge ‘im anything!” the good wife exclaimed, quite angry to think the stranger should have betv.ived so unbandsomely after all her trouble. ‘ We're Christian folks, we are, and we wouldn’t have thought of taking money for helping a fellow- being that we had pulled out of the sea—drat we man! what kind of critters did he take us to Blount had guessed the solution to the riddle, although he did not take the trouble to enlight- en the fisherman and his wife. The sand track along which he had journeyed was in fall sight of the window; the fellow was probably looking out when he rode by, caught sight of him, anticipated his errand, and proceeded to get out of the way as speedily as possible, “*Durned if I like this kind of business!” erumbled the man. “If I bad known he was that kind of a feller, hang me! if i wouu i. wasted either good liquor or good coffee on biva.” ** He can’t have got very far off, if you say he was here only a few minutes ago,” Blount observed. ‘Tt isn’t ten minits since I gave him the coffee!” the woman declared, stoutly. “li go in search of him immediately. I will surely be able to overtake him, having the ad- vantage of being on horseback. ‘There’s only two ways in which he can go, toward Sandy Hook or to Long Branch.” ‘* Yes, he can’t go an ere else, for thar’s the ocean on one side and the South river on the other. Cuss me! if 1 wouldn’t like to have a leetie talk with bim myself, jest for to tell him what I think of his meanness!” the veteran grumbled. Blount hastened down-stairs and into the open air, closely followed by the annoyed couple, er to know what had become of their guest. There was an old fellow mending nets a short | distance away, and from where be sat he com- for everybod with Pete Shackleton, and what was sin but was unable to ob- Do one had a good word for bim; nearly all of © or the man protested whom Blount inquired the direction went out | manded a view of the shed and window. Blount questioned him tain any information, f ii — that not a soul had he seen, althouzh at lest he admitted, under a close cross-eXamination, that he had been so busily engaged at his work that / aman might have passed by without attracting his observation. Just as Blount succeeded in extorting this fact, the bell of a locomotive rung. “ Hallo! what train is that?’ he asked. * Up for York,” was the answer. ‘‘ Has the man bad time to get from the house to the depot so as to catch that train?” There wesa difference of opinion in regard to this. The woman thought he had, the fisher- man said, decidedly, that he had not, and the old fellow shrewdly threw a little light on the matter by remarking: ‘‘1t depends on how good the critter was on- to his legs; mebbe he mought, and then ag’in he mougbtened,” Blount thought that the easiest way for him to ascertain the truth was to jump into the sad- die and ride to the station, and this he lost no time in doing, first expressing bis thanks to the honest couple for the interest they had tak- en in the search. “ But how "bout this here boat?” the fisher- man questioned as Blount vaulted into the sad- die, ‘“*Is it yourn?’ “Oh, that is all right; keep if for yor trouble,” the sailor replied, as be rode off. Blount mede the gift with a free conscience, for he felt perfectly sure that the abductor of the girl would never dare to return to claim the property. In a few minutes he reached the depot. The depOt master was the only one around, and he was an old man, rather inclined to be stupid, and decidedly crusty in his manner, He hacdn’t seen any strange, dark-complex- ioned man—had “‘a good deal too much to do to bother bis head ’bout who got on the trains or who got off,” and that was all the satisfac- tion that the sailor was able to obtain, Biount rode back again toward the beach; he was convinced that his surmise was correct. He had got on the track of the man, and the fellow, catching sigot of him, got out of the window and escaped by the train, and then a bright idea flashed into his head. He would ride to the telegraph office at Long Branch and senda dispatch to Mr. Lamardale, telling him to be at the dock in New York with the neces- sary officers, and arrest the abductor when he arrived on the boat which connectad with the train at Sandy Hook. The boat took over an hour to run up from the Hook to the city, and if the old gentleman acted promptly the rascal might be trapped, thanks to the tongue of the lightning, even at the vary moment that he was congratulating himself that he had given his pursuer the slip. Toe operator promised to put the message right through whea the necessity of haste was explained. After this operation was performed, Blount turned bis attention again to the beach. The man had come ashore, clinging to the over- turned boat, but no clew bad he gained in re- gard to the girl. If she had met a watery grave when the craft capsized, then her body ought to have come ashore somewhere in the same neighborhood, And as Blount rode along, pu:zling his wits over the matter, the remembrance of the brok- en mast of the boat occurred to him, *“* And the sail, too!” he cried: “ what became of the mast and sail? Evidently the breaking of the mast capsized the boat, both of the pas- sengers were thrown into the sea, the man managed to get.on the boat and so keep from sinking, why then may it not be possible that — the girl clung to the mast and sail? Decided] then my game now is to find out if any su thing has come ashore anywhere along the COASs In pursuance of this plan he rode back to Galilee and recommenced bis inquiries, this time seeking fora broken mast with a sail at- tached, With the perseverance of a bloodhound he hunted for a clew, and at last, by a group of shanties, just at the edge of Atlanticville, he found what be sought. **A mast and sail?’ repeated an old, weather- beaten fellow who was mending a boat on the beach. “‘Ay, ay, messmate, I think I see’d a strange mast and sail this morning, a-spread out to dry by old Pete Shackleton’s shanty. He lives over yandsr, on the South river, and when I see’d it, I reckoned he had helped himself to it, the old pirate! Don’t you b’heve a word he says, mister, for he’ll lie out of it, if he kin, the blasted old shark!” CHAPTER XIX, ON THE TRACK. THANKING the man for his information, Blount went at once in search of the house of the “ old pirate,” as the fishermun had ermed the person upon whose premises he had seen the broken mast and sail. Blount bad no difficulty in finding the y seemed to be well acquain gular Soho) G ‘Ss = eom 7 - ce y con 7 ae = ad = 2 [ « —- PP