IN THE SCARLET CHAMBER.
“Thank you, gents,” said Ready, as they rose from his body. “You sat
upon me so hard that I fear you have fractured my wish-bone. It seems
to be damaged.”
“Say, will you let up on this ‘gents’ business?” grated Halliday.
“My dear sir――my dear, dear sir!” purred the freshman; “what can you
mean?”
“It’s all right for you to address your own class as ‘gents,’ but we
distinctly object to it!”
“Refuse me!” murmured Jack. “I addressed you as I thought you
deserved. I could not call you gentlemen, you know.”
“Oh, come out here and stop that wind!” grunted Browning, as he
reached into the cab, fastened on Ready, and snatched him forth.
As the freshman was dragged out by the muscular student, he humbly
observed:
“I am coming, sir, as fast as the law permits.”
The moment he struck the ground they closed about him, holding fast to
his arms and collar, and he was rushed into a dark doorway so quickly
that he did not have time to get his bearings.
“Why this unseemly haste?” he inquired.
“Shut up!” growled Bruce, once more.
“Indeed, sir, you are imperious, and you awe me exceedingly much,”
chirped the queer freshman.
They forced him up a flight of stairs and along an alley. At a door
they were halted. A hollow, solemn voice demanded:
“Who is it that thus riotously invades this quiet retreat? Speak, I
command you!”
“Oh, Great Unknown,” said the voice of Frank Merriwell, “it is We, Us
& Co., formerly devoted and servile attendants of His Extreme
Muchness.”
“Seek you admission to the scarlet chamber?” inquired the strange
voice.
“We do.”
“What bring you as a sacrifice?”
“A freshman.”
“Is he fat?”
“Well, he is in excellent condition.”
“Ye have done well. Enter.”
The door swung open before them, and Ready was pushed in, the others
accompanying him. With a bang, the door closed, and there was a sound
like the turning of a bolt in a lock. They were now in the most
intense darkness, so they could not see each other, but several hands
kept hold of the freshman.
“Well, this is a jolly go, I de――――”
Ready was cut short by a hand that was pressed over his mouth, and a
voice hissed in his ear:
“If you wish to leave this place alive, keep silent and wait!”
“Refuse me!” murmured Jack.
Suddenly there was a sound like thunder, and at the instant a hideous
demon face glared out before them, with eyes of fire, wide-open mouth,
fearful fanglike teeth, and a forked tongue. From the lips of this
creature seemed to come the words:
“If there be one unworthy among you, let him confess it and accept
this last opportunity to escape with his life. All who enter will be
tested, and the unworthy shall receive no mercy.”
“We are worthy, faithful friend,” declared Frank Merriwell. “The only
unworthy one is the freshman, who is to be offered as sacrifice on the
altar of hilarity.”
“Do you google?” asked the fiend.
“Whenever we cannot goggle,” soberly answered Merry.
“For which?”
“Because why.”
“Is it also?”
“It is likewise.”
After this apparently foolish series of questions and answers the
fiery face vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and a door swung
open before them, permitting light to shine in from a room beyond, and
they were invited to advance.
With Ready in their midst, they walked through the doorway, and a
great shout went up as they entered the chamber beyond, the walls and
ceiling of which were stained bright scarlet. The chamber was a long
room, in the midst of which was a long table, and at the table sat
more than a hundred students, nearly all of them sophomores. The table
was covered by a scarlet cloth, but on that cloth was spread a
splendid lunch, consisting of all kinds of cold meats, canned stuff,
hard bread, crackers, cheese, bottled drinks, and so forth.
The students were dressed in an ordinary manner, much to the surprise
of Ready, who had expected to see everything on the grotesque.
The master of ceremonies rapped on the table, crying:
“Arise, brothers of the sacred order.”
They stood up.
“Salute,” directed the master.
They saluted.
“Mr. Merriwell,” said the master, “you have faithfully kept your
promise, and you shall be decorated with a leather medal.”
“I thank you, most noble master,” bowed Frank.
“We have waited patiently,” said the master. “Your places are reserved
for you.”
On both sides of the table midway were a number of seats, being just
enough to accommodate Frank’s party and the captive freshman. In short
order they were ready to sit down, and then, at an order from the
master, all did so.
The moment they were seated, a clatter and uproar began. A hundred
questions were fired at Frank, and the students were like a lot of
boys on a spree. No one spoke to Ready, and he looked around with
interest, keeping his surprise well concealed. This was not what he
had expected, but he did not let on that he was startled or astonished
by anything. The students fell to eating of the lunch, and it seemed
plain that some of them were pretty hungry. They joked and laughed.
“It’s like old times to be back here,” declared Frank. “I did not know
that the order still existed.”
“It will always exist as long as freshmen exist,” declared Ned Noon.
“It exists on freshmen.”
Seeing all the others eating, Ready, who was feeling rather hungry
himself, reached out and took a sandwich from a pile on a plate before
him. This he lifted to his mouth, but, without a word, his neighbor on
the right took it from his hand and put it back on the plate.
“Refuse me!” gasped Jack. “What is the matter with it?”
No one seemed to give him any further attention. The eating went on,
amid a chatter of talk and laughter.
Again Jack reached out and took a sandwich, lifting it to his lips,
meanwhile keeping his eye on his right-hand neighbor. The fellow on
his right did not seem to observe him.
“Here’s where I fill my sack,” thought Jack.
Just then the fellow on his left took the sandwich from him and again
restored it to the plate.
“Hello!” exclaimed the freshman. “I didn’t notice you.”
Again he captured the sandwich, determined to be on his guard for both
of them. With considerable haste he lifted it, but he did not get a
bite, for a man on the opposite side of the table reached across and
rapped him on the knuckles with a cane, so that he dropped the
sandwich.
“Wow!” whooped Jack. “What kind of a game is this? How much do those
sandwiches cost? I’ll buy one of them!”
The lunch continued as if they were not aware of his presence at the
table. Some one moved the sandwiches farther along, so they were not
within easy reach, but a plate of tempting-looking tarts took the
place of the sandwiches.
“Well, hanged if they don’t mean not to let me have anything to eat!”
muttered Jack. “The mean devils! But they can’t keep it up. Here is
where I get something!”
He grabbed a tart off the plate and thrust the whole of it into his
mouth. The tart had been piled high with what seemed to be very
tempting and delicious jelly, but Jack had barely begun to chew upon
it when he turned and ejected it from his mouth, uttering a howl of
surprise and agony.
“Whoop!” he roared. “I’m killed! Wow! Fire! fire! My mouth――oh, my
mouth!”
He seemed to be having convulsions. Of a sudden, all the men at the
table seemed greatly concerned over him.
“What’s the matter?” they asked.
“Matter?” howled Jack. “Ghost of Cæsar! that thing was red-hot! It’s
burned the lining out of my mouth!”
“It could not be hot,” was the answer.
“Well, it had some kind of stuff on it that was hotter than the
hottest red pepper! Woosh! Oh, my mouth! Water――give me water, or I
perish!”
Tears were running down his checks and he was gasping for breath.
Somebody handed him what seemed to be a glass of water. He seized it
and took two big swallows. Then he flung the glass and its contents
crashing against the wall, with another howl fully as loud as the
first.
“Gods of the Egyptians!” he almost shrieked. “What is that stuff? I’m
poisoned!”
“Poisoned?” they cried, in apparent alarm.
“I guess so! That stuff was bitter as the bitterest gall, and it has
puckered my mouth so I can hardly get it open to speak!”
“Bitter――he says it was bitter!” cried one man. “Where did it come
from?”
“I brought it from the black chamber,” answered one of the students.
A chorus of groans and shrieks went up.
“Then he is poisoned!” roared the master. “It is the fatal drink which
every candidate swears to take if he reveals any of the secrets of our
sacred order! Good heavens! gentlemen, this matter is serious! If that
liquid is not removed from his stomach within five minutes, he dies!”
Jack Ready uttered a groan and dropped down on his chair, his mouth
seeming puckered and drawn up.
“Death,” he said thickly, and with a great effort, “I shall welcome as
sweet relief! Let it come!”
“Bring the stomach-pump!” thundered the master.
Somebody came rushing from another room with a queer-looking
arrangement in his hands. Another fellow brought a huge bucket. A
rubber tube was thrust into Ready’s mouth, while he was held and kept
from struggling by half a dozen persons.
“Work fast if you hope to save his life!” shouted the master. “Even
now the poison seems working upon him! He is turning black in the
face! He is about to have convulsions! If he dies, we are in an awful
scrape!”
Everybody seemed wildly excited. They packed about the chair upon
which Ready was being held, climbing upon each other’s shoulders to
get a good look at him.
“How fearfully pale he is about the mouth!”
“See his eyes glare!”
“He is frothing!”
“The poison is griping him!”
“By heavens! I believe he is dying!”
These exclamations came from their lips, and they were not calculated
to soothe the feelings of the struggling freshman. Ready succeeded in
spitting out the rubber tube.
“Let me die!” he implored. “Death will be sweet relief!”
“He must be saved!” roared the master. “Hold him fast! Don’t let him
wiggle an eyebrow! Now insert the tube again!”
They pried Jack’s jaws apart and thrust the tube into his mouth once
more. Then the master made a frantic gesture, and the fellow with the
pump, to which the rubber tubing was attached, began to work it, while
the bucket was held as a receptacle. Something poured from the nozzle
of the pump and spurted into the bucket. There was a rattling sound.
Slop, thud, smash――what did it mean?
The assembled sophomores looked on with astonishment, as it seemed.
“Remarkable!” they exclaimed. “He must have a stomach like a goat!”
Despite his agony, Ready began to feel curious. What was happening? He
tried to look into the bucket, but he was held fast by the hair of his
head, so that he could not do so.
In a few moments the man with the pump said:
“It is over, gentlemen. I have drawn everything out of his stomach. I
believe it will save him!”
Then the tube was removed from Jack’s mouth, and he was permitted to
sit up. He looked down into the bucket at his feet and blinked. It was
full of old tin cans, shoes, broken bottles, cigar stubs, bread, meat,
and water!
“That was a frightful load for a man to carry on his stomach,” said
Frank Merriwell, who had been looking on and enjoying this frolic.
“It was rather heavy,” murmured Jack Ready faintly; “but it’s not half
the load you have on your soul.”
He was asked how he felt. Everybody seemed intensely solicitous about
him now. Some of them placed their hands upon his head and declared
that his temples were hot and throbbing. One tried to hold his wrist
and count the beating of his pulse. Another offered to bring one of
Doctor Bishop’s sermons and read it.
“I hope you are enjoying yourselves!” said Jack, with a great effort,
for his mouth was still puckered and his throat tasted bitter as gall.
“He seems to be slightly demented, poor fellow!” sighed Roger Stone.
“But we saved his life,” said the master, “and therefore we should be
happy and rejoice exceedingly.”
A whoop went up, and then round the chair on which the unlucky
freshman sat those rollicking jokers danced wildly and grotesquely.
It was all over in a few moments, and the master rapped on the table,
calling for them to return to the interrupted lunch. Jack was
carefully placed in his former position at the table, and all the
delicacies of the board were heaped up before him. The jokers resumed
their feast, as if nothing had happened. They joked and laughed and
ate and drank. Jack recovered and sat up. He was game. They were
having fun at his expense, but he was not going to squeal.
“I’d like something to eat,” he thought, “but I’m hanged if I know
what is fit to eat!”
After a little, however, the contents of his stomach seemed to roll
over, and the sight of food began to make him feel ill. He could not
have eaten anything then had he tried, and it was with a mighty effort
that he forced himself to sit there and watch the others enjoying the
good things before them. He afterward confessed that he suffered
intensely while the rest of the lunch was going on. At last, when
everybody seemed satisfied, it appeared that the jokers observed for
the first time that he was not eating. Then they began passing him
different things, politely inquiring if he would not try this, or
that.
“I am afraid you have not enjoyed your lunch,” said the fellow on
Jack’s right, “and we got it up expressly for you.”
“You’re too kind!” retorted Ready, with a fearful smile. “I shall try
to remember your generosity.”
Frank Merriwell laughed at the freshman’s woful appearance, and Jack
feebly shook his fist in return.
“I know I owe all this to you!” he said. “I’ll get even with you
before long, see if I don’t!”
“It’s too bad to use him so,” said Merry, as if genuinely regretful.
“I think we’d better let up now and not carry it any farther.”
“Oh, go on!” gasped Ready. “You may as well go through with it! I’ll
not let you off any easier, Merriwell, if you stop here.”
“Thanks! Don’t mind me. I shall not worry about you at all.”
“You may not worry,” said Jack; “but I’m going to keep my word. I’ll
get even with you!”
“My dear sir,” said one of the sophomores, “we cannot permit this. Mr.
Merriwell is not one of us; he is simply a guest. He shall say just
what we’ll do with you now that you have insulted him.”
“Well,” laughed Merry, “as long as we are not going to push this thing
any farther, I propose that we let him off if he sings us a song. I
understand he is a lovely singer.”
“A song! a song!” shouted the students.
“Rise, Ready,” commanded the master, “and sing us a song.”
Jack felt that the best thing he could do was to make no resistance,
so he stood up, asking:
“What shall I sing?”
“Anything, anything.”
Jack began to sing an Irish song, the chorus of which was as follows:
“Arran, go on, ye’re ownly foolin’.
Arran, go ’way, ye’re ownly t’asin’!
Arran, go on, ye’re something awful!
Begorra, Oi think ye’re moighty plazin’!
Arran, go ’way, go wid ye, go ’way, go wid ye, go ’way, go wid ye,
go on!”
Just as he finished the chorus, the fellow across the table lifted a
siphon bottle of seltzer, aimed it at him, and sent the stream full
and fair into his mouth, knocking him backward upon his chair, amid
great applause.