A TEST OF NERVE.
Jack Ready usually had something to say when anything happened, but
now he could not say a word. He choked and strangled and coughed,
while the students hammered on the table and shouted with laughter.
“Great!” they cried; “simply great! Give us more! Hurrah! hurrah!”
Ready continued to cough. With the table-cloth he wiped some of the
seltzer out of his eyes, but he could not speak.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared the students. “That was a fine climax to the
song!”
Jack nodded grimly, and the queer expression on his face provoked
another burst of laughter. Surely he was the queerest freshman any of
those present had ever seen. The man who had squirted the seltzer
seemed to feel that he had done a very fine trick, for he screamed
with laughter, hanging onto his sides.
On the table was a plate of salad. Of a sudden, Jack reached out,
grasped the plate, and, with a swift flirt, flung its entire contents
into the face of the man who had squirted the seltzer.
“Refuse me!” he said, as he did the trick.
The salad spattered over the joker’s face and shirt-bosom. He was a
spectacle. But Ready had made a mistake. He had aroused the resentment
of the sophomores, and they caught up anything in the way of food that
their hands could find, and “soaked him.” It seemed that every other
fellow at the table flung something at the freshman, and almost
everything hit him. It was impossible for him to fling something back
at them all, so he rounded up and took his pelting with a grin on his
flushed face.
“Things seem to be coming my way,” he observed cheerfully.
“He’s a better man than I thought he was,” said Bart Hodge to Frank.
“I like the fellow,” acknowledged Merry. “He knows how to take a joke,
and I believe he knows how to give one.”
“I don’t fancy he likes you much.”
“I suppose not. He wants revenge for the manner in which I tricked him
when I got him out of his room.”
“And he swears he will have it.”
“All right. There have been so many dirty fellows trying to do me an
injury that it will be a relief to have an enemy of a different
class.”
“Gents,” said Ready, as he brushed the remains of the lunch from his
person, “you do me proud. You have made me very, very happy this
evening by the warm reception you have given me. It was an unexpected
pleasure, and a great honor. In time I shall do my best to retaliate
on some other freshman――when I become a sophomore.”
“Then you hold no hardness against us?” inquired one of the hazers.
“Not at present, but I’d like to hold a hardness against
you――something like a good club, for instance.”
“That would be cruel.”
“Oh, well, I’m a cruel devil occasionally.”
“You’re a cool devil all the time.”
“Thanks. You have made it hot for me.”
“Won’t you sing some more?” asked Chan Webb. “You must do something to
entertain us.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll give you an imitation of you. I am great on
imitations.”
With that, Ready rose once more, humped himself into a peculiar
position, drew up his face, made a queer sound with his mouth, and
gave an excellent imitation of a monkey. Indeed, he looked so much
like a huge monkey that the imitation was almost startling.
The students roared.
“That’s one on you, Webb!”
“Good! good!”
“It’s simply immense!”
“How do you like it, Webb?”
Webb did not like it. He scowled and tried to laugh, but showed his
anger and chagrin.
“Oh, you’re too smart!” he sneered. “You look like the missing link,
freshie.”
“That’s what makes it such a perfect imitation of you,” returned Jack
instantly.
They were not getting much the best of the freshman, although they had
treated him roughly.
“I’d like to punch his head!” muttered Webb, who was sitting quite
near Frank.
“You would show a very nasty disposition if you did,” said Merry, at
once. “If he can stand us and hold his temper, we ought to be able to
take anything he can give.”
“You say that now, but wait till he gets at you,” growled Webb. “He’ll
have the whole freshman class after you, see if he doesn’t. A junior
who helps haze a freshman is likely to get into hot water.”
“Don’t let that worry you, Webb,” said Frank.
Ready was laughing now. Addressing the fellow into whose face he had
thrown the salad, he said:
“I hope I didn’t hurt you, old man. I am very quick at times. It was
only last week that I attempted to frighten a waiter in a restaurant
by flourishing a knife in front of his face. Unfortunately, I struck
too near the waiter’s nose and cut off the tip.”
“What did you do then?” innocently asked the man across the table.
“Why,” said Jack, “I gave the waiter another tip, and that made it all
right.”
The students shouted:
“That’s one on you, Dillingham!”
Dillingham grinned.
“If I could reach you, I’d give you a tip――out of your chair,” he
said.
Frank Merriwell called some of the party around him, drawing back from
the table, and proceeded to unfold a scheme to them. They received it
with approval. When Ready did not seem to notice, two or three of them
slipped into another room, closing the door tightly behind them.
Bruce Browning came over and offered Jack his hand. “Ready,” grunted
the big fellow, “you’re all right! I believe you have plenty of
nerve.”
“Thanks,” said Jack. “So have you.”
“Why?”
“You have nerve to offer to shake hands with me.”
“All right,” grinned Browning. “You don’t have to shake hands.”
“Thanks,” said Ready, again. “I won’t.”
“I do not call it nerve at all,” said Phil Porter. “He has had no fair
test of his nerve.”
“Then I don’t care for the test,” said Ready. “I am satisfied to let
it drop where it is.”
“But you must actually prove your nerve,” asserted Halliday.
“That’s right! that’s right!” cried others.
“If you say I must,” grimly spoke Jack, “I suppose that settles it.
I’m not fool enough to say I won’t. What am I to do?”
A sudden air of mystery seemed to fall on the party. There were
strange looks and awesome whisperings.
“He’ll die with fright,” muttered one.
“Better find out if he has heart trouble,” whispered another.
“You know what happened to the last freshman,” said a third.
“It is a terrible test,” declared a fourth.
Jack’s curiosity was aroused.
“Gents,” he said; “pardon me for calling you gents, but it seems so
appropriate――gents, I am ready for any old thing. While you are having
fun with me, you may as well have lots of it. Go the limit, and never
mind the result.”
“But this is a pretty severe test,” whispered Halliday. “All the same,
I believe you are a fine fellow, and I want to see you come through
with flying colors.”
“You are so awfully good――not,” grinned Jack.
“Oh, but I am in earnest!” solemnly said Halliday.
“If you are ready to meet the test,” said the master solemnly, “you
must permit yourself to be blindfolded.”
“Well, get into gear,” invited the freshman.
Then they securely blindfolded him, Halliday hovering near all the
while.
“Now,” said the voice of the master, whom Ready could no longer see,
“you are about to encounter a fierce and terrible monster. If you have
the courage to attack this monster and conquer him, well and good. If
you have not――the matter of nerve will be settled.”
“How am I to fight the monster?” asked Jack.
“With this deadly knife,” answered the master, putting something into
Jack’s hand. “Are you ready?”
“I’m always Ready,” punned the freshman.
Then he was led slowly forward. As they moved along, going toward the
door through which some of the members had slipped a few minutes
before, Halliday whispered in the ear of the blindfolded victim:
“The monster you will meet is made of sheet-iron, and there’s a fellow
inside to operate it. The so-called deadly knife in your hand is
simply wood. To prove your nerve, all you have to do is attack the
monster when the bandage is removed from your eyes and strike him with
the knife. You can’t hurt him, but it will show you have plenty of
nerve, and the gang will let up on you then.”
Ready said not a word.
The master knocked loudly on the door at the end of the room. The
instant he did so a fearful sound came from beyond that door――a sound
like the roaring of a pack of lions.
“It is the monster!” muttered several, seeming filled with fear.
“Well, this is the tamest thing in the way of a nerve-shaker that I
ever struck,” thought Jack Ready. “I pity the fellow that would be
frightened like this.”
The door opened, and the roar that followed was fiendish, indeed. Then
the freshman was pushed forward into the room, and the blindfold was
stripped from his eyes.
He found himself face to face with a creature that seemed half
alligator and half tiger. Part of its body was covered by a scaly
substance, while its head was like a tiger’s, and its neck was hairy.
It had gorillalike arms, with long, shining claws. Its eyes gleamed
like living coals, while it was gnashing its jaws, which seemed
covered with foam, like those of a mad dog. With a snarl, it rose up
on its hind legs and sprang at Jack.
Ready stood his ground and struck at the creature with the knife. To
his surprise, the knife seemed to penetrate the creature, which he had
expected would he covered by an iron armor, as Halliday had said. Then
there was a terrible scream, and the “monster” fell to the floor,
writhing in agony. Instantly a number of students rushed into the
chamber, apparently horrified and excited.
Ready stood looking down in surprise at the easily vanquished
“monster.” They caught hold of him and pushed him back into the room
from which lately he had come. Somebody took the knife from his hand
and held it up. It was stained crimson to the hilt!
“Good heavens!” gasped a pale-faced student. “We gave him a real knife
instead of the wooden one! How did it happen?”
“Somebody must have placed a real knife in the place of the wooden
one,” said another. “You know the wooden knife was made to look
perfectly natural.”
“This is horrible!” hoarsely groaned a third. “Who was inside the
monster?”
“Frank Merriwell!”
“Is he badly hurt?”
“He is, if he got the length of this knife.”
Jack Ready stood still, drops of perspiration starting out on his
forehead.
“Rats!” he muttered. “It’s a part of the joke.”
Then he pushed his way into the other room, where a lot of breathless
students were gathered about one who was stretched on the floor. The
framework of the “monster” had been partly stripped off, and Frank
Merriwell, in his shirt-sleeves, lay in the midst of the group, his
face ghastly pale.
But what filled Jack Ready with horror was the sight of a great
crimson stain on the bosom of Merriwell’s shirt, and the crimson
seemed to be spreading around a slit in the bosom of the garment!
“He’s dying!” whispered several.
“He was stabbed close to the heart!” came faintly from one chap, who
then covered his face with his hands and reeled into the other room.
Bart Hodge was supporting Frank’s head. Harry Rattleton was sobbing.
Ready turned away. Some of them grasped him.
“What shall we do with him?” said one.
“We’ll have to turn him over to the police,” said another.
Ready said not a word.
“Well, we can put him in the dissecting-chamber till we find out if
Merriwell really is dying.”
“That’s right. He’ll be safe there.”
They hustled him along to yet another door, yanked it open, pushed him
into a room, and closed and fastened the door. It is certain that
Ready was startled when he saw before him the luminous outlines of a
human skeleton, which seemed to stand upright, pointing an accusing
finger at him.
He caught his breath and stared at the thing before him, feeling his
hair seem to rise on his head. He did not know that, the moment he was
safely within that room, the signal was given and Frank Merriwell, who
had seemed to be mortally wounded, sat up and laughed, while his
companions joined in the merriment.
“If we didn’t shake his nerve that time, he must be made of iron!”
chuckled Ben Halliday.
“It was great!” snickered Rattleton; “simply great! Why, Merry looked
so much like he was dying that I actually shed real tears!”
“He did look like a dying person,” nodded Roger Stone. “The gash in
his shirt and the stain of red ink was a great piece of artistic
work.”
“It’s a good thing the front of the monster was well padded,” smiled
Frank, “for Ready sunk his knife for fair.”
“Well, he’s having a fine time in there with the skeleton now!”
grinned Ned Noon. “Say, if his hair doesn’t turn gray, he has got
nerve!”
“He’s a pretty good sort of fellow, anyhow,” said Frank, putting on
his cuffs and coat. “He has a way about him that makes me take to him
all right.”
“If he takes a fancy to blow about this night, he can get us into
trouble,” observed a timid sophomore. “I was for doing the job
masked.”
“The man who blows about a little mild sport of this sort is a cad,”
asserted Mat Mullen.
“If you call this mild sport,” said Merriwell, “what would you
designate as the other kind?”
“He ought to be pounding on the door and yelling to get out of that
room by this time,” grinned Ned Noon.
“Well, let’s go see if we can hear anything from him,” suggested Bart
Hodge.
So they left the chamber of the “monster,” and stole silently to the
door of the room into which Ready had been thrust last, where they
listened at the door.
Not a sound could they hear.
“You don’t suppose he has fainted?” suggested one.
“Hark!”
“What’s that?”
“Be still!”
A strange sound came from within that room.
“By the Lord Harry!” grunted Bruce Browning, in wonder, “I believe the
fellow is singing!”
All listened: Sure enough, a sound like some one singing in a low tone
came from within the room.
“Well, there is nerve for you!” muttered Lib Benson. “Open the door
and let the fellow out. It’s no use to fool longer with him.”
“Wait,” directed Frank. “It’s mighty queer he is singing. Bring a
light.”
Somebody placed a lighted lamp in Frank’s hand. He started to open the
door. As he did so, a sudden burst of laughter came from within the
room, stopping him with his hand uplifted, and causing a chill to run
along his spine.
The students looked from one to another. Their faces were a study just
then. It is certain that the most of them appeared rather frightened.
Frank dreaded to open the door, but he did so after a moment, and
stepped into the room with the light, while several of the others
crowded after him.
The sight that met their gaze was startling and terrible in the
extreme. At the farther end of the small room stood the skeleton, and
just before the fleshless thing crouched Jack Ready. But the person
crouching there did not much resemble the gay and careless freshman
Frank Merriwell had kidnaped from his boarding-house that very
evening. His coat and vest had been ripped off and flung aside. The
collar of his shirt was torn open, and his hair seemed to bristle. His
eyes protruded from their sockets, while his features were contorted
in a frightful manner, and there was a froth upon his lips. This
frightful apparition flung up one hand and pointed at the horrified
students in the doorway, literally shrieking:
“There they are! The fiends have come for me! Ha! ha! ha! They have
come to drag me down, down, down!”
“Boys,” said Frank Merriwell, his voice far from steady, “we have
driven the poor fellow mad!”