THE ABANDONED CAPTIVE.
Try as he might, he could not make a sound louder than a smothered,
choking groan. After repeated attempts to shout he gave it up in
despair, although the cords which bound him to the chair had been drawn
so tight that they were cutting into his limbs and stopping the
circulation of his blood, and the thick cloth tied over his mouth was
nearly smothering him.
From the wall at his right projected a feebly fluttering gas jet. The
faint light, flickering on the face of the captive, showed him to be a
slight, slender, undersized lad some seventeen or eighteen years of age.
It was Tommy Tucker, and the freshman was in a decidedly unpleasant and
apparently serious situation.
Returning along a dark block after having seen a charming and
interesting girl to the door of her home, Tucker was suddenly pounced
upon by three or four fellows, who seized him, flung a blanket over his
head, tripped him up, sat on him, and held him helpless until a cab drew
up at the curb. The victim was bundled into the cab and carried away.
After his first efforts at resistance he made very little struggle,
realizing it was folly to fight against such odds.
By the time his assailants had pulled the blanket off him inside the cab
Tucker was feebly gasping for breath. The curtains were closely drawn,
and it was so dark in the cab that he could not discern anything
whatever.
“Gug-golly!” he gasped, catching his breath. “I’d been cooked in ten
seconds more. I was almost smothered.”
“I always did like smothered chicken, ta-ra-tum,” sang a hoarse voice in
Tommy’s ear.
“Shut up!” snarled another voice. “Don’t talk—don’t anybody talk! I love
silence. I adore silence. I will have silence.”
“Hush-h-h-h-h!” breathed Tommy. “Be still as any mouse. But, say, permit
me to inquire what the dickens you fellows are trying to do. Are you
kidnaping me with the idea of holding me for a ransom? If you are,
permit me to inform you that you’ve captured the wrong kid. There are no
millions in my family, and I believe my father would feel actual relief
if some one should be foolish enough to take me away where I wouldn’t
bother him any more. Or are you some poor, deluded sophomores who
contemplate having real fun with me? If such is the case——”
“If he doesn’t shut up, blanket him again.”
“Oh, if you’re going to do that, I’ll keep mum,” said Tucker hastily.
“Please don’t put that thing over my head again. Refrain, and I’ll close
up like a clam.”
How far he was carried in the cab Tucker had no accurate means of
telling. Finally the cab stopped. An instant later the blanket was again
wrapped tightly about the captive’s head and shoulders. They dragged him
out and forced him along, stumbling and half-falling down a flight of
stairs. The sound of their feet echoed gloomily in what seemed to be a
big room. The air was damp and stale, as Tucker quickly discovered when
the blanket was lifted in order that he might get a breath. It was,
likewise, dark as Erebus.
Although he was highly indignant over the treatment, Tucker knew the
uselessness of displaying anger and resentment. He permitted them to
force him down upon a chair and tie him there, although he made
occasional calls for the lifting of the blanket in order that he might
breathe. Finally they cast the blanket aside, but he was given no more
than a glimpse of them, for a bandage was quickly slipped over his eyes.
The gas jet had been lighted, and they were working by the aid of the
wretched light thus provided.
“I think I’ll raise a howl,” said Tommy. “I think I’ll yell bloody
murder.”
“Howl your head off,” said one of the captors huskily. “You’re in the
basement of Dinsmore & Hyde’s old warehouse. You might shout for a week
without any one happening to hear you.”
“Then I will not rupture my voice,” said Tucker. “But my unquenchable
curiosity compels me to inquire your motives and intentions. What are
you going to do with me?”
“You’ll find out in time,” was the answer.
“But I’m very impatient.”
This provoked a burst of suppressed, mocking laughter.
“You’ll get a fine lesson in patience to-night,” Tucker was told. “It
will do you good.”
“What the dickens is the use to tie those ropes so tight? Old Samson
couldn’t get away after being trussed up like this, and I’m no relation
to Sam.”
Behind his back one of the captors whispered a hoarse question:
“How long did you say a man could live without food or water, captain?”
“That depends,” was the wheezy answer. “Some live longer and some live
shorter. This little runt is one of the kind that lives shorter. He
won’t last more than three or four days at most.”
“My golly!” exclaimed Tommy. “Are you going to leave me without anything
to eat or drink for three or four days?”
“It’ll be well enough to silence his tongue,” said the wheezy voice.
“Art ready, Eros?”
“Sure, Charon,” was the answer.
“Then gag him.”
Tucker started to object, but his words were cut short as they bound the
thick cloth over his mouth.
“’Tis well,” said one, when the task was finished. “Now he is secure and
silent. We can leave him, comrades. Our direful work is well did.”
“Indeed I think we have dooded it well,” said another. “But methinks it
were best to leave his eyes uncovered, captain. What say ye?”
“’Tis well. Remove the bandage from the wretch’s eyes.”
When this was done Tommy looked around for them, but heard the sound of
retreating feet behind him. Turning his head, he caught a glimpse of
their dark figures melting from view amid the dim, dusty, and empty
boxes at the far side of the room. Seized by something like panic, he
would have called to them, but the muffling cloth prevented this. The
sound of their footfalls grew fainter and fainter. A door creaked on its
rusty hinges. A few moments later the door closed with a slam, and the
deserted lad fancied he heard the grating of the bolt as it shot into
the socket.
To the unfortunate boy it soon seemed that hours had passed since his
abandonment. Vainly he had squirmed and twisted in an effort to free an
arm or a leg. Vainly he had worked his head and jaws, trying to get his
mouth clear of the bandage which covered it. The silence that surrounded
him seemed appalling at first, but in time his ears detected a
suspicious rustling, which sent a chill through his body.
Although he would not have acknowledged it, Tucker was a chap who
believed in the supernatural. All his life he had been industriously
looking to see a spook in the dark. Up to date he had never seen the
genuine article, although on various occasions he had fancied many
material things to be of a ghostly nature. Still, all these failures had
not shaken his conviction that some time he would see a real ghost.
And now he remembered the gruesome tale that, after being ruined by his
partner, old man Hyde had locked himself up in the basement of the big
warehouse and committed suicide. From that day a hoodoo had seemed to
hover over the building. Ignorant people asserted that the warehouse was
haunted. It was finally abandoned, and for years the heirs of the
Dinsmore estate had been vainly trying to get it off their hands at any
old price.
“Gee whiz!” thought Tucker; “I’ll bet a cruller old Hyde’s spook is
prowling around here to-night. Goodness, I thought I felt the touch of
his fingers then! Wish I had eyes in the back of my head. It’s awful
being able to see only one way. There it is again! I know I heard
something move.”
Nearly twisting his head off, he peered apprehensively into the shadows.
The gas jet continued to flicker and flare, and, once when it died down
and he fancied it was going out, his heart nearly stopped beating.
Sque-e-e-eak!
Tucker’s hair stood at the sound, but in a twinkling he felt something
like relief, realizing at last that the noise was made by a rat. This
explained the mysterious rustling he had heard.
“If I ever find out for certain just who those fellows were, I’m going
to murder the bunch of them,” decided Tommy. “Talk about the tortures of
the Inquisition! This is worse! What’s that?”
Something slipped past like a flitting shadow on the cement floor. It
was a scampering rat, but it had given the captive an awful start.
“I don’t like rats,” thought Tucker. “They’re nasty creatures, and
sometimes they’re dangerous. Let’s see, I think it was in ‘Les
Miserables’ I read about the sewer rats of Paris, big, hungry, creatures
ready to attack a man. Goodness, I hope these rats are well fed! They’re
getting altogether too friendly.”
For he had seen two or three others flit past him. He was electrified by
a shrill squeal close behind his chair, followed by a scampering rustle.
“Deuce take ’em!” he mentally exclaimed. “They’ll be climbing over me in
a minute.”
Indeed it seemed so, for one big fellow advanced boldly before him and
sat up to inspect his appearance. Tucker longed to hurl something at
this old fellow, who had a full set of grayish whiskers.
The example of the old rat emboldened others, and within a few moments
they were frisking about Tucker’s feet.
Only for the gag Tommy would have yelled lustily. He was covered with
cold perspiration, while his mouth seemed dry and parched. His eyes
bulged with terror.
Of a sudden one of the rats made a leap and landed on Tucker’s knee.
With a convulsive twist, Tommy flung himself, chair and all, over
backward.