AMERICAN BLOOD.
Frank made a desperate effort to follow Wynne through the doorway. He
had felt himself grasped again by several hands, his hard fists cracked
upon evil faces, and he had torn himself out of his coat in his mad
struggle.
In vain.
They fastened to him like leeches. They twined about him like the arms
of a deadly octopus. Samson himself would have found them troublesome.
Down upon his knees the boy was forced, and now it seemed that they had
him foul. Something like a gasp of satisfaction came from those fierce
men who had hurled themselves on one brave American lad. They had been
astounded by his nerve and the tiger-like manner in which he had fought,
and they were relieved to see him go down.
There were no cries. They were struggling silently, madly—a frightful
battle.
Frank felt them crushing upon his back, felt a hand come around and
close on his throat, felt his wind shut off in a moment by the long,
coiling fingers of Montparnasse.
“They’ll have to kill me before I give up!” he thought, and, with true
American grit, he continued the battle against terrible odds.
They were astounded that he did not succumb at once. He heard Durant
order them to make way for him to get in a blow. The boy knew that meant
a crack on the head, and he succeeded in squirming aside.
There was a cry of pain, a curse, and the fingers about his throat
relaxed their life-crushing hold.
Frank had avoided the blow, which had reached Montparnasse, the
pickpocket.
And now, with a marvelous burst of strength, the boy cast them from him,
rising with one clinging leech-like to his back.
“_Mon Dieu!_” panted Lenoir, in wonder and admiration. “Will nothing
hold him!”
“Down with the dog!” grated Durant, madly. “We should be able to handle
one boy!”
Frank was on his feet, but he found it no easy thing to shake the man
who clung to his back. That man twisted a leg about the boy and tried to
cast him down again. Another struck at Frank with a short club. The boy
ducked down and once more a blow that was intended for him reached one
of his foes.
With a snarling cry of pain, the man on his back fell away.
“Free for the moment!” came through the set teeth of the dauntless lad.
“Now for a weapon! I will make red work here!”
It was for his very life, and there was no reason why he should
hesitate. He found one of his revolvers, and tried to draw it; but the
weapon caught in his pocket, and the effort was baffled.
Mademoiselle Mystere was still in the doorway, her eyes gleaming
cat-like through the holes in the mask she wore. She noted every
movement of the struggle, and she swayed by its shifting fortunes like a
reed bowed before gusts of wind. Both hands, white, soft and slender,
were clasped over her heart.
“Who would think one of his years could fight like that!” she panted.
“It is wonderful—it is glorious! He is like a gladiator! He will not be
conquered! If I were not a spy, I could love him! His face—his! Ah, but
he is handsome! He is like a strong young lion!”
She forgot herself, she forgot everything but the brave boy who was
making that wonderful fight for life. She swayed and panted, she leaned
forward, gasping for breath, she held out her hands, she wrung them, she
sobbed.
And the battle went on. Frank had lost precious moments in trying to
draw a revolver. They were on him again, like a lot of famished wolves.
Snapping and snarling, they sought to tear him down.
Montparnasse tried once again to fasten his long fingers on the boy’s
throat. With a swinging-round shoulder blow, Frank planted a fist under
the left ear of the pickpocket.
Montparnasse went down like a stricken ox.
And now Bornier hastened to aid the men who had failed to conquer and
subdue one lone American boy. He was getting desperate, for the other
visitor had escaped, and he knew not how soon the police might be down
on the place.
“Quick!” he cried. “Will you be all night at this! Finish your work
quickly!”
“But he will not be crushed down.”
“A blow that will draw no blood—on the head! That will do it.”
“We have struck at him—and all the blows have been wasted.”
“Fools! Bunglers! The sandbag! That will fix him.”
Frank heard all this, although still fighting. He fully realized his
peril. If he were struck from behind by a sandbag, it would end the
battle in a moment. With all his strength he fought to force his way to
the wall, against which he might place his back. If he could not escape
by the door, he would do his best to hold these human wolves off yet a
little longer, hoping that Wynne might return to his aid.
“Stop him!”
Bornier understood the boy’s purpose, and he directed the others. This
enraged Durant, who fumed fiercely.
“Get back!” he snarled at Bornier. “You are in the way! We can do better
without you.”
“You have not done much thus far,” flashed the proprietor of the Red
Flag in return.
Frank retreated step by step. They penned him in and they forced him
against a table. Had he been able to look behind him, he would have seen
and avoided it.
And then, although he had scarcely shown a sign of weakness, he was
crowded hard upon the table. A sandbag struck him a glancing blow on the
head. He had tried to avoid it entirely, but failed. That blow dazed him
for a moment, and that moment was enough.
Down upon the table he was flung, something twined about him, and they
held him there, for his arms were bound, and he was snared at last.
They made sure of him. The cords cut into his flesh as they drew them
hard and tight. Knot after knot they made, and soon he was quite
helpless.
“Now for the proof,” directed Durant.
Deft fingers flitted from pocket to pocket. Out came a card—the one
Wynne had given him in front of the Café de la Paix. Durant could read
English, and when he told them what was on that card, something like a
muffled howl of fury escaped their lips.
“It is the spy! There can be no doubt! Death to the spy!”
Frank smiled scornfully. He had fought them, one against seven, and till
the sandbag had been used he was a match for them all.
“He cannot deny he is the spy!” cried Vaugirad in the boy’s face. “He
will not deny it now!”
“What is the use?” came from the lad’s lips. “You would not believe me
if I did deny it. I will not waste my breath.”
“Brave! brave! brave!” panted the masked woman, who was leaning weakly
against the door-casing. “And I brought him to this! Why are there not
more in the world like him! I could worship him! But he must die!”
She pressed both her hands over her throbbing heart, and her words were
whispered so faintly that they reached no ears but her own.
“It would be a waste of breath,” snarled the panting Durant. “We know
you are the one. You come here to pry into our secrets, to expose them
to the world. Fool! Do you think you can do what the police of Paris
have failed to accomplish? We have our agents everywhere, and no one can
make a move to harm us that we do not know. The hour of anarchy’s
triumph is here! The revolution of the world is about to open. Blood
will run, empires will fall, riches shall be scattered, and from the
ruins a new order of things shall arise. Some of us will not live to see
it; some may live to see it. But you, you American spy! you will be long
gone—decayed, turned to dust!”
Durant seemed to forget himself in his excitement. He shook out his
disheveled hair, his face working with passion, his thin lips curling
back from his wolfish teeth, his hands extended like claws that seemed
longing to fasten on the boy and rend him limb from limb.
Bornier made a move as if to grasp the fiery little wretch, and then
held off, plainly in awe. But the proprietor of the Red Flag was
agitated and alarmed.
“Remember one of them escaped,” he said. “Who can tell when he may
return with the police? Are you all drunk, or are you mad? Take the spy
away!”
“That is right,” bowed Lenoir. “We must lose no time in placing him
where he will never be found by the police.”
“We shall place him where he will never again see the light of day,”
declared Vaugirad, hoarsely.
“And send others there,” urged Bornier. “Not one of you must remain, but
others must be here when the police come.”
“We will see to that.”
Then a gag was forced between Frank Merriwell’s teeth, where it was
securely tied. This done, the boy was quickly enveloped in the
smothering folds of a blanket, after which he was lifted and carried
along by ready hands.
It seemed to the boy that he was taken from Bornier’s to the open air,
and he fancied his captors passed along where their feet made echoes
between crowding walls. Of this he was not sure, for the blanket was
baffling, and it was with great difficulty that he breathed at all.
At length some steps were descended, and then he was flung down like a
sack of wheat, striking with a shock on the hard ground. The blanket was
rudely torn from him, and he heard the footsteps of his enemies
retreating in the darkness.
Frank was relieved, although he could not understand why they did not
finish the job by killing him without delay.
He drew in deep breaths, but the air of the place was none too pure.
Already his jaws were aching from the strain of the gag, which forced
them wide apart. He made desperate but ineffectual efforts to dislodge
that gag and force it from his mouth.
There was bare, damp ground beneath his body, and this led him to
believe himself in a cellar.
He thought how, not a month before, he had been in a similar predicament
in Tangier, and how a girl had come to his rescue.
“But there is no girl in Paris who will do that,” thought the
unfortunate boy.
He thought of Harvey Wynne, and wondered why the young newspaper
correspondent had deserted him in his time of peril. A feeling of
disappointment came upon him. He had thought better of Wynne than that;
he had believed the reporter was made of the right kind of stuff.
Now that it was past, he thought of many ways in which he might have
escaped from the Red Flag. If he had done this thing, or the other, they
would not have captured him as they did.
Frank did not remain there more than ten or fifteen minutes before it
seemed that he would die from the terrible pain in his jaws, which were
held rigidly by the hard gag. He could not close his mouth to swallow,
and it seemed that his throat was filling and he would strangle.
“This is really a very jolly little time!” he thought. “This gagging
business makes it just a trifle unpleasant, however.”
Then he heard a sound as of an open door, heard a light footfall, turned
his head, and saw a gleam of light.
Some one was coming! Without doubt his foes were returning to finish
their work. He had not much longer to live.
Down some stairs came the bearer of a lamp, and a cry of astonishment
would have escaped Frank’s lips if the gag had not held it back.
It was Mademoiselle Mystere, the masked unknown!
The boy was astonished and dazed for the moment, and, when he had
recovered a bit, the woman of mystery was close at hand.
Then he saw something that gave him a shock. She bore the lamp in her
left hand; in her right she held a gleaming dagger, on which the
lamplight glinted.
“She has been chosen as the executioner!” was the thought that flashed
through the boy’s mind. “She has come to kill me! It is probable she is
one of the anarchist band, and they drew lots to see who should do the
work.
“It fell to her. Well, she shall not see me quail.”
The woman bent over him, holding the lamp so the light fell fairly on
his face. She lifted the knife, as if about to strike. Bound and
helpless as he was, Frank could not defend himself from the fatal
stroke. He looked straight into her eyes—and smiled!
“He fears nothing!” panted the strange woman. “He is the bravest one in
all the wide world! It is too bad that he must die!”
Then she lowered the knife, and, with its keen edge, cut the cord that
held the gag in the boy’s mouth.
Frank worked his jaws some moments, and then, when he could speak, he
said:
“Thank you. You are very kind. That beastly thing was getting mightily
unpleasant, you know.”
“Is it possible you understand you are to be killed?” she asked,
fiercely.
“Well, I should imagine that I might think something of the kind was to
happen to me. I beg your pardon, but I am not quite a fool.”
“And still you do not seem to fear. I do not understand you yet! Do you
wish to die?”
“Well, I am not exactly yearning for it. I wouldn’t mind living a short
time longer just for the fun of the thing.”
“But I tell you that you are doomed to die. They are drawing now to see
who shall do the work.”
“That is pleasant information! You make me feel real jolly. But I did
fancy they had drawn, and the job had fallen to you.”
“No. They do not know I am here. I slipped through when they did not see
me. I could not stay away. I wanted to see you again before you were
killed.”
“Which is exceedingly thoughtful and considerate! As you happen to be
the one who got me into the scrape, I presume you wished to gloat over
me a little. Well, go ahead; I think I am able to stand it.”
“No, no, no! You wrong me—you do not understand me!”
“That’s right.”
“Perhaps I did bring you to this. It was for the good of the cause. My
brother is an anarchist, and he is in prison. I am an anarchist, and I
am free. I was sent to find the spy, and I found you.”
“In which you made a very bad break, mademoiselle. I am not the spy; but
I do not suppose I could make you believe that in a week of Sundays, so
I will not use up my energy trying.”
“Oh, it is no use to say that now! The card was in your pocket——”
“Given me by another; but never mind—go on.”
“You are young. It cannot be you are one who has set his life to work
against our noble order. You were sent by the newspaper, and you would
promise never to molest anarchists again if set free.”
“I have not molested them thus far, my dear girl.”
“Do not say it—I know!” she panted, impatiently. “No time is to be lost.
They may finish and come very soon. Then it will be too late. I can save
you.”
Frank lifted his eyebrows.
“Yes?”
“It is true.”
“Well, you will earn my everlasting gratitude if you do; but I do not
see why you should.”
“Ah! Till I saw you fight them all in Bornier’s—till I saw you knock
them right and left with your fists—till I saw you rise to your feet
with them all upon you—till then I had thought I hated you as a spy. But
you were so like a strong young lion—so like a gladiator battling for
his life! All in a moment it came to me that I did not want to see you
killed. My heart nearly burst in my bosom. I pressed on it with my hands
to hold it there, and I watched you when you fought. You were so
brave—so noble! Never had I seen one like you! I prayed for you!”
“Well, by Jove!” gasped Frank. “That was a sudden conversion! Only I
wish it had taken place before that.”
She leaned over him, having placed the lamp on the ground. The light
glinted on her eyes, which shone through the holes in the mask. Her
panting breath fluttered the lower edge of the sable covering of her
face. The boy saw her chin was well-formed, her neck was round and
white.
“Perhaps it is not too late!” she went on. “Look at me! I have this
knife—I can set you free!”
“Do so, and I will never forget the favor. You will not be sorry if you
aid me to escape from this place. I promise you that.”
“Wait! I have more to say. I am not——”
There was a grating sound, and a heavy step on the stairs, from whence
came a gleam of light.
“God of Heaven!” panted the masked unknown. “It is too late! The
executioner is coming!”
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