FLIGHT.
As he ran, the terrible fear that had clung to him grew to gigantic
proportions. Panting and gasping, he exerted every effort in that first
burst of speed. The sound of his flying feet echoed through the silent
streets, and those echoes, flung back to his ears, made it seem that a
part of the sound was produced by other feet than his own. It seemed
that there was a fearsome pursuer at his very heels, reaching for him
with eager, clawlike hands. He dared not pause an instant in his flight
to look back. On and on he ran, down through Cross Street, retracing his
course up the slope to Lake Street, and still on past the silent and
gloomy academy.
From exhaustion and lack of breath his pace had slackened perforce. In
all his experience in athletics, never before had he exerted himself
until, the breath wholly pumped from his lungs, he could only gasp in
exquisite pain, while his very head threatened to burst.
At length, just beyond the academy, he stumbled and fell. Half stunned
by the shock, he fully expected to feel himself pounced upon by that
unknown pursuer.
Recovering, he looked around as he struggled to his feet. He was quite
alone; he could see no moving, living object.
“Still,” he thought, as he stood gulping in air to relieve his collapsed
lungs, “I could swear something chased me. It was right behind me all
the way. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. If it’s that sort of a
thing, it’s no use to run; I can’t run away from it.”
But when he started on again the fear returned, and it was only by the
most tremendous effort that he restrained the impulse to resume running.
Every moment or two he looked back, and sometimes he stopped and turned
squarely in his tracks.
His relief was great when he saw, near at hand, the house where he
boarded. He would get inside, close the door quickly behind him, and
shut the unseen pursuer out.
But the door did not open beneath his hand. He tried it again and again,
presently realizing with dismay that he had failed to fasten back the
catch of the spring lock when he came out. Yesterday, in changing his
clothes, he had discovered that his latch key was missing. Search for it
had been vain, and Mrs. Carter had not been able to furnish another key.
“Well, this is a fix!” he whispered. “I’m locked out. I don’t want to
rap and get them up, for I would have to explain. Then, too, if they got
a look at me they’d know there’s something wrong. I must show it plain
enough.”
He walked silently around to the rear of the house. There was the ell,
upon the roof of which his window opened, and close to the end of the
ell stood the chestnut tree, with one stout branch projecting over the
roof. He thought of climbing the tree, reaching the roof by means of
that limb, and crawling along to obtain admittance through the window of
his chamber.
Remembering the fearsome spectacle revealed to him outside that window
this very night, he faltered and drew back. He was terrified lest,
having climbed to the roof, he should find himself once more face to
face with the apparition.
“It’s no use,” he almost sobbed; “I can’t do it! Anyhow, why should I
wish to get in there? If it’s a ghost, I couldn’t shut it out. I may
need the things in my bag; I’d certainly like to have them; but I must
do without them.”
He knew that a hostler slept all night in Hyde’s livery stable, and that
there was a bell by which the man might be aroused. Now, however, for
the first time it occurred to him that he lacked money. Having paid
Osgood a small debt, less than three dollars remained in his pocket. It
was thirty-four miles to Watertown, and it would require many times
three dollars to pay for a rig to carry him there.
“Perhaps they’ll trust me,” he muttered. “I’ll tell a good story. I’ll
make it out a case of life or death—and perhaps it is.”
Then something seemed to whisper in his ear that he could not endure the
scrutiny of any one without betraying himself. Furthermore, if he should
hire a rig and a man to drive him to Watertown, that would betray the
direction of his flight. Should they desire to stop him and bring him
back, the telephone would serve them well.
“I’m done for,” he groaned—“done for! I don’t know what to do.”
Desiring sympathy, longing for advice, he thought of Osgood, and at once
he decided that Ned ought to know without delay what had happened.
Crossing lots and open fields, he avoided the streets of the town as far
as possible. He was still pursued by the conviction that some unseen
thing was following him, but with set teeth, he restrained the desire to
run, holding himself down to a sharp, jerky walk, which was interrupted
occasionally as he looked back. Finally he saw before him the big white
two-story house of Mrs. Chester.
Now another problem arose, how to reach Osgood. If he rang at the door
he would eventually bring either the maid or Mrs. Chester to answer the
bell. What could he tell them?
“I know what I’ll do,” he decided, stooping to run the palm of his hand
over the loose earth of the street bed.
It did not take him long to gather up a handful of small pebbles, and
with these he approached the house. One after another he flung them
upward and heard them clink against the window glass, but he used them
all without perceiving a token that he had awakened Osgood. The house
remained dark and silent. A rising breeze caused the limbs of some trees
to knock together; it swept Shultz’s clammy cheek and made him shiver.
“I must get Ned up,” he muttered. “Fool that I am, I’ve been trying the
wrong window. He’s in his bedroom, of course, and the window to that is
on the side of the house.”
Back to the street he went for more pebbles. He was crouching froglike,
feeling for them with his hands, when he heard a sound that turned him
rigid for an instant.
Footsteps were approaching on the sidewalk; some one was coming up the
street. Why should any one in that sleepy, well-behaved little town be
out at this hour? Was it possible they had already begun searching for
him?
Then he heard voices. There were two persons approaching.
Rising to a crouching position, he ran to the fence across the way from
Mrs. Chester’s and flung himself over. And, again started in flight, the
terror that had driven him in the first place came back with additional
force; and this was augmented by the sound of voices shouting after
him—the voices of the two men on the street, who had seen his shadowy
figure as he vaulted the fence.
“There he is!” “That’s him!” “There he goes!” “Stop! stop!”
Crying after him in this manner, they came on in pursuit. Venturing to
look back, he saw them tumbling over the fence he had leaped, and once
more he strained every nerve.
There was now no doubt in his mind; they were after him. Perhaps before
the coming of the end Roy Hooker’s mind had cleared sufficiently for him
to tell who struck the fatal blow. Perhaps Roy’s father, running from
the house, had been hurrying to set the officers at work.
In advance, he perceived a dark, straggling line of bushes and low
trees. Amid them he turned sharply to the left, hoping somehow to double
on his tracks and baffle the pursuers. Through a thicket of shrubbery he
plunged, with the tiny branches viciously whipping his face and tearing
at his clothes, as if even they sought to grasp and hold him.
Suddenly he stopped short, his mouth wide open, that he might listen the
better. The two men had reached the growth, and he could hear them
floundering amid it.
“This way!” one of them cried. “He went this way!”
“Keep still!” urged the other. “We ought to be able to hear him. Keep
still a minute.”
The crashing sounds ceased, and the listening boy knew the men were
listening also. Through a great effort of self-command, he kept himself
from resuming the flight, waiting until the noise of their own movements
should prevent them from hearing what sounds he might make.
They soon grew impatient and began beating about in the underbrush in an
aimless search.
As soon as this happened Shultz moved away, proceeding with a certain
amount of caution. Keeping just within the border of the timber and
thickets, he went forward as fast as he dared, putting out his hands to
part the bushes and slipping through them as silently as possible. At
times twigs snapped beneath his feet, but, as he had hoped, the men were
themselves making sufficient noise to drown such minor sounds, and
gradually he left them far behind.
In the blackness he ran full against a wire fence, and the barbs of the
lower strands slashed his trousers and cut his legs. He tore himself
free, felt for the smooth upper strand, bent it downward and straddled
over.
Following the line of the fence, he turned full upon the course he had
been pursuing when he plunged into the timber. Leaving that shelter
behind him, bending low, he ran on until he returned to the highway some
distance above the home of Mrs. Chester. In the middle of the road he
paused uncertainly.
The moon was rising. Its light, although somewhat muffled by the clouds,
was sufficient to enable him to perceive the outlines of objects at a
considerable distance; it would also reveal him far better to pursuers,
and make his escape more difficult were he again seen by them.
“Good-by, Ned,” he whispered. “You’re asleep, and you don’t know
anything about it. Probably you’ll never realize just what I’ve had to
go through this night.”
Fearing to follow the highway, he again struck across the fields, before
him the deep stretch of timberland to the north of Turkey Hill. By
making his way through those woods and passing round the hill, he could
reach the Barville road some miles from Oakdale.
At the edge of the timber the night wind bore to his ears a sound that
again halted him dead in his tracks. The bells of Oakdale were
ringing—ringing wildly, furiously, as they might ring to arouse the
villagers to battle with a conflagration. Peal upon peal vibrated
through the night air, and their clanging strokes stabbed the miserable
boy like dagger thrusts.
“I know what it means!” he half panted, half sobbed. “They’re turning
the whole town out to hunt me down! I’m alone, alone, with everybody
against me! What chance have I got? Well, they’ll have to catch me
before I give up.”
The woods swallowed him; he was gone. The bells continued to fling forth
their wild alarm. As if wondering at it, and curious to know what it was
all about, the silvery moon peered through a break in the clouds,
flooding the open space with its light.
But in the woods through which Charley Shultz staggered on it was dark.
In his heart it was darker still.