"I INTEND TO WATCH YOU DIE, INCH BY INCH, DAY BY DAY!"
Before going on further with the thrilling event which we narrated in
our last chapter it will be necessary to devote a few explanatory lines
to the still more thrilling scene which led up to it, returning to the
real Lester Armstrong, whom we left in the isolated cabin in the custody
of Halloran.
Lester's intense anxiety when Kendale forcibly took the keys from him
and disappeared can better be imagined than described.
In vain he pleaded with Halloran to release him, offering every kind of
inducement, but the man was inexorable.
Your Cousin Kendale will pay me twice as much for detaining you here,"
he answered with a boisterous laugh, adding:
"Besides, I have a grudge against you of many years' standing, Lester
Armstrong, which this affair is wiping out pretty effectively."
"I was not aware that I had ever seen you before," replied Lester.
"Permit me to refresh your memory," exclaimed the other grimly. "When
you were a boy of about fourteen years you attended the public school on
Canal Street."
"Yes," said Lester, still mystified.
"At that time," went on Halloran, "the school was unusually crowded,
owing to the enforcement of the law that the children of the
neighborhood must attend school, thus bringing in all the urchins of
the poor thereabouts; you surely remember that?"
"It seems to me I have a faint recollection of some such circumstance,"
replied Lester, eying the man who stood over him, his dark, scowling
face growing more foreboding with each word he uttered.
"If you carry your mind back you will also remember that there was a
ragged boy sitting to the right of you, who seemed to have a weakness
for purloining your pencils and other like articles."
Lester did not answer; his mind was traveling back to the time this man
recalled.
"You will also recollect the boy who sat in front of you, who was the
envy of all the boys in the school by being the possessor of a fine, new
five-bladed jackknife, with which he used to whittle kites and whistles
during recess. Ah! I see you do remember," said Halloran grimly, "and
you also remember the day the ragged boy, sitting at the right of you,
believing no one was looking, reached over and quietly, deftly, inserted
his hand in the other's pocket and abstracted the coveted jackknife.
"He meant to as quietly replace it in the other's pocket after he had
whittled out a kite and whistle for himself; but, lo! without giving him
time to carry out his intentions, you, good boy that you were, squealed
and brought all the teachers in the room to the spot. You cried out to
them what had occurred, and the ragged lad was caught red-handed with
the knife in his possession. He was expelled from the school that day,
but the affair did not end there. The father of the boy who owned the
knife was a great judge, and he caused the ragged lad to be sent to a
State reformatory, where the next five years of his life were spent in
rigid discipline--stigmatized as a common thief! And all these years the
bitterness of a terrible hatred rankled in his bosom against you--who
were responsible for all this.
"And he vowed a bitter vow of vengeance, that he would repay that act of
yours if it took him a lifetime to accomplish it; that he would make you
suffer like one on the rack for thrice five years, and then tell you
why.
"It will not take much stretch of imagination for you to surmise, Lester
Armstrong, that I am that boy upon whom you peached, and on whom,
through you, such a severe penalty was inflicted.
"My hatred against you has intensified as the years rolled on, Lester
Armstrong. You are in my power; I hold your life in my hands. Do you
think if you were to pray to me on your bended knees that I would
release you? No, a thousand times no! Every groan that falls from your
lips is music to my ears.
"Again I repeat, you are at my mercy, and I will give you a dose of
that same mercy which you showed me in those other days. Ha! you turn
pale, as well you may!
"Listen! Let me tell you what I intend to do. I think you guess it from
all that has gone on before, but I will repeat it. I intend to watch you
die, inch by inch, day by day!
"They tell of a man who put himself on exhibition in New York,
challenging the people to come and see him fast forty days, during which
time neither food nor drink should pass his lips.
"But you will not last so long, Lester Armstrong; I think a week's time
will be your limit. You will understand now how perfectly useless it
would be to plead with me."
"Do not imagine for one moment that I intend to do so. I am a man of
nerve and iron will, and I can die like one. You have shackled me hand
and foot and placed me in this death trap, but your ears shall not be
greeted with any moans or cries of complaint. The vengeance you have
mapped out will fall short in that."
A sneer broke from Halloran's lips; he could not help but admire the
dauntless courage of the man before him, but he would not have admitted
it for anything the wide world held. With a fiendish laugh that rang in
Lester's ears for long hours afterward, Halloran turned and left him,
sauntering into the outer room and banging and locking the door after
him.
It was a night never to be forgotten by Lester to the last day of his
life. His mouth was parched with thirst; the blood in his veins seemed
turning to lava, and his eyes were scorched in their sockets.
Once the door suddenly opened and Halloran thrust in his head,
exclaiming:
"Let me give you a piece of news to dream over, my dear fellow: Your
Cousin, Kendale, is with the beauteous Faynie just now, probably holding
her in his arms, kissing the lovely rosebud mouth. 'Pon my honor. I envy
the lucky dog; don't you?"
The door closed quite as quickly again, and Lester was alone with his
bitter thoughts.
"What have I done that a just God should torture me thus?" he cried out
in an agony so intense that great beads of cold perspiration gathered on
his forehead and rolled unheeded down his white cheeks. "If he tortured
me to the gates of death I could endure it, but the very thought that my
innocent darling, my beautiful, tender little Faynie, is in that
dastardly villain's power, fairly goads me to madness. Oh, Heaven! if I
but had the strength of Samson for but a single hour, to burst these
cruel bonds asunder and fly to my dear one's side!"
But, struggle as he would, the thongs which bound him, rendering him
powerless to aid the girl he loved, would not give way.
Thus a fortnight passed, and Halloran was beside himself with wonder to
find each morning that Lester was still alive and that he had not gone
mad.
But Lester Armstrong's guardian angel had not quite forgotten him;
Heaven had not intended that he should die by thirst and starvation in
that isolated cabin, and served him in a strange, unlooked-for way.
He soon discovered that a family of squirrels had made a home beneath a
piece of flooring within easy reach of where he lay, and upon forcing up
the piece of rotten plank he found to his intense joy an almost endless
supply of nuts, and close beside their burrow a running stream of clear,
cool, fresh, bubbling spring water.
In an instant he had slaked his thirst and laved his burning brow.
From that hour he felt sure that Heaven intended him to escape from his
foes. He took good care, however, to conceal his wonderful discovery
from Halloran's keen, sharp eyes when he looked in each day.