“Yes, I remember!” declared the stunted little foreigner in his bad
English. “We did well not to kill him--very well! It was far better
so. No police magistrate would accept the evidence of the blind!”
“Then let us prick out his eyes!” cried Lisely, exultant at the
success of her suggestion. “He will then be sufficiently punished for
spying upon us.”
I confess that, defenceless in the hands of that desperate gang, I
became petrified by terror. What use was it to exhibit the boldness
inbred by a brave and ancient family?
I contemplated making a dash for the door. But such action was
forestalled by the two men who had first seized me clapping a pair of
handcuffs upon me ere I could divine their intention. Thus was I
rendered utterly powerless.
The thought that they meant to blind me held me speechless in horror.
I stood there with fettered hands, helpless to raise a finger in
self-defence, utterly paralyzed.
“Let me have the extreme satisfaction of pricking the spy’s eyes!”
cried the girl Lisely who, for some mysterious reason, had turned
entirely against me, and was now my bitterest enemy.
“For God’s sake, don’t!” I shouted in appeal.
“Has anybody got a long pin, or needle?” the girl asked, turning to
her companions, whereat the flashily-dressed woman produced a large,
thick safety-pin which she straightened out and handed to her. The
girl who posed so cleverly as a typist in the City, and yet who was
one of a desperate association of criminals, as proved by the pile of
stolen gems upon the table, seemed to have been suddenly transformed
into a diabolical virago.
“Come, Bertram. You’re at Guy’s. Help me. We’ll perform the operation
together in the other room!”
“No, here!” demanded the woman Bennett. “Let us all witness the
punishment.”
“Let Lisely do as she wishes. It is her affair,” decided the little
man, whose word as leader was law. “She it is who has tracked him down
as a spy!”
I held my shackled hands in front of my face to ward off her attack.
In my ears resounded excited voices speaking that unintelligible
tongue, punctuated by ribald laughter, while the young Englishman
addressed as Bertram, with my fellow-lodger at Mrs. Bowyer’s, and
aided by one of the men, bundled me into the adjoining room, a small,
cheaply-furnished bedroom, lit by a flaring gas-jet, stuffy and full
of the faint, not unpleasant, odor that seemed to fill the house and
mingle with the fog.
“Go back!” ordered the girl. “We will do this alone!” And the man who
had helped to force me into the room against my will, despite my
strenuous struggles--for I assure you I did not give in as a craven
coward--retired, closing the door after him. I stared at Lisely Hatten
in bewildered helplessness.
The instant the door was closed the girl’s attitude changed. She
seemed to half relent, for she said:
“I will spare you as much pain as I can, Mr. Paige--or Mr.
Hipwell--eh?” And she produced from a little case a hypodermic
syringe. “The shock would be too severe without this, but--a few
moments’ sleep, and then all will be darkness.”
“God!” I cried. “Spare me. Are you mad? I’ve done nothing--the story
I’ve told you is true--every word of it. I swear it is!”
“My dear fellow,” said the good-looking young criminal, who was
evidently a medical student. “Don’t let’s argue. You’ve, unfortunately
for yourself, seen us; you know us, and you would be a constant danger
to us. When we discover danger we always remove it as far as possible.
You can congratulate yourself that your body is not in a furnace
to-night. You will live, to think over to-night, and to repent your
intrusion here.”
Meanwhile, the girl had filled the little syringe with some pale-blue
liquid which she held to the light. Then, in a caressing voice, she
said:
“Don’t worry. This will save you much pain in the present, and, Mr.
Paige,” she added in a strange voice full of meaning, “much disability
in the future.”
“Damn you!” I shouted in fury. “What do you hell-fiends intend to do?”
“Hush!” the woman whispered. “Trust us both and don’t worry.”
“Worry? When you are going to blind me?” I yelled, heedless of her
warning.
“You fool!” she cried. And as I raised my fettered hands against my
eyes I felt the sharp prick of the hypodermic needle in my left wrist.
A moment later I felt her finger pressed hard upon the puncture.
What happened immediately afterwards I have no idea. Probably I shall
never know.
I somehow felt myself carried as though in air, lightly, buoyantly,
through space, over a wide, unruffled sapphire sea. I recollect a
feeling that I had discovered the secret of flight; for, I was alone,
skimming the water like a swallow, without fatigue, ever forward in
boundless space. Before me I saw in the far blue distance a range of
snow-capped mountains, raising their glacier-clad peaks into the
clouds, peaks higher than the giant Jungfrau which I had seen in
Switzerland--higher indeed than I had even seen. They rose as a dark,
insurmountable barrier before me, and I was approaching them at what
seemed hundreds of miles an hour.
Suddenly, I came to a great, gray, granite, treeless precipice, and
knew that I must be dashed against it to my death. But, instead, I
again rose in short, rapid spirals, higher and higher and yet still
higher, over a region of eternal snows and ice. And, once more I was
out into the illimitable sunshine, soaring in space, as a bird with
tireless wings, flying in the limitless space, heedless and
intoxicated with the pleasure of a newly-awakened interest in life.
A panorama of busy cities and of great stretches of picturesque
country passed before my vision. Dark forests, placid lakes, green
swards, mighty rivers, babbling brooks, wildly excited crowds of men
on ’Change in cities, the homely comfort of the great country houses
of the rich, all of these passed in rapid review before my distorted
vision.
I beheld scenes which I had never before gazed on. I smelt the perfume
of flowers hitherto unknown to me, strange, wonderful tropical
flowers. Then all those other scenes faded to give place to a great
arid desert, brown, inhospitable, without any sign of vegetable life
as far as my eyes could see.
It was astounding, bewildering. I tried to collect my thoughts; but
they were addled. My brain was not normal. It seemed wrapped in
cotton-wool. Sometimes, over everything was the clear azure light of
evening; at others, the sun shone fiercely, revealing far-distant
objects with great distinctness. Yet, at others, they were half
obscured by an uncertain, blood-red mist.
On I sailed; on through space, reviewing the whole world as I went.
Strange tongues sounded in my ears and stranger scenes greeted me at
every moment. Now upon land, now upon the boundless ocean, and
sometimes in express trains, I sped through a new and unknown world,
bright and brilliant, that knew not darkness or night; for day was
unending.
Distinctly, to-day I remember wondering if I were dead. Had I passed
into the Beyond, into which the modern world is striving so
strenuously to penetrate? Those devils into whose privacy I had so
accidentally stumbled had murdered me, without doubt. They had closed
my lips to prevent my betraying their super-criminal methods.
The face of that innocent, good-looking girl, Lisely Hatten, rose
before me, together with that of the pallid young Englishman whom I
had at first taken for a naval officer, but who was a medical student.
And--why, I know not--I actually welcomed the recollection! No hatred
did I experience of that fiery-tempered girl with the soft brown eyes
and wavy hair, who had begged her companions to allow her to put out
my eyes with that large safety-pin.
My last remembrance was of the prick of the hypodermic needle. At any
rate, the girl had treated me humanely! Perhaps that was the reason I
felt no malice against her.
When, however, I recalled the face of the woman Bennett, I experienced
a fierce revulsion of feeling against her. She was my bitterest enemy,
even in the fact that she had failed to identify me and to
substantiate the story of my meeting with Monkey Dick when he was in
Bloomsbury. That very denial had corroborated the girl Lisely’s
declaration that I was a police-spy. Hence the vengeance which the
gang had taken on my unfortunate self!
Still I sped on in mid air, light as down, now rising, now falling,
tireless as ever, whirling through space, traveling without count of
time, witnessing fresh scenes, meeting fresh people, seeing fresh
faces, yet unable to find tongue to communicate with them.
The whole experience coincided with something I had read about dealing
with life after death.
Was I dead, I wondered?
CHAPTER SIX.
ILLONA!
A loud, ringing peal of laughter sounded in my ears, and at that
moment my aerial journey ended. In a flash all became transformed. It
concluded with a sudden shock.
I was conscious of lying upon a polished floor. Around me, apparently,
was a brilliant dinner-party. At the table about thirty persons were
seated and I seemed to have created great consternation; for, two
flunkeys in plush breeches and stockings were helping me to my feet.