THE ADVENTURERS' RETURN
The Banker, lying huddled in his chair in the clubroom, awoke with a
start. The ring lay at his feet--a shining, golden band gleaming
brightly in the light as it lay upon the black silk handkerchief. The
Banker shivered a little for the room was cold. Then he realized he had
been asleep and looked at his watch. Three o'clock! They had been gone
seven hours, and he had not taken the ring back to the Museum as they
had told him to. He rose hastily to his feet; then as another thought
struck him, he sat down again, staring at the ring.
The honk of an automobile horn in the street outside aroused him from
his reverie. He got to his feet and mechanically began straightening up
the room, packing up the several suit-cases. Then with obvious awe, and
a caution that was almost ludicrous, he fixed the ring in its frame
within the valise prepared for it. He lighted the little light in the
valise, and, every moment or two, went back to look searchingly down at
the ring inside.
When everything was packed the Banker left the room, returning in a
moment with two of the club attendants. They carried the suit-cases
outside, the Banker himself gingerly holding the bag containing the
ring.
"A taxi," he ordered when they were at the door. Then he went to the
desk, explaining that his friends had left earlier in the evening and
that they had finished with the room.
To the taxi-driver he gave a number that was not the Museum address, but
that of his own bachelor apartment on Park Avenue. It was still raining
as he got into the taxi; he held the valise tightly on his lap, looking
into it occasionally and gruffly ordering the chauffeur to drive slowly.
In the sumptuous living-room of his apartment he spread the handkerchief
on the floor under the center electrolier and laid the ring upon it.
Dismissing the astonished and only half-awake butler with a growl, he
sat down in an easy-chair facing the ring, and in a few minutes more was
again fast asleep.
In the morning when the maid entered he was still sleeping. Two hours
later he rang for her, and gave tersely a variety of orders. These she
and the butler obeyed with an air that plainly showed they thought their
master had taken leave of his senses.
They brought him his breakfast and a bath-robe and slippers. And the
butler carried in a mattress and a pair of blankets, laying them with a
sigh on the hardwood floor in a corner of the room.
Then the Banker waved them away. He undressed, put on his bath-robe and
slippers and sat down calmly to eat his breakfast. When he had finished
he lighted a cigar and sat again in his easy-chair, staring at the ring,
engrossed with his thoughts. Three days he would give them. Three days,
to be sure they had made the trip successfully. Then he would take the
ring to the Museum. And every Sunday he would visit it; until they came
back--if they ever did.
* * * * *
The Banker's living-room with its usually perfect appointments was in
thorough disorder. His meals were still being served him there by his
dismayed servants. The mattress still lay in the corner; on it the
rumpled blankets showed where he had been sleeping. For the hundredth
time during his long vigil the Banker, still wearing his dressing-gown
and slippers and needing a shave badly, put his face down close to the
ring. His heart leaped into his throat; his breath came fast; for along
the edge of the ring a tiny little line of figures was slowly moving.
He looked closer, careful lest his laboured breathing blow them away. He
saw they were human forms--little upright figures, an eighth of an inch
or less in height--moving slowly along one behind the other. He counted
nine of them. Nine! he thought, with a shock of surprise. Why, only
three had gone in! Then they had found Rogers, and were bringing him and
others back with him!
Relief from the strain of many hours surged over the Banker. His eyes
filled with tears; he dashed them away--and thought how ridiculous a
feeling it was that possessed him. Then suddenly his head felt queer; he
was afraid he was going to faint. He rose unsteadily to his feet, and
threw himself full-length upon the mattress in the corner of the room.
Then his senses faded. He seemed hardly to faint, but rather to drift
off into an involuntary but pleasant slumber.
* * * * *
With returning consciousness the Banker heard in the room a confusion of
many voices. He opened his eyes; the Doctor was sitting on the mattress
beside him. The Banker smiled and parted his lips to speak, but the
Doctor interrupted him.
"Well, old friend!" he cried heartily. "What happened to you? Here we
are back all safely."
The Banker shook his friend's hand with emotion; then after a moment he
sat up and looked about him. The room seemed full of people--strange
looking figures, in extraordinary costumes, dirty and torn. The Very
Young Man crowded forward.
"We got back, sir, didn't we?" he said.
The Banker saw he was holding a young girl by the hand--the most
remarkable-looking girl, the Banker thought, that he had ever beheld.
Her single garment, hanging short of her bare knees, was ragged and
dirty; her jet black hair fell in tangled masses over her shoulders.
"This is Aura," said the Very Young Man. His voice was full of pride;
his manner ingenuous as a child's.
Without a trace of embarrassment the girl smiled and with a pretty
little bending of her head, held down her hand to the astonished Banker,
who sat speechless upon his mattress.
Loto pushed forward. "That's _mamita_ over there," he said, pointing.
"Her name is Lylda; she's Aura's sister."
The Banker recovered his wits. "Well, and who are you, little man?" he
asked with a smile.
"My name is Loto," the little boy answered earnestly. "That's my
father." And he pointed across the room to where the Chemist was coming
forward to join them.