ON THE ROAD
Gone! It was the only word he, could think of. Every thought, every
emotion centered around it. He could not reason or argue. No plan
occurred to him now. He continued to sit still, seeing but one
picture--a boat vanishing. Night had begun to fall as they returned to
the city. Its lights played mockingly in the darkness. Mr. Heatherbloom
viewed them with apathetic gaze. The secret-service man, the chief of
police and his assistants were on shore somewhere waiting to capture
him, but he did not care. Let them take him now! What did it matter?
When the boat reached land he got out like an automaton. Perhaps he made
answer to the darky's last cheerful good night, but if so he spoke
without knowing it. The boatman let him go, willingly; Mr. Heatherbloom
hadn't asked for his last bill back again and the other overlooked
reminding him of his remissness. The greenback was considerably more
than the fare.
Indifferent to his fate, Mr. Heatherbloom moved on; no one molested him.
He walked along dark highways, not through fear of being apprehended,
but because his mood was dark. He did not even notice where he went; he
just kept going. He forgot he was hungry, but at length, as in a dream,
he began to realize a physical weariness. Overwrought nature asserted
itself; he was not made of iron; his muscles responded reluctantly.
Without observing his surroundings, he sank listlessly to the earth; the
cool grass received his exhausted frame. Beyond, some distance away, the
lights of the city threw now a sullen glow on the sky. All was
comparatively still about him; the noise of the city was replaced by the
lighter sound of vehicles on the well kept, almost non-resounding
country road. It seemed to be a main thoroughfare, but with little life
and animation about it at that evening hour. A buggy did go by
occasionally, however, and, not far from Mr. Heatherbloom, at a curb,
stood a motor-car.
He had suffered himself to relax on the ground in front of a small house
set well back among spectral-looking trees and surrounded by a stone
wall overgrown with foliage. Mr. Heatherbloom remained unmindful of his
surroundings. The lamps of the car near by were not lighted; a single
figure on the front seat was barely distinguishable. Now this person got
down and lighted a cigarette; he seemed restless, walked to and fro, and
glanced once or twice at the house. From a single window a faint light
gleamed; then it vanished, only to reappear a few moments later at
another window. Among the masses of foliage fireflies glistened; a
tree-toad began to make a sound but almost immediately stopped. The
front door had apparently opened and some person or persons came out.
The faint crunchings on the gravel indicated more than one person. Now
they stepped on the grass, for there were no audible indications of
their approach. The man near the machine threw quickly away his
cigarette and opened the door of the car. Several people, issuing from
the gate, crossed the sidewalk and got in. Mr. Heatherbloom was hardly
aware of the fact; they seemed but unmeaning shadows.
The driver bent over and lighted one of his lamps. As he did so, the
flare revealed for an instant his face--square, rather handsome and
bearded. A faint flicker of interest, for some reason undefinable to
himself at the moment, swept over Mr. Heatherbloom. He had been lying
where the grass was tall and now raised himself on his elbow, the better
to peer over the waving tops. The car had gathered headway and swung out
into the road, when suddenly some one in it laughed and uttered an
exclamation in a foreign tongue. That musical note--a word he did not
understand--was wafted to Mr. Heatherbloom. It acted upon him like a
galvanic shock; he sprang to his feet and, bewildered, stared after the
machine. What had happened; was he dreaming? He could hardly at first
believe the evidence of his senses, for the laugh, coming back to him in
the night, was that of the woman for whom he had procured employment at
Miss Van Rolsen's. He could have sworn to the fact now. And the man
whose countenance he had so briefly seen was, no doubt, of her own
nationality--a Russian!
Involuntarily, without realizing what he did, Mr. Heatherbloom started
to run in the direction the car had gone, but he soon stopped. What
madness!--to attempt to catch a sixty-horse-power machine! Why, it was
nearly a mile away already. The young man stood stock-still while a
cogent reaction swept over him. The woman had passed within fifty feet
of where he had lain, head near the earth, moping. A mocking desire to
atone for a great remissness found him impotent. There seemed nothing
for him to do now but to reconcile himself to the irreconcilable, to
stay here, while every desire urged him to follow her, to learn why this
woman was in the car and who was with her. Naturally, he had expected
she would be on the yacht now steaming away out to sea, and here she
was. A new enigma confronted him.
Mr. Heatherbloom continued to stand in the center of the road. His head
whirled; he panted hard, out of breath from his recent dash. A loud
honk! honk! from another machine coming unexpectedly up behind, caused
him to leap aside just in time. The second car whizzed by, although
obeying an impulse born on the instant, he called out wildly, waving his
arms to bring it to a halt. If they saw his strange motions--which was
unlikely, the night being dark--they did not heed them. Soon the second
machine was some distance away; then its rear light gleamed like a
vanishing coal and suddenly disappeared altogether around a bend of the
road.
He looked back; no other vehicle of any description was in sight now.
But it profited nothing to continue passive, immovable. He had to act,
to walk on, no matter how slowly; his face, at least, was set in the
direction the woman had gone. How long it took him to reach the turn of
the thoroughfare he could not tell, but at length there, he came again
to an abrupt stop. Some distance ahead in the road appeared a machine,
motionless--waiting, or broken down.
Which car was it? The one containing the woman, or the other that came
after? If the former--He pressed on eagerly, yet keeping to the shadows,
alive once more to the need of caution. His heart pounded hard; he could
see a form passing in front of the machine; the light of the lamp
enabled him now to make out the other occupants--three men. No woman was
with them. This became poignantly, irrefutably evident as he drew
nearer. He could see plainly the empty car and the trio of figures; he
could hear them talking but was not yet able to distinguish what they
said. These were the people whose attention he had tried to attract back
there in the road. His purpose then, occurring to him in a flash,
renewed itself strongly now. He would ask their aid; circumstances might
enable him to do so now with better grace. He had had a good deal of
experience with cars of divers kinds and makes at different times in the
past. Why not proffer these strangers his fairly expert services? He
felt sure he could soon learn, and repair, what was wrong with the
machine. Having made himself useful, he could then intimate that a
"lift" down the road would be acceptable. And he would probably get it.
But he did not carry out his intention. Something he heard as he came
closer to them caused him to hesitate and reconsider. Mixed with
anathemas directed against the car, of rather a cheap type, were words
that had for him more than passing significance. These men were after
some one, and that the some one was none other than himself, Mr.
Heatherbloom soon became fully convinced. Fate had been kinder to him
than he knew when he had endeavored, and failed, to win their notice. He
crouched back now against a rail fence; their low disgruntled tones were
still borne to him. For some moments they continued to work over the
machine without apparently being able to set it to rights.
"If this goes on much longer," said one of them, "he'll get away from
Brownville."
"Providin' he's there!" grumbled another. "People are always seeing an
escaped criminal in a dozen different localities at the same time."
Brownville! The listener soon divined, from a sentence dropped here and
there, that the place was a little fishing village a short distance down
the coast. He surmised, also, that they had by this time the main harbor
of the city fairly watched as far as outgoing vessels were concerned,
and were reaching out to prevent a possible exit from the smaller
community. Fishing craft leaving from there could easily take out a
fugitive and thus enable him to escape. This contingency the authorities
were now endeavoring to avert; that they also had some kind of a clue,
pointing to their present destination and inciting them to make haste
thither, was evident from the skeptical remark Mr. Heatherbloom had
overheard.
A series of explosions, as sudden as spasmodic, broke in on the
listener's thoughts. "Hurray!" said one. "We're off!"
And they were, quickly. Mr. Heatherbloom also moved with extreme
abruptness and expedition. Waiting in the shadow until they had all
sprung into the car and the machine had fairly started, he then darted
forward, seized a strap and clinging as best he might, hoisted himself
to the place in the rear designed for a trunk. One desire only, in
resorting to this expedient, moved him--to get in touch as soon as
possible, if possible, with the other car. This machine, of inferior
build, suggested, it is true, a dubious way to that end but it was the
best that offered.
He did not see the incongruity of his position, of being a passenger,
though secretly and surreptitiously, of the car containing those
embarked on a mission so closely concerning himself. Instead of fleeing
from them he was actually courting their company, pursuing himself, as
it were! At another time he might have smiled; now the situation had for
him nothing of the comic; it was tragically grim, also decidedly
unpleasant. A strong odor of gasolene permeated his nostrils until he
was nearly suffocated by it and all the dust, stirred by their flight,
swirled up on him, making it difficult to refrain from coughing.
Fortunately the machine had a monopoly on noises, and any sound from him
would have passed unnoticed. He had ridden the "bumpers" not so long ago
on freights, and, perforce, indulged in kindred uncomfortable methods of
free transportation in the course of his recent career, but he had never
experienced anything quite so little to be desired as this.
The driver had begun to speed; as if to make up for lost time, he was
forcing the engine to its limit. The machine, of light construction,
shook violently, negotiated the steep places with jumps and slid down on
the other side with breakneck velocity. The dust thickened about Mr.
Heatherbloom's head so that he could scarcely see. His arms ached and
every bump nearly tore him loose. He wound the strap around his wrist
and strove to ensconce himself deeper in a place not large enough for
him. He was on an edge all the time, and felt as if he were falling
over every moment; the edge, too, was sharp and dug into him.
Mr. Heatherbloom, however, had little thought of bodily discomfort; he
was more concerned in making progress and the difficulty of maintaining
his position. His only fear was that he would be compelled to abandon
his place because his physical energy might not be equal to the demands
put upon it. He set his teeth now and began to count the seconds. The
faster they went, the better was his purpose served; he strove to find
encouragement in the thought. The other car could make a superior
showing in the way of speed, but it might stop voluntarily somewhere
after a while, or something might happen to arrest its progress. The
race did not always belong to the swift. He endeavored to formulate some
plan as to just what he would do if he did finally manage to overtake
the woman and her party, but at length ceased trying. Sufficient unto
the moment were the problems thereof; he could but strive in the
present. He dispelled the fear that he could not hold on much longer,
and filled himself with new determination not to yield. But even as he
did so, a bigger bump than any they had yet encountered jerked him
abruptly from his place.
When finally he managed to collect himself and his senses and sit up
uncertainly in the road, the car was far away. The snap of exploding
gasolene grew faint--fainter--then ceased altogether.