Buch lesen: «Dick Merriwell Abroad: or, The Ban of the Terrible Ten», Seite 5

“Ow, Hi couldn’t think hof it – ” began the girl.

Thinking she meant that she could not think of keeping still, Zenas sprang to his feet, cold perspiration starting out on his pale face.

“I implore you! I beseech you!” he cried. “I’m an honorable man, and I hold a position of trust and responsibility in America. If this thing gets into the American papers I’m ruined. Here, my dear girl, take this – take it and remain silent – for my sake.”

Eagerly he thrust a pound note into her hand.

“Ow, you hare so kind, sir – so very kind, sir!” she tittered, bobbing him a bow. “Hi’m ownly a poor girl, and Hi thank you for being so hawfully kind to me, sir. If there’s hanything Hi can do for you, sir, while you are ’ere – ”

“You can,” said Zenas solemnly.

“You may depend hon me, sir. What is it?”

“Keep away from this room. Don’t come near it while I remain in the house. If you do these boys will see something further that is improper. Go at once. Every moment you remain adds to my peril. Go!”

“Very well, sir. Hi ’opes you ’ave a pleasant time while ’ere, sir. Hi ’opes you henjoy your supper and your night’s rest, sir. Good night, sir.”

Bobbing a bow to each of them in turn, she smilingly left the room.

CHAPTER XI. – THE SPANIARD AGAIN

“I don’t think you’re really to blame, professor,” said Dick. “Indeed, I have often wondered in the past how you succeeded in warding off the attacks of the fair sex, who are continually besieging you. No one is to blame if he happens to be attractive and fascinating to women.”

The old fellow brightened up a little.

“That’s nonsense, Richard,” he said. “Of course, there was a time when the girls did chase after me more or less, but that’s gone by.”

“You know better, professor. In these days girls are learning to admire men of brains, and talent, and genius. You’ll have to be careful, professor. There’s something about you that fetches them every time.”

Zenas smiled.

“Do you think so?”

“I know it! I want to warn you for your own good. You’ll have to hold them off. If we go to Paris, you’ll have to be on your guard. They’re sure to throw themselves at you. Paris is full of pretty girls, they say, and they’ll keep you ducking. If you were inclined to be frisky, you could have a score of handsome women chasing you.”

“He! he!” laughed Gunn. “That would be embarrassing, but it would be rather exciting.”

He rose to his feet and threw out his chest.

“I don’t know but you are right,” he nodded. “Since crossing the pond I’ve noticed the ladies glancing my way and smiling on me. In London they smiled at me, and in Scotland the Scottish girls were inclined to give me the eye. I used to be quite a chap with ’em, but since getting married I’ve lived retired and kept away from ’em. I’ll have to look out or some of them will be trying to steal me.”

Buckhart turned a laugh into a severe fit of coughing.

“I’m afraid I’ve taken cold,” he barked.

By this time Dick had Professor Gunn thinking himself really a very captivating old chap with the ladies, and he began to tell how he had found it necessary to dodge them all his life.

“Stop it, pard!” whispered the boy from Texas. “If you don’t let up I’ll sure give myself away to him.”

Thus adjured, Merriwell finally quit egging Zenas on, but he improved an opportunity to slip out of the room and leave the professor relating some of his experiences to Buckhart.

Dick descended to the lower rooms of the inn, entering the one to which they had first been ushered by the landlord.

A man in black clothes was half sitting, half reclining in a big easy-chair that was drawn up before before the fire. Evidently he had been perusing a newspaper, over which, made drowsy by the warmth, he had fallen asleep. The paper was spread over his face.

At one corner of the glowing open grate was another chair, and Dick sat down in this.

“A cool night, sir,” he observed, by way of being sociable.

The man did not stir. Evidently he was quite sound asleep.

Dick took from his pocket a tourist’s map and began examining it. The old professor had stated that in a few days they would leave England for warmer countries to the south, but their exact route had not yet been decided on.

For ten minutes or more Dick studied the map closely, becoming quite absorbed in it. At last, although he had not heard a sound or observed a movement on the part of his companion, he was led to glance up quickly, feeling himself attracted by something.

The man in the easy-chair had permitted the newspaper to slip down just enough for him to peer over the upper edge of it.

Merriwell found himself looking straight into a pair of dark, magnetic eyes, which were fixed on him with a steady, intent gaze. As those eyes met Dick’s they did not waver or blink in the least, and thus the two sat perfectly still, Dick holding the map and having his head partly lifted, gazing at each other unwaveringly and in stony silence.

Almost instantly Dick knew he had seen those eyes before. There was something familiar about them. They gave the boy at first a queer, uncanny sensation, and something like a chill, followed by a tingling flush of heat, passed over him.

A sense of danger came to Dick Merriwell. He seemed to feel the influence of a strange, subtle power. Directly he realized that this unknown power emanated from those piercing dark eyes, and it seemed that in his ear his guardian genius whispered an anxious warning.

Immediately the boy roused himself and brought his own firm will to the task of combating the influence whose touch he had so distinctly felt. Summoning his spirit of resistance to the contest, he continued to watch the eyes revealed above the edge of the newspaper.

Neither man nor boy moved a muscle. In dead silence they remained thus, watching each other like panthers about to spring.

The fire glowed warmly on the hearth and a great clock that stood in one corner of the room ticked solemnly and regularly. Outside the wind rose in a great gust and swept with rushing sound through the branches of the trees. Ghostly hands, like those of restless spirits seeking admission from the darkness and the cold, rapped at the casement of a window.

Still the unknown man and the American lad sat motionless, gazing into each other’s eyes.

The unvaried ticking of the great clock began to sound loud as hammer strokes.

Gradually Dick realized that he was obtaining the mastery. He had met and resisted the unknown influence the other was bringing to bear upon him, and his determination was conquering the subtle power of those magnetic eyes.

He called into action all the force of will he could command, knowing that he was defeating the object of the silent man before the fire.

Finally the man uttered a low exclamation of disappointment and anger, and the newspaper fell rustlingly from his face.

Dick sat face to face with Miguel Bunol!

“Curses on you!” hissed the Spanish youth. “Had you not looked up so soon I would have succeeded.”

“Never!” retorted Dick. “It is not in you, Bunol, to conquer a Merriwell.”

“We shall see.”

“I should think you would know it by this time. What are you doing here?”

“That is my business.”

“In which I am somewhat interested. How dare you show your face again?”

“Dare?” laughed the young Spaniard, harshly. “Did you think you could frighten me? Fool not yourself by such a fancy. I have a right to go where I choose, have I not?”

“You might find it unpleasant if you were to appear in the vicinity of Kinross, Scotland, about now. Of course you have a right to go there, if you choose, but you would be arrested if you did so.”

“We are not in Scotland, Merriwell. This is England and the heart of Sherwood Forest.”

“But the law is just as strong here as in Kinross. If Dunbar Budthorne were here he would – ”

Bunol snapped his fingers contemptuously.

“He would do nothing at all. Had he sat before me, were he sitting thus now, I’d have him powerless to disobey my command – I’d have him subject to my every wish. I am his master, and he knows it.”

“Still at Lochleven you did not succeed in forcing him into your dastardly scheme – you did not compel him to aid you in your plot to marry his sister.”

“But for you, Merriwell, I should have succeeded. You ruined my plot. That very night, as I fled in a boat across the bleak bosom of the lake, I swore to turn my attention to you, and put you beyond the possibility of baffling me again. Now you know why I am here. What will you do about it?”

The Spaniard asked the question mockingly. He was flinging defiance in the teeth of the young American.

“You have selected a big task, Mig Bunol.”

“But I have sworn to succeed.”

“You will fail utterly and miserably.”

Bunol lifted one hand to caress the thin, black mustache upon his lip.

“That is what you believe,” he said; “but I know I shall not fail. At Fardale I hated you, but I forgot you after I left the school. Never again would I have given you a thought had you not crossed my path in London. You crossed it at a most unfortunate time for me, as then I was on the very verge of accomplishing my great object.”

“And that object was to ruin Dunbar Budthorne and to make his beautiful sister your wife.”

“I love her!”

“You love her! Never! You love nothing but your own selfish, villainous self, Bunol. You were interested in her, and fascinated by her, because of her beauty; but had she been a poor girl you would not have dreamed for a moment of marrying her.”

“How wise you are!” sneered Miguel, shrugging his shoulders. “Even if that is so, what does it prove?”

“It proves that you are a fortune hunter of the lowest and most contemptible sort.”

“Is it such a crime to be a fortune hunter, as you call it? What are the ruined and penniless noblemen of Europe who seek marriage with American heiresses?”

“You are not even in the class of those men, for, though they may be cads, and snobs, and weaklings, and utterly lacking in manly qualities, few of them are downright scoundrels and desperadoes. At least, they have titles to give in return for the wealth their rich wives will bring them; but you have nothing to give.”

“Yah!” snarled the Spaniard, showing his white, gleaming teeth. “You say things that sting, but some day your tongue will be silent with death!”

“Your threats do not disturb me in the least, Bunol, for I am confident that I shall live to see you hanged, as you justly deserve to be. Bunol, your power is broken and your great scheme has come to naught. You may as well seek other victims, for never again will your fingers handle a dollar of Budthorne’s money.”

With a sneer on his dark face, the Spanish youth had listened to Merriwell’s words.

“It is a great wonder you think yourself!” he cried. “You think you have defeated me. How little you know me, boy! Did you imagine you had thrown me off the track and would see me no more while abroad? I am here. From Edinburgh you I followed to Glasgow, from Glasgow to Dublin, from Dublin to Manchester, Sheffield and here. I chose this spot to appear to you again and to let you know I am on your track. All this time you have known nothing of it, and you have thought me frightened by what happened in Scotland. While you remained in Scotland I did not care to appear, as I knew you would try to have me arrested.

“In Dublin there was no reason why I should make myself known, nor yet in Manchester or Sheffield. Here we are far from any town and in the heart of a forest. True, your friends are within call of your voice if you lift it; but I, too, have friends ready to spring in on us at a signal. My friends are all armed, and it is short work they would make of two boys and a cowardly, withered old man. Ha! ha! Call, if you like! I am willing; I am ready. Utter a shout, and by the time your friends get down to this room you will be lying on this hearth in your blood.”

“Are you trying to frighten me with such talk, Mig Bunol? You should know by this time that I am not easily frightened. You say you have followed me. That is good. While you were doing so Dunbar Budthorne and his sister were getting far beyond your reach. You have followed me in order to be near when they joined us again. That is it!”

Dick laughed triumphantly, for he had stated the reason why Bunol had so persistently dogged him about, and he felt that the fellow had been completely baffled.

Dick’s laughter caused Bunol to turn pale with rage. He saw that the young American regarded him with positive contempt. In Dick he had not aroused an atom of fear – nothing but aversion, scorn and contempt.

“You cannot fool me!” he snarled. “The Budthornes are not very far away. If you live, you will meet them soon. I shall be there.”

“Will you?”

“Yes! I know your cowboy friend has become deeply interested in Nadia, but – bah! – what is he? I can dispose of him so.” Bunol gave a careless flirt of his hand.

“It’s plain enough you do not know the kind of stuff that Brad Buckhart is made of.”

“He is nothing but a blustering braggart.”

“He’s a fighter, every inch of him; fearless as a lion. It was his bullet that pierced the shoulder of Rob MacLane, the outlaw, on the wall of Lochleven Castle, and sent him tumbling to the ground, where his career ended with a broken neck, greatly to the relief of all honest people.”

“Still he is nothing but a blustering braggart, and any man of real courage can become his master. I mind him not. It is you I have set my heart to conquer and crush, and then Buckhart will be disposed of with ease.”

“How do you propose to carry out your little project with me?”

“Don’t think I’ll not find a way. If I chose, you’d never leave this inn alive. You’d never rise from that chair, unless it were to drop dead on this hearth!”

“If all this is true, why don’t you go about it?” cried Dick, his eyes flashing. “I’m watching you! I am waiting for you to begin!”

“I came here to force you to tell me where Nadia is.”

Once more Dick laughed.

“And you fancied you could succeed? You fancied you could force a Merriwell to do your bidding? Bunol, you are a greater fool than I thought!”

“Oh, laugh, conceited idiot!” snarled the Spaniard. “You may be laughing in the face of death!”

“In some ways you are amusing, as well as disgusting. Now I know why you sat so still on that chair and pretended to sleep with the paper hiding your face. Now I know why you permitted the paper to slip down until you could peer over it. You have discovered that with your eyes and your mind you can govern weaklings. Your success with Dunbar Budthorne caused you to think you might hypnotize me, and force me to tell you where you could find Nadia. You have failed. What will be your next move?”

“I have failed, and my next move may be to put you forever out of the way of causing me more trouble.”

“Begin!” was Dick’s challenge. “I am waiting! Do you fancy you can do it alone? or will you call your paid ruffians to your assistance? Call Durbin! Call Marsh! Durbin has none too much courage, and Marsh is a miserable coward. I am here in this room alone. Call them to your aid and let’s have it out!”

“How bold you are!” sneered Bunol, again. “But it is not on such as Durbin and Marsh I depend alone. A closed carriage passed you on the road shortly before you arrived here. I was in that carriage, and with me were men ready to cut your throat at a word of command from me. Should I give the signal they would come with a rush. Better be careful with that tongue of yours. If you do not arouse me too far, I may permit you to live yet a while longer; but in the end you shall die – and by my hand!”

Dick was becoming tired of the talk. He had fancied some one might enter the room, either the landlord or the friends he had left upstairs. Now, of a sudden, he heard a sound of heavy knocking coming from the upper part of the inn, as if some one were pounding furiously on a door.

“Your friends are growing impatient,” said Bunol. “They wish to get out, it seems.”

“Wish to get out?”

“Yes; they are locked in their rooms. One of my men attended to that after you left them, I presume. I gave orders to keep Buckhart and the old man away in case I found an opportunity to meet you face to face. But the place will be disturbed by the racket they are making. I hope you enjoy your supper here and your night’s rest. I’m sorry to say I have decided to leave you. It might be disagreeable if your party and mine were to remain beneath the same roof.”

Bunol started to rise from his chair, as if to depart.

Instantly, without warning and with a great bound, Dick reached the Spaniard and clutched him.

“Wait a minute!” he exclaimed. “Don’t be in such a hurry to go.”

With a furious exclamation, Bunol flashed out a knife and struck at the boy’s throat a blow that was much like a streak of lightning as the steel glinted in the gleaming firelight – a blow impelled by deadly hatred and murderous impulse.

CHAPTER XII. – THE STRUGGLE

At times Professor Gunn became very garrulous, and on such occasions he invariably insisted that either Dick or Brad should listen to him. If both refused, he was mortally offended.

When Brad saw Dick had slipped away and left him with the old man he feared what was coming, and tried to edge toward the door; but Zenas promptly called him back, urged him to sit down, placed a chair before the open fire, and sat down himself.

“Now we’re comfortable and cozy,” said the old man. “Now we can chat, Bradley. I have a few things I wish to say to you. I have some advice I wish to give you, my boy.”

Buckhart smothered a groan.

“Won’t it keep until after supper, professor?” he asked.

“No, sir. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to speak with you alone, and this is the time. I have taken note that you are greatly interested in Miss Budthorne. Now, you are young – far too young to fall seriously in love. Wait, sir; let me speak. I am doing this as a father. Indeed, I feel that while we are traveling together I must practically fill the position of father to you. You have some faults. I had faults when I was of your age. I wish to tell you a story, and at the end I will indicate the lesson it teaches.”

Zenas then began a long-winded series of reminiscences about himself and his boyish love affair, to which Brad was forced to listen, little dreaming that in a room below Dick Merriwell and his enemy, Miguel Bunol, were sitting face to face, watching each other with eyes that never wavered.

Only for Professor Gunn’s determination to talk Buckhart would have attempted to leave the room long before he did, and would have made a surprising and annoying discovery that came to him later when he tried the door.

“Whatever’s the matter with this old door?” exclaimed the Texan, when he found it refused to open before his hand.

“Perhaps it sticks,” suggested Zenas.

“Sticks – nothing!” growled Brad.

“Then what – ”

“It’s locked!”

“Locked?”

“Sure as shooting.”

“It can’t be.”

“I opine I know when a door is locked,” said the Texan; “and this yere door is locked tight and fast.”

“How could it happen? I’m sure there is not a spring lock on the door.”

“Not at all, professor. I wonder some if this is one of Dick’s tricks. I wonder if he locked us in here?”

“Why should he do that?”

Brad did not explain that he fancied it possible Dick had done so in order to compel him to listen to the old man’s lecture.

“Wonder if there’s no other way to get out,” he growled. “Mebbe the door to the next room is not locked.”

He hurried into the adjoining room, but found, to his further disappointment and disgust, that the door leading from that room was likewise locked.

When Brad returned he began hammering on the door in earnest.

“Look out!” cried Zenas. “You’ll knock a panel out!”

“That’s what I sure will do!” roared the Texan. “I’ll certain bu’st a hinge off if Dick doesn’t hike this way and open things up.”

“Perhaps he didn’t lock the door.”

“Then whoever did? That’s what I’d like to know.”

A sudden thought flashed through Buckhart’s head. What if this locking them in was a trick to keep them away while an attack of some sort was made on Merriwell?

“I can pay for the door,” he muttered; “and I certain ain’t going to keep still when there may be deviltry of some sort going on.”

Then he backed off a few steps and made a rush and a spring, flinging his shoulder against the door, with the whole weight of his body behind.

The door burst open with a crash. Brad stumbled out into the hall, nearly falling, but quickly recovering his feet.

As he did so a significant cry came to his ears, proceeding from the lower part of the building.

In another moment he was bounding recklessly down the dark flight of stairs.

In the meantime, Dick was having his hands full with the treacherous Spaniard. Bunol had whipped out his knife with astonishing swiftness and had struck a deadly blow at the boy’s throat.

Quick as he was, however, either Merriwell anticipated the movement or he was quicker, for he dodged and clutched the wrist of his enemy at the same time.

Bunol uttered a low exclamation of disappointed rage, attempting to wrench his knife hand free.

“No you don’t!” exclaimed Dick, holding fast with a grip of iron. “You murderous dog! This ought to be enough to put you behind bars, and I think I’ll see that you go there for a while.”

“You’ll never put me there!” palpitated the Spanish youth.

In the struggle to break away from Dick he dragged the boy back and struck against the chair on which he had been sitting, nearly falling to the floor.

“Furies!” he panted.

For a few moments in the first heat of the encounter Bunol possessed amazing strength, and he kept Dick busy on the defensive, but it was not long before the boy tripped his antagonist and flung him heavily.

The knife flew from Bunol’s hand as he fell, clanging on the stone hearth, to lie gleaming in the glow of the open grate.

Although Dick had thrown the Spaniard, he found Bunol much like an eel to hold. The fellow slipped and squirmed, almost instantly writhing from beneath the American lad.

As the two started up and Dick reached to again clutch his enemy, the landlord came rushing into the room. His eyes falling on the combatants, he paused a second, aghast.

“What does this mean?” he cried.

Brad Buckhart was not a second behind the landlord, and his eyes recognized Miguel Bunol instantly.

A roar broke from his lips.

“Mig Bunol!” he shouted.

But when he sprang to take a hand in the conflict, the strong arm of the landlord blocked him off and flung him back, while that worthy again demanded to know what it all meant.

“Don’t stop me!” snarled the Texan, his face pale with excitement and rage. “Let me get my paws on that varmint! I sure will have his scalp!”

“Keep him away!” cried Bunol to the landlord. “They are ruffians and robbers! This one tried to rob me right here!”

Although Dick had again grasped the Spaniard, the latter once more squirmed from his fingers and managed to recover his feet. Instantly he sprang toward the hearth, on which his deadly knife lay shining brightly in the light.

Dick had no thought of letting the fellow again get that weapon in his hand. Knowing he had saved his life only by the narrowest possible margin, he now launched himself from a half-crouching position at the Spaniard, hurling the fellow aside and against the wall.

“Stand there!” thundered Buckhart.

In Glasgow Brad had purchased a revolver. This weapon he now had in his hand, and its muzzle was turned toward Bunol.

“Stand there, or by the everlasting Rockies, I’ll bore you in your tracks!” declared the Texan.

Dick quickly snatched up Bunol’s knife.

The Spaniard stood at bay, his black eyes gleaming and his breast rising and falling with his panting breathing. He was like a ferocious wild animal that had fallen into a trap.

“See, landlord!” he cried. “Now they are ready to murder me!”

“I’ll have none of this in my house!” grated the innkeeper, and he unhesitatingly placed himself in front of Buckhart, who was thus prevented from using his weapon in case he wished to do so.

Dick took a step toward Bunol.

The Spanish youth saw his opportunity. He did not wait for Merriwell to again lay hands on him. Instead of that, with two pantherish bounds he crossed the floor, and another bound carried him, doubled into a compact ball, straight at a window.

There was a great crashing and jangling of glass as the desperate young villain shot through the window, carrying out sash and panes.