Fire Mountain Part 9

Then a head abruptly bobbed into the square of uncertain light. It was a familiar head; even against that dark background Martin recognized it promptly; it was an unusually large head, surmounted by a ridiculously small hat. A well remembered voice reached Martin's ear in a guarded whisper:

"Miss Ruth, Miss Ruth! Are you there, Miss Ruth?"

It was the hunchback, Little Billy.

Martin's long-held breath exploded with a sudden pop. The hunchback stiffened at the sound and hung motionless, half over the sill. He peered into the dark room evidently endeavoring to locate the noise.

"Miss Ruth?" he hissed sharply.

Martin stepped from the wall towards the window.

"It is I," he commenced.

"Stop! Don't move, don't yell. I have you covered!" was Little Billy's sharp injunction; and Martin caught the gleam of steel in the other's hand, saw the muzzle of a revolver pointed at his chest.

"No, no, don't shoot!" he exclaimed. "It is I, Martin Blake, the law clerk. Don't you remember--the fellow who was talking to you by the fire hydrant?"

"The law clerk! Good Lord! Have they shanghaied you?"

"Yes, I'm locked in this room," said Martin. "They are guarding the door. That fellow, Spulvedo, just took a shot at me because I tried to break out. Don't speak loudly--they'll overhear."

"I'm coming in," whispered Little Billy.

He wriggled his body further over the sill, swung about and dropped to the floor by Martin's side. Immediately, he turned and thrust his head out of the window and spoke a few words in an undertone to some one below.

Martin leaned over Little Billy's shoulder and peered out. He discovered the means by which the hunchback had reached that second story window--about nine feet below was the roof of a shed that ab.u.t.ted against the side of the building, and on the farther side of the shed was a dark s.p.a.ce that looked like an alley, a freight entrance probably to the great brick warehouse that reared its blank, windowless side just opposite. He saw that his previous surmise had been correct--this room he had been confined in was a rear room, the shed below was doubtless an outhouse of the saloon, the street yonder was Green Street.

Martin grasped these details at a glance. What really interested him at the moment was a man's figure just below him on the roof of the shed. The upturned face was but a few feet distant; the man bulked huge in the shadow. It was the boatswain. Martin divined the method of the hunchback's a.s.sault upon the shutters--he had evidently stood upon the giant's shoulders.

"Stand by, Bos," called Little Billy softly. "I'm inside, all right."

"Aye, aye," came the answering rumble. "'Ave you found 'er, lad?

'Oo's that lookin' over your shoulder?"

"It is that clerk," said Little Billy. "'Wild Bob' locked him up. No, she isn't----"

He straightened up and clutched Martin's arm.

"You in here alone?" he demanded. "I am looking----"

"I know--a girl," interrupted Martin excitedly. "I think she is in the next room. A white girl. The j.a.ps caught her and turned her over to Carew. Had on a man's gray overcoat, and----"

"Did you see her? Is she safe?"

"Think so. They haven't had time to harm her. I think she is in the next room. Some one was rapping on the wall."

"Code talk!" supplemented the hunchback. "That is Ruth. She thinks I was caught, too. She has been trying to communicate with me. Must have heard them put you in here. Which wall?"

He darted to the side of the room Martin indicated, moving lightly and soundlessly. He started a light tapping on the wall, the same irregular tapping that had puzzled Martin a few moments before. Hardly had he begun when faint replies came from the next room.

Martin tiptoed to the door and pressed his ear against it. Events were crowding him swiftly. He had no time or data for cool reasoning. The boatswain, the hunchback, the imprisoned woman, Carew, the envelope, Ichi and Smatt--it was all a mysterious jumble that he had no time to bother with. His impulse controlled him, and his impulse enlisted him upon the girl's side against Carew. Little Billy and the boatswain he accepted without question as friends. Had they not opened the window, and the way to freedom? So he listened at the door while the hunchback exchanged signals, alert for alarming sounds from the big room. But he heard nothing.

For several moments the strange conversation continued through the wall. Twice, Martin heard the hunchback mutter an oath. Then, after a final series of raps, the little man left the wall and crept to Martin's side.

"Yes, she is in there," he announced. "We will have to work swiftly.

What do you know of this house--how constructed?"

Martin described in whispers the plan of the building as he knew it--the hall and stairs, the large room, the two smaller rooms opening off it. He also told Little Billy of his own rough experience, though he did not mention the envelope.

"Spulvedo is on guard on the other side of this door," he concluded.

"He is armed, and he won't hesitate to shoot."

"I know he would shoot," said Little Billy grimly. "So will I shoot, if necessary. You have been thrust into a desperate business, my friend. Oh, I understand your position, even better than you, yourself. I know why you were seized and locked in here. I warn you truly, you are in some danger. Carew, or any of his crowd, would snuff you out in an instant if he thought fit. I am not going to ask you to risk your skin in an affair that does not concern you. There is the window--the bosun will let you pa.s.s."

"I'll stay and help you, if you'll have me," promptly replied Martin.

"I am not afraid to take a chance. And that girl--those yellow----"

"I knew you would stick!" interrupted the hunchback. His hand grasped Martin's in a congratulatory grip. "I knew I had not misjudged you--you are a white man. We must get her away, and we dare not call the police into this affair. But there is nothing crooked on our side of the fence. Here, take this--you may need it!"

Little Billy thrust something into Martin's hand, and Martin thrilled at the feel of it. It was a pistol, a compact, automatic messenger of death. But once or twice before had Martin ever handled such a weapon, and he had never shot one at a living mark. Nevertheless, it fitted snugly and naturally into his palm. He even contemplated, with a certain amount of pleasure, its instant use upon the divekeeper's gross person. There was a subtle and lasting change of character in that brief moment--Martin Blake, law clerk, became of the dead past, and Martin Blake, adventurer, stepped into the law clerk's boots.

"It is too risky to make a rush through this door," Little Billy was saying. "They would hear us and be on guard. We will try the next window."

He darted to the window, and Martin followed. The purposeful hunchback was a stimulating surprise, a far cry from the eloquent Little Billy of the fire hydrant to the energetic Little Billy of the moment! The man of words become the man of action.

Little Billy leaned out of the window, and whispered.

"Aye, aye," Martin heard the hoa.r.s.e whisper in reply.

"Stand by, we are coming out--both of us," admonished Little Billy.

He vaulted over the sill, clung a moment, and dropped. Martin saw the boatswain catch the little man in midair and lower him gently to his feet.

"Come on," the hunchback then called softly.

Martin divested himself of his overcoat. The cause, he thought, was worth the sacrifice, and the garment was c.u.mbersome. Then he clambered over the sill and lowered himself.

He was preparing to drop, when a resistless clutch fastened upon his hips. He was handed through the air as if he were a feather, and set gently upon his feet at Little Billy's side. The boatswain's gruff whisper was in his ear--

"Swiggle me, ladibuck, I 'ad no thought to run afoul of you again."

"Come on--next window," commanded Little Billy.

He shrank against the side of the building and began to edge himself along. Martin and the boatswain followed. Martin looked up. The window they had just climbed through was a mere black blot, the window that was their objective was a mere outline overhead and a few feet to one side. No betraying light hazarded them, there on the shed. The warehouse behind them, and the building against which they crouched, combined to drape them in black shadow. Unless they made a noise, Martin divined there was not much chance of their being discovered.

Little Billy paused beneath the other window, and Martin and the boatswain pressed close to his side.

"Now, bosun, lend me your shoulders," said Little Billy. "If this shutter is fastened the same way the other one was, we won't have much trouble. Hand me the bar."