Frank Merriwell's Reward Part 51

"There is never anything in the corridor," the landlord declared. "I can't set here if you shut that door."

"There he is again!" said Hodge, in the voice of one who expects to behold the supernatural and inexplicable and has steeled himself against unpleasant sensations. "There he comes! Barney, as sure as guns!"

The landlord dropped limply into a chair, and stared out through the open window in the direction indicated by Hodge's pointing finger. The others grouped round Merriwell and Bart.

"You see it?" Frank whispered.

"Let me out of this!" the landlord gurgled, though no hand was restraining him. "Booh-h-h! Let me out of this. Ah-h-h-h-h! It's a ghost, sure enough! Don't you see that white cloth on its head--a b.l.o.o.d.y white cloth?"

He seemed about to tumble over in a fit.

"He's coming this way!" Merry whispered. "Just keep still now, all of you!"

Rattleton seemed about to bolt from the place, though the others were bravely standing their ground.

"No ghost there!" said Browning. "That's a live man."

"It's Barney," Merry declared. "He is not dead. His head is tied up."

"But what makes the--him sneak along in that way?" Rattleton gasped.

"Whee-giz, it makes my blood run cold! Ugh!"

"Just keep still, and we shall soon find out!" Frank sharply commanded, in a whisper.

The ghostly figure came slowly up the walk. Nearer and nearer it drew, walking as if it did not fear discovery at that late hour.

"There is another!" Rattleton whispered.

The figure of a woman came into view, hurrying rapidly along the path after Mulloy, and seeming to be in pursuit of him, though he appeared not to know it.

"Now!" Merry whispered. "Ready, Hodge--now!"

He leaped through the window, with Bart at his side. The ghostly figure was but a few yards away. Before it could turn in the direction of the sound they were half-way across the intervening s.p.a.ce.

"Barney! Mulloy!" Frank called.

The figure uttered a cry, and started to run. But Frank's pace was too swift. Almost in the next instant his hand fell on the shoulder of the specter.

"Don't you know me, Barney? I'm Merriwell!"

The figure ceased its struggles.

"Hurroo! Is it yez for thrue, Merriwell? I t'ought it wor an officer thryin' to arrist me."

"Break loose and run, ye fool!" was squealed in a high, feminine voice.

"Run, Barney, dear--run!"

"Niver!" Barney declared. "Niver will I run from a fri'nd loike Merriwell!"

"But you'll be put in jail! You'll be hung!" the woman shrieked, in a vain effort to stampede the Irish lad. "Them fellers is officers."

Bart had pushed up, so that Mulloy could recognize him.

"Save me frum her, Frankie!" Barney pleaded. "Woo-oo! Begorra! She's crazier than wildcats!"

Then he whispered:

"The ould sinner wants to marry me. Think av thot! She's been hoidin' me frum the officers fer matrimoonial poorpuses. Take me away from her, Frankie, darlint! Oi've kilt a thramp, and I'm in peril av bein' hoong for it; but I'd rather be hoong than to marry such a cat as thot! Bad cess to her!"

"Gentlemen, the poor fellow is out of his head!" the woman purred, modulating that shrieking voice. "His head has been hurt, and he don't know nothin' that he's talkin' 'bout."

Barney clung to Merriwell and Hodge as if he feared the woman would drag him bodily away from these friends.

"Oi suppose thot she may be able to foorce me into marryin' her," he moaned. "Oi kilt a thramp, and Oi wor hidin' frum the officers--may the divil floy away wid thim--and Oi sneaked intil her house, d'ye moind, and hid me loike a fool under her bed. The crayther had been lookin'

under thot bed for forty years to foind a man! And whin she let her ould oyes loight on me, she pulled me out av there; an' she's been kapin' me and scarin' me intil fits and hoidin' me from the officers iver since--and, bad cess to her, nixt wake she wor goin' to marry me."

"Why did you sneak round the hotel and along the paths in that queer way?" Frank asked, after the vinegary-visaged and matrimonially inclined female had departed in despair and disgust, and he had Barney alone.

"That still puzzles me. We heard that you had been killed by those tramps, and you looked and acted enough like a ghost to be one!"

"A ghost, is it?" said Barney, glancing about as if he did not like even the thought. "Thot ould witch wor kapin' me hid away from the officers in thot wee bit av a house roight behind the three over there, and all the ixercoise Oi could git wor whin Oi could shlip out av noights and walk round and swally a brith av fresh air. Oi t'ought Oi had kilt the thramp and thot the officers wor watchin' for me! Thot ould divil hilped me to believe thot hersilf! So whin Oi heard yez call, av coorse Oi worn't goin' to sthop and be arristed. A ghost, is it? Oi'm thinkin'

thot yez'd be c.r.a.pin' round, too, if yez t'ought thot a rope wor riddy to toighten about the neck av yez!"

"Haw! haw! haw!"

The roars did not proceed from Joe Gamp, but from the landlord of the hotel. Now that Barney was found to be real flesh and blood, and not a spirit, the landlord had entered more heartily into the search for the mysterious source of the strange footsteps. He had been willing that the doors opening into the corridors should be closed--for only when the corridor was darkened could the ghostly sounds be heard.

As soon as the "footsteps" came again he threw open the door and chucklingly led the way out through a side room into a shedlike structure that came up against the corridor wall.

"There is your ha'nt!" he roared, pointing down into a pen in the shed.

"There is your ha'nt! A gol-derned old sea-turtle! Haw! haw! haw! Ho!

ho! ho! He! he! he!"

The turtle was a monster in size.

"But--I don't see!" said Merriwell. "This doesn't explain."

The landlord hopped into the pen and flipped the huge turtle over on its back against the wall. Thereupon it began to kick out with its great flippers, striking them against the corridor wall and making the sounds which had seemed to be footsteps. Merriwell looked round.

"I see!" he admitted. "The light from the lighted corridor came through that transom."

"Jest so!" said the landlord. "Whenever your light shined in here it scart the turtle, and it quit kickin'. It's always trying to climb out of the pen and falling over on its back; and when it tips over near the wall and strikes with them flippers, it makes that sound. If it ain't near the wall, of course it don't strike nothin' to make the sound. And, of course, soon's it can turn itself back--which it can't sometimes for hours--it quits kickin' out."

"And yez tuk me for thot thing and thot thing for me, and aitch av us knew nothing about it, and it wasn't ayther av us!" chuckled Barney.

"Just so!" said Merriwell. "And right glad I am to understand it, and to know that you are living!"

"And Oi niver wor gladder to see anybody in my loife! The soight av yez makes me well. And Bart, me jewel! Yez are as foine a laddie as iver lived! Give me the touch av yer hand ag'in!"