Round the Block Part 28

"Never!" said the undaunted old man. "Never, till I have thrown you headlong down stairs! Liar! Villain!"

With that, Pet saw her father hurl himself, with the ferocity of a tiger, on Marcus Wilkeson. Such was the suddenness and impetuosity of the movement, that Marcus was pushed back several feet toward the door, from the centre of the room, where the most obstinate part of the struggle had taken place.

But the old man's supremacy was short lived. The younger and stronger man suddenly stooped, caught the inventor with both hands under the arms, and thrust him toward the corner occupied by the mysterious machine. The inventor would have fallen on it, and perhaps have been instantly killed by contact with some portion of the bra.s.s or iron work, but for the interposition of the screen. This broke his fall. He scrambled to his feet, full of rage, and foaming at the mouth.

Marcus stepped back, and said, "Now let it cease."

Pet saw her father s.n.a.t.c.h something that looked like a club, from some part of the machine.

"This is my answer," he said, and precipitated himself with fresh fury upon Marcus.

The younger man had expected the attack, and braced himself for it. He caught the inventor by the arm that held the club, or other weapon. They wrestled for its possession--the inventor with frenzy in every feature, Marcus with fixed determination, and silently.

The weapon was now aloft--now below--now shifted in the twinkling of an eye to the right, and now to the left. At one time the inventor seemed to be on the point of securing it; at another, Marcus. Suddenly Pet saw it whirl like a shillelah above her father's head, with a strange noise like the quick winding of a clock. Then she heard a dull sound, as of striking a board with a brick, and--she saw her father fall to the floor. At the same moment, the light in the room went out, and all was darkness.

The pent-up agony at last found utterance. She shrieked, and, instantly, her eyes were open, and her limbs free. She jumped out of bed, and was about to rush into the chamber of horrors, when she saw the bright light of the gas yet shining through the crack beneath her door. She listened.

The house was still as the grave. Not a sound from all the world outside, except the striking of a fire alarm for the seventh district.

The deep notes vibrated upon her quickened hearing like a knell.

Then she remembered that, in the vision, the light had disappeared. Here it was gleaming under her door as brightly as ever. "Pshaw! what a silly girl I am!" said she. "It was a nightmare. That's all." She raised her hands to her face. It was hot and dripping.

"Father prescribed too large a dose of blankets. No wonder I had this horrid dream."

But, notwithstanding the presence of the light, and the absence of all noise, such as would be caused by the murderer in leaving the room and going down stairs, the impression of this tragic vision upon her mind was not to be dismissed with a "Pshaw!"

Pet would have derived much relief from opening the door and looking in, and seeing, with her own waking eyes, that her father was alive, at his usual seat in the corner. She placed her hand upon the latch.

But then she remembered how her father had laughed at her, two or three times before, when she was a younger girl, and not so wise as now, and had rushed into his room screaming with fright from a nightmare. She prided herself on having outgrown childish fears.

She also remembered that her father had told her, two days before, that he was engaged in the most difficult mathematical calculations, day and night, and, kissing her, had playfully said that she must not disturb him.

"He is thinking over his problems now," thought little Pet. "Dear father! I _do_ wish he would give up that hateful machine. It will be the death of him. But he said I must not disturb him, and I will not.

Mr. Wilkeson must have gone home a long time ago; and dear father is thinking, as he calls it, with his hand on his forehead, in the old corner. Let me take one little peep through the keyhole, and go to bed again."

Pet stooped, and looked through the keyhole. Within her range were the chair where Marcus Wilkeson had sat that evening, and the nail where--with bachelor-like precision--he always hung his hat. Neither Marcus Wilkeson nor his hat were in their accustomed, places. "What silly things these dreams are!" thought little Pet. The keyhole did not command the corner of the room where the machine stood, and where the inventor pondered and toiled; but Pet felt as certain that he was there, coaxing thoughts out of his pale brow with that habitual caress of the hand, as if she had seen him.

"Good night, dear father," she whispered, softly. "May Heaven watch over your labors, and keep you from all harm."

With this pious prayer, she slid into her warm nest. But, before adjusting her limbs for sleep, she threw off a portion of the heavy blankets which had weighed upon her, and was soon sound asleep, and dreaming of a garden in which all the roses were beautiful new bonnets.

Still the moon played her ghastly metamorphoses in the little chamber.

And the figures on the carpet and the figures on the curtain writhed in horrible contortions of glee, as if they rejoiced over a calamity which had befallen that house.

CHAPTER V.

WHAT THE MORNING BROUGHT.

The child woke about seven o'clock. She knew the time by the sun's rays upon the window curtains. In that strong, cheerful light, the phantom faces had shrunk back to great red bunches of flowers again. She thought of the absurd dream, or vision, as of something that had happened ages ago, and wondered that she had been foolish enough to be frightened by it.

There was no noise in her father's room. But that was not strange, for he rarely retired to bed before three o'clock in the morning (even when he did not sit up all night), and slept till eight. His sleep, though short, was sound; and it was Pet's custom to prepare breakfast in her father's room without waking him.

She washed her face, which looked rosy and bewitching in the little cracked mirror, and dressed her hair in two simple bands down the cheeks, and put on a white calico dress with small red spots, and a white ap.r.o.n bound with blue. This was the dress that her father loved the best. She looked in the gla.s.s, and examined her damaged reflection with a charming coquetry, and said, "Pet, child, you are looking well to-day. Now for breakfast."

Pet walked to the door, humming her last music lesson in a low voice.

She placed her hand upon the latch, and opened the door softly. As it swung on its hinges, and she began to obtain a glimpse of the room, she noticed the gas still burning, though the daylight filled the apartment.

This was strange. A shudder pa.s.sed through her frame, and her cheeks began to pale.

"Pooh! what nonsense!" she said. She pushed the door wide open.

Was it another mocking, maddening vision that she saw? She rubbed her eyes in wild affright, and then raised her hands aloft with a piercing shriek.

There, before her, lay the dead body of her father. In the centre of his ghastly forehead was a small wound, from which the blood had trickled over the temples, bedabbling his thin gray hairs, and forming a small red pool by his side. Near him, on the floor, was a club with an iron tip, which had done the dreadful deed. She recognized it at once as a part of the machine.

The monstrous vision of the night was true! Her father was dead! Mr.

Wilkeson was his murderer! She was an orphan!

These agonizing thoughts flashed through her brain in the single instant. She felt her head turning, and her limbs failing under her. She had only strength to shriek, "Murder! murder! Help! help!" and then she fell headlong and senseless upon her father's dead body.

BOOK SEVENTH.

JOURNEYINGS AGAINST FATE.

CHAPTER I.

PEA-SHOOTING AS A SCIENCE.

Be it said to the credit of Wesley Tiffles, that he always paid bills promptly when he could borrow money to do it. The funds that he had raised from Marcus Wilkeson, and others, for the panorama, had been faithfully applied to that great object. If he could have borrowed money from other people to repay those loans, that act of financial justice would also have been done; and so on without end, like a round robin.

When Tiffles bestowed the last instalment of compensation upon Patching, that individual shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "The paltry price of artistic degradation," said he. "Remember, I would have done this job only for a friend. The world must not know it is a Patching--though I fear that even on this hasty daub I have left marks of my style which will betray me."

"You are safe, my dear fellow," said Tiffles. "I have already ordered the posters and bills; and the name of Andrea Ceccarini will appear thereon as the artist. Ceccarini has an Italian look, which is an advantage; and, you will pardon me for saying, is rather more imposing than Patching."

The artist was sensitive touching his name. It had been punned upon in some of the comic papers. He could not take offence at the innocent remark of a friend, but he felt hurt, and vindictively rammed the large roll of one-dollar bills into his vest pocket without counting them.

(Whenever it was practicable, Tiffles paid his debts in bills of that denomination. He had a theory that the amount looked larger, and was more satisfactory to the receiver.)

As Tiffles saw how lightly the artist regarded the money, not even counting it, he felt a momentary pang at the thought that he had paid him.

The panorama of Africa had not only been finished and paid for, but it had been exhibited to a large number of clergymen of all denominations, at the lecture room of an up-town church. The clergymen, being debarred from attending secular amus.e.m.e.nts, as a cla.s.s, had gladly accepted the invitation of "Professor Wesley" (Tiffles's panoramic name), and brought with them their wives and a number of children apiece.

The panorama was rigged up at the end of the lecture room, in front of the desk, under the personal supervision of a former a.s.sistant of Banvard's, and worked beautifully, saving an occasional squeak in the rollers.

Tiffles, in his character of Professor Wesley, told his story glibly and with perfect coolness, interspersing the heavier details with amusing anecdotes, which made the ministers smile, and brought out a loud t.i.tter of laughter from the ministers' wives, and tremendous applause, inclusive of stamping and the banging of hymn books, from the ministers' children.