Читать книгу His Lordship's Leopard: A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts - Wells David Dwight - Страница 5

At the sight of this astonishing and utterly unlooked-for personage, the actor and the Englishman stood for a moment gaping at each other in surprised silence. Then, as the full force of what they had done occurred to them, and they realised that, at great risk of life, limb, and freedom, they had rescued from the clutches of the law an utterly worthless tramp, they burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter.

"But where's Violet?" gasped Spotts, who was the first to recover himself.

"Oh, there's a lady in there, if you mean her," said the tramp, indicating the cavernous depths of the Black Maria.

"Yes, I'm here all right," came the welcome tones of the little actress's voice. "I'll be out in just a moment, as soon as I've put myself straight. You're the most reckless drivers I ever saw."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Banborough, approaching the door to help her out. "But circumstances didn't leave us much choice."

"Apparently not," she replied, and a moment later stood in their midst, looking even more bewitching than usual in her dishevelled condition. Then as she drew a long breath, inhaling the fresh woodland air, and realising all the joy of her restored freedom, the eternal feminine reasserted itself, and, seizing both of Spotts's hands, she cried impetuously: "Look at me, Alvy, and tell me if my hat is straight."

They all laughed, which broke the tension of the situation.

"I don't know what you must think of us," said Banborough.

"I thought I was being run away with at first," she said; "but when I heard Alvy's voice on the box I knew it must be all right."

"Of course," continued Cecil, "we hadn't the least idea there was anybody else in the van."

"Oh, I didn't mind so much," she said. "He was quite nice and respectful, and very soft to fall on. I guess he must be all black and blue from the number of times I hit him."

"Well, you're safe, and that's the main thing," said Spotts.

"But what does it all mean?" she demanded.

"Oh, there's time enough for explanations later on," returned the actor. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Of course we aren't, stupid! Any one can see that."

"Metaphorically, he means," said Cecil. "But, joking apart, this Black Maria is, so to speak particeps criminis, and the sooner we lose it the better."

"Which way shall we go?" she asked.

"Oh, that's been all arranged beforehand with the other members of the party," said Spotts, purposely omitting to mention their destination in the presence of their undesirable companion. "It can't be more than a mile or two across country to the Hudson River Railroad, and we'd better make for the nearest station. Do you feel up to walking?"

"Do I feel up to walking!" she exclaimed. "Well, if you'd been chucked round for an hour without being consulted, I guess you'd feel like doing a little locomotion on your own account." And without another word the three turned to get their belongings.

"Say," interjected the tramp, "where do I come in?"

"Oh, but you don't," said Spotts. "We're going to leave you this beautiful carriage and pair with our blessing. Better take a drive in the country and enjoy the fresh air."

"Yah!" snarled the disreputable one in reply. "That don't go! It's too thin! Why, look here, boss," he continued, addressing Banborough, "you went and 'scaped with me without so much as sayin' by your leave, and now, when you've gone and laid me open to extra time for evadin' of my penalty, you've got the cheek to propose to leave me alone in a cold world with that!" And he pointed expressively at the Black Maria.

"It is rather hard lines," admitted Cecil. "But, you see, it would never do to have you with us, my man. Why, your clothes would give us away directly."

"And I'll give yer away directly to the cops if you don't take me along."

Banborough and Spotts looked at each other in redoubled perplexity.

"You see," continued the anarchist, "I don't go for to blow on no blokes as has stood by me as youse has, but it's sink or swim together. Besides, you'd get lost in this country in no time, while I knows it well. Why, I burgled here as a boy."

"What's to be done?" asked Cecil.

"Oh, I suppose we've got to take him along," replied the actor. "We're all in the same boat, if it comes to that."

"Now if youse gents," suggested the tramp, "could find an extra pair of pants between you, this coat and hat would suit me down to the ground." And he laid a dirty paw on Banborough's discarded garments.

"No you don't!" cried that gentleman, hastily recovering his possessions. "Haven't you got any clothes in that bag of yours, Spotts?"

"Well, I have got a costume, Bishop, and that's a fact," replied the actor; "but it's hardly in his line, I should think."

"What is it?" asked the Englishman. "You seem about of a size."

"It's a Quaker outfit. I used it in a curtain-raiser we were playing."

"That would do very well," said Cecil, "if it isn't too pronounced."

"Oh, it's tame enough," replied the actor, who exercised a restraint in his art for which those who met him casually did not give him credit. Indeed, among the many admirable qualities which led people to predict a brilliant future for Spotts was the fact that he never overdid anything.

"Huh!" grunted the tramp, "I dunno but what I'd as lieve sport a shovel hat as the suit of bedticking they give yer up the river. I used to work round Philidelphy some, and I guess I could do the lingo."

"Give them to him," said Banborough. "I'll make it good to you."

"Well, take them, then," replied Spotts regretfully, handing their unwelcome companion the outfit which he produced from his bag, adding as he pointed to the woods: "Get in there and change quickly. We ought to be moving."

The tramp made one step towards the underbrush, and then, pausing doubtfully, said:

"You don't happen to have a razor and a bit of looking-glass about yer, do yer? I see there's a brook here, and there ain't nothin' Quakery about my beard."

The actor's face was a study.

"I'm afraid there's no escape from it, old man," remarked Cecil. "If you've your shaving materials with you, let him have them."

"There they are. You needn't trouble to return them."

Their recipient grinned appreciatively, and as the last rustle of his retirement into privacy died away, Miss Arminster turned to Banborough and demanded:

"Now tell me what I was arrested for, why you two ran away with me, and where I'm being taken."

"I can answer the first of those questions," broke in Spotts. "You're a Spanish sympathiser and a political spy."

"I'm nothing of the sort, as you know very well!" she replied, colouring violently. "I'm the leading lady of the A. B. C. Company."

"Of course we know it," returned the actor; "but the police have chosen to take a different view of the matter."

"Why is he chaffing me like this?" she said, appealing to Cecil.

"I'm afraid it's a grim reality," he replied. "You see, when the Spanish officials were turned out of Washington, they'd the impertinence to take the title of my book as their password."

"Well, then," she said, "they did what they'd no right to do."

"I suppose that would be a question of international copyright," he replied. "But 'The Purple Kangaroo' has proved itself a most troublesome animal, and as I thought you wouldn't care for quarters down the bay till the war was over, I took the liberty of running off with you."

"I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure; but what next?"

"We're all to rendezvous at Yonkers."

"And then?"

"Well, unless the situation improves, I'm afraid it'll become a question of seeking a refuge in another country."

"If you think," she cried, "that I'm going to spend the rest of my existence in the forests of Yucatan or on the plains of Patagonia, you're mightily mistaken!"

"Oh," he said, laughing, "it isn't as bad as all that. Ours is only a political crime, and Canada will afford a safe harbour from the extradition laws."

"But the war won't be finished in a day," she contended, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

"Won't you trust me?" asked Cecil, taking both her hands. "Won't you let me prove my repentance by guarding your welfare? Won't you – "

Indeed there is no knowing to what he might have committed himself in the face of such beauty and sorrow had not Spotts broken in with a cry of:

"It's all up now! We're done for, and no mistake!" And he pointed to the figure of a short, fat, red-faced man, very much out of breath, who was bustling down the road, waving his hands at them and shouting "Hi!"

"You'd better go and warn the tramp," said Banborough; and the actor plunged into the woods.

A moment later the stranger came up to them, and panted out:

"I arrest you both, in the name of the law!"

Neither said anything, but Banborough took one of Miss Arminster's tiny gloved hands in his own and gave it a little squeeze just by way of reassuring her.

"Well," said the new arrival, as soon as he had recovered his breath, "what have you got to say for yourselves?"

"I don't know that we've anything to say," replied Cecil sheepishly.

"I should think not!" said the other. "Here, take off that coat!" And he stripped the official garment from the Englishman's shoulders. "The cap, too!"

Banborough handed it to him, saying as he did so:

"You're a police official, I suppose?"

"I'm the Justice of the Peace from the next town. They just missed catching you at the last place you drove through, and telegraphed on to me. Knowing there was a cross-road here, I wasn't going to take any chance of losing you. I left the police to follow. They'll be along in a minute. Now what do you mean by it?"

"I don't suppose any explanations of mine would persuade you that you're making a mistake," said Banborough.

"No, I don't suppose they would. Now you put on that coat accidentally, didn't you? Just absent-mindedly – "

"I don't know you," broke in the Englishman, "and I don't – "

"That'll do," said the Justice of the Peace. "I don't know you either, and – yes, I do know the woman." Then turning to Miss Arminster, he continued: "Didn't I perform the marriage ceremony over you the year before last?"

"Yes," she said softly. And Cecil relinquished her hand. This, he considered, was worse than being arrested.

"I thought I did," went on the magistrate. "I don't often forget a face, and I'm sorry to see you in such bad company."

The young girl began to show signs of breaking down, and the situation was fast becoming acute, when the unexpected tones of an unctuous voice suddenly diverted everybody's attention.

"Why is thee so violent, friend?" said some one behind them. And turning quickly, they perceived the sleek, clean-shaven, well-groomed figure of a Quaker, dressed in a shad-bellied brown coat, a low black silk hat with a curved brim, and square shoes.

"Who the devil – !" began the officer.

"Fie! fie!" said the stranger. "Abstain from cursings and revilings in thy speech. But I am glad thee hast come, for verily I feared the workers of iniquity were abroad."

"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" asked the Justice of the Peace.

"I was returning from a meeting of the Friends," continued the Quaker blandly, "when I came upon these two misguided souls. As my counsellings were not heeded, and I am a man of peace, I had retired into the woods to pursue my way uninterrupted, when I heard thee approach."

"Well, I'll be glad of your assistance, though I daresay I could have managed them until the police came. They're a dangerous pair.

"And what will thee do with the other prisoner, friend?"

"Eh? What other prisoner?"

"The one that lies in a debauched sleep at the farther end of the van. I have striven to arouse him, but in vain."

"Where is he?" said the magistrate, peering into the black depths of the waggon.

"In the far corner. Thee canst not see him from here."

"I'll have him out in no time!" exclaimed the officer, springing into the van, with the driver's hat and coat still in his hand.

"Not if I knows it, you old bloke!" cried the sometime Quaker, slamming the door and turning the key with vicious enjoyment, while his three companions, for Spotts had emerged from the wood, executed a war-dance round the vehicle out of sheer joy and exultation. From within proceeded a variety of curses and imprecations, while the Black Maria bounced upon its springs as if a young elephant had gone mad inside.

Suddenly the Quaker laid a detaining hand upon Banborough's shoulder, saying:

"Take care, boss; here come the cops! I'll play the leading rôle, and you follow the cues."

They all paused and stood listening, while the rapid beat of a horse's hoofs came to their ears, and a second later a Concord waggon, loaded down with policemen, swung into view round the corner of the road, and presently drew up beside them.

"Thee hast come in good time, friend," said the Quaker to the chief officer. "We have watched thy prisoners overlong already."

"Where's the boss?" demanded the official.

"Dost thee mean the worldly man with the red face, much given to profane speaking?"

"I guess that's him," laughed one of the subordinates.

"As I was returning from a meeting of the Friends with these good people," pursued the Quaker, indicating his companions, "we came upon this vehicle standing in the road, the horses being held by two men, who, when they saw us, ran into the woods towards the river."

"How were they dressed?" asked the chief officer.

"One of them had garments like thine, friend."

"That's our man, sure!"

"Very presently," resumed the Quaker, "came thy master, using much unseemly language, who, having heard our story, followed the men in the direction we indicated, begging that we guard this carriage till you came, and bidding us tell you to return with it to the town."

"Well, I guess the boss knows his own business best," said the leader of the party; "so we'd better be getting back to the station. I suppose you'll come and give your evidence."

"I am a man of peace," said the Quaker; "but if my testimony is required I and my friends will walk behind thee to the next town and give it."

"It's only half a mile from here, a straight road – you can't miss it. You'll be there as soon as we want you."

The Quaker nodded.

"Then we'd better be moving," said the chief officer. "I'll drive Maria, and you fellows go ahead in the cart."

The remarks which were now proceeding from the interior of that vehicle were much too dreadful to record. But as it was about to start, the man of peace, lifting his hands, checked the driver and said:

"I will, with thy permission, approach the grating and speak a word of counsel." And going to the door, he said in a loud voice:

"Peace, friend. Remember what the good Benjamin Franklin has said: 'He that speaks much is much mistaken.'"

The reply elicited by these remarks was of such a nature that Miss Arminster was obliged to put her hands over her ears, and the police drove off with loud guffaws, enjoying immensely the good Quaker's confusion.

"That bloke," remarked the tramp, as the Black Maria disappeared in a cloud of dust, "give me three months once, an' I feels better."

And without another word he led the party across the road and into the woods in the direction of the river.