CHAPTER XII
ON THE ROAD
Gone! It was the only word he, could think of. Every thought, everyemotion centered around it. He could not reason or argue. No planoccurred to him now. He continued to sit still, seeing but onepicture--a boat vanishing. Night had begun to fall as they returned tothe city. Its lights played mockingly in the darkness. Mr. Heatherbloomviewed them with apathetic gaze. The secret-service man, the chief ofpolice and his assistants were on shore somewhere waiting to capturehim, but he did not care. Let them take him now! What did it matter?
When the boat reached land he got out like an automaton. Perhaps he madeanswer to the darky's last cheerful good night, but if so he spokewithout knowing it. The boatman let him go, willingly; Mr. Heatherbloomhadn't asked for his last bill back again and the other overlookedreminding him of his remissness. The greenback was considerably morethan the fare.
Indifferent to his fate, Mr. Heatherbloom moved on; no one molested him.He walked along dark highways, not through fear of being apprehended,but because his mood was dark. He did not even notice where he went; hejust kept going. He forgot he was hungry, but at length, as in a dream,he began to realize a physical weariness. Overwrought nature asserteditself; he was not made of iron; his muscles responded reluctantly.Without observing his surroundings, he sank listlessly to the earth; thecool grass received his exhausted frame. Beyond, some distance away, thelights of the city threw now a sullen glow on the sky. All wascomparatively still about him; the noise of the city was replaced by thelighter sound of vehicles on the well kept, almost non-resoundingcountry road. It seemed to be a main thoroughfare, but with little lifeand animation about it at that evening hour. A buggy did go byoccasionally, however, and, not far from Mr. Heatherbloom, at a curb,stood a motor-car.
He had suffered himself to relax on the ground in front of a small houseset well back among spectral-looking trees and surrounded by a stonewall overgrown with foliage. Mr. Heatherbloom remained unmindful of hissurroundings. The lamps of the car near by were not lighted; a singlefigure on the front seat was barely distinguishable. Now this person gotdown and lighted a cigarette; he seemed restless, walked to and fro, andglanced once or twice at the house. From a single window a faint lightgleamed; then it vanished, only to reappear a few moments later atanother window. Among the masses of foliage fireflies glistened; atree-toad began to make a sound but almost immediately stopped. Thefront door had apparently opened and some person or persons came out.The faint crunchings on the gravel indicated more than one person. Nowthey stepped on the grass, for there were no audible indications oftheir approach. The man near the machine threw quickly away hiscigarette and opened the door of the car. Several people, issuing fromthe gate, crossed the sidewalk and got in. Mr. Heatherbloom was hardlyaware of the fact; they seemed but unmeaning shadows.
The driver bent over and lighted one of his lamps. As he did so, theflare revealed for an instant his face--square, rather handsome andbearded. A faint flicker of interest, for some reason undefinable tohimself at the moment, swept over Mr. Heatherbloom. He had been lyingwhere the grass was tall and now raised himself on his elbow, the betterto peer over the waving tops. The car had gathered headway and swung outinto the road, when suddenly some one in it laughed and uttered anexclamation in a foreign tongue. That musical note--a word he did notunderstand--was wafted to Mr. Heatherbloom. It acted upon him like agalvanic shock; he sprang to his feet and, bewildered, stared after themachine. What had happened; was he dreaming? He could hardly at firstbelieve the evidence of his senses, for the laugh, coming back to him inthe night, was that of the woman for whom he had procured employment atMiss Van Rolsen's. He could have sworn to the fact now. And the manwhose countenance he had so briefly seen was, no doubt, of her ownnationality--a Russian!
Involuntarily, without realizing what he did, Mr. Heatherbloom startedto run in the direction the car had gone, but he soon stopped. Whatmadness!--to attempt to catch a sixty-horse-power machine! Why, it wasnearly a mile away already. The young man stood stock-still while acogent reaction swept over him. The woman had passed within fifty feetof where he had lain, head near the earth, moping. A mocking desire toatone for a great remissness found him impotent. There seemed nothingfor him to do now but to reconcile himself to the irreconcilable, tostay here, while every desire urged him to follow her, to learn why thiswoman was in the car and who was with her. Naturally, he had expectedshe would be on the yacht now steaming away out to sea, and here shewas. A new enigma confronted him.
Mr. Heatherbloom continued to stand in the center of the road. His headwhirled; he panted hard, out of breath from his recent dash. A loudhonk! honk! from another machine coming unexpectedly up behind, causedhim to leap aside just in time. The second car whizzed by, althoughobeying an impulse born on the instant, he called out wildly, waving hisarms to bring it to a halt. If they saw his strange motions--which wasunlikely, the night being dark--they did not heed them. Soon the secondmachine was some distance away; then its rear light gleamed like avanishing coal and suddenly disappeared altogether around a bend of theroad.
He looked back; no other vehicle of any description was in sight now.But it profited nothing to continue passive, immovable. He had to act,to walk on, no matter how slowly; his face, at least, was set in thedirection the woman had gone. How long it took him to reach the turn ofthe thoroughfare he could not tell, but at length there, he came againto an abrupt stop. Some distance ahead in the road appeared a machine,motionless--waiting, or broken down.
Which car was it? The one containing the woman, or the other that cameafter? If the former--He pressed on eagerly, yet keeping to the shadows,alive once more to the need of caution. His heart pounded hard; he couldsee a form passing in front of the machine; the light of the lampenabled him now to make out the other occupants--three men. No woman waswith them. This became poignantly, irrefutably evident as he drewnearer. He could see plainly the empty car and the trio of figures; hecould hear them talking but was not yet able to distinguish what theysaid. These were the people whose attention he had tried to attract backthere in the road. His purpose then, occurring to him in a flash,renewed itself strongly now. He would ask their aid; circumstances mightenable him to do so now with better grace. He had had a good deal ofexperience with cars of divers kinds and makes at different times in thepast. Why not proffer these strangers his fairly expert services? Hefelt sure he could soon learn, and repair, what was wrong with themachine. Having made himself useful, he could then intimate that a"lift" down the road would be acceptable. And he would probably get it.
But he did not carry out his intention. Something he heard as he camecloser to them caused him to hesitate and reconsider. Mixed withanathemas directed against the car, of rather a cheap type, were wordsthat had for him more than passing significance. These men were aftersome one, and that the some one was none other than himself, Mr.Heatherbloom soon became fully convinced. Fate had been kinder to himthan he knew when he had endeavored, and failed, to win their notice. Hecrouched back now against a rail fence; their low disgruntled tones werestill borne to him. For some moments they continued to work over themachine without apparently being able to set it to rights.
"If this goes on much longer," said one of them, "he'll get away fromBrownville."
"Providin' he's there!" grumbled another. "People are always seeing anescaped criminal in a dozen different localities at the same time."
Brownville! The listener soon divined, from a sentence dropped here andthere, that the place was a little fishing village a short distance downthe coast. He surmised, also, that they had by this time the main harborof the city fairly watched as far as outgoing vessels were concerned,and were reaching out to prevent a possible exit from the smallercommunity. Fishing craft leaving from there could easily take out afugitive and thus enable him to escape. This contingency the authoritieswere now endeavoring to avert; that they also had some kind of a clue,pointing to their present destination and inciting them to make hastethither, was e
vident from the skeptical remark Mr. Heatherbloom hadoverheard.
A series of explosions, as sudden as spasmodic, broke in on thelistener's thoughts. "Hurray!" said one. "We're off!"
And they were, quickly. Mr. Heatherbloom also moved with extremeabruptness and expedition. Waiting in the shadow until they had allsprung into the car and the machine had fairly started, he then dartedforward, seized a strap and clinging as best he might, hoisted himselfto the place in the rear designed for a trunk. One desire only, inresorting to this expedient, moved him--to get in touch as soon aspossible, if possible, with the other car. This machine, of inferiorbuild, suggested, it is true, a dubious way to that end but it was thebest that offered.
He did not see the incongruity of his position, of being a passenger,though secretly and surreptitiously, of the car containing thoseembarked on a mission so closely concerning himself. Instead of fleeingfrom them he was actually courting their company, pursuing himself, asit were! At another time he might have smiled; now the situation had forhim nothing of the comic; it was tragically grim, also decidedlyunpleasant. A strong odor of gasolene permeated his nostrils until hewas nearly suffocated by it and all the dust, stirred by their flight,swirled up on him, making it difficult to refrain from coughing.Fortunately the machine had a monopoly on noises, and any sound from himwould have passed unnoticed. He had ridden the "bumpers" not so long agoon freights, and, perforce, indulged in kindred uncomfortable methods offree transportation in the course of his recent career, but he had neverexperienced anything quite so little to be desired as this.
The driver had begun to speed; as if to make up for lost time, he wasforcing the engine to its limit. The machine, of light construction,shook violently, negotiated the steep places with jumps and slid down onthe other side with breakneck velocity. The dust thickened about Mr.Heatherbloom's head so that he could scarcely see. His arms ached andevery bump nearly tore him loose. He wound the strap around his wristand strove to ensconce himself deeper in a place not large enough forhim. He was on an edge all the time, and felt as if he were fallingover every moment; the edge, too, was sharp and dug into him.
Mr. Heatherbloom, however, had little thought of bodily discomfort; hewas more concerned in making progress and the difficulty of maintaininghis position. His only fear was that he would be compelled to abandonhis place because his physical energy might not be equal to the demandsput upon it. He set his teeth now and began to count the seconds. Thefaster they went, the better was his purpose served; he strove to findencouragement in the thought. The other car could make a superiorshowing in the way of speed, but it might stop voluntarily somewhereafter a while, or something might happen to arrest its progress. Therace did not always belong to the swift. He endeavored to formulate someplan as to just what he would do if he did finally manage to overtakethe woman and her party, but at length ceased trying. Sufficient untothe moment were the problems thereof; he could but strive in thepresent. He dispelled the fear that he could not hold on much longer,and filled himself with new determination not to yield. But even as hedid so, a bigger bump than any they had yet encountered jerked himabruptly from his place.
When finally he managed to collect himself and his senses and sit upuncertainly in the road, the car was far away. The snap of explodinggasolene grew faint--fainter--then ceased altogether.