CHAPTER X.
RESCUE!
Motor Matt understood full well the gravity of his situation. Neveruntil that moment had he known the cause of the murderous Dhondaram'shostility to him, but now it appeared that he was merely seeking tocancel a debt which he owed Ben Ali.
Bill Wily's regard for his own welfare was all that stood between MotorMatt and the knife of the misguided Hindoo.
"Give me that knife, Dhondaram," ordered Wily.
"I will keep the knife, sahib," replied the other.
"Keep it, then, and be hanged to you," answered Wily angrily, "butyou'll settle with me if you try any knife tricks on the prisoner. Iguess you rise to that, all right enough. Take off the gag. I want totalk with Motor Matt."
Dhondaram bent down and removed the cloth.
"I'm a 'barker,'" went on Wily, still addressing the Hindoo and makingbrief display of a revolver, "but here's somethin' that bites as wellas barks. Put away that knife."
Silently the Hindoo returned the knife to his jacket and sank back onhis heels.
"What was you chasin' me for, Motor Matt?" asked Wily.
"Why were you running away from me?" Matt countered.
"That's my business. You answer my question. I guess you'd better treatme white, 'cause it's me that keeps the Hindoo from doin' a littleknife work on you."
"Burton wanted you to tell him something about that letter," Mattanswered, making up his mind that a little of the truth would not beout of place.
"Oh, ho!" muttered Wily. "Does he think I can read Hindoostanee?"
"No. What he wanted to know was where you got the letter. The Hindooswho have been connected with the show haven't turned out verywell--they are all fugitives from the law, even Dhondaram."
Not a ripple crossed the placid brown face of the Hindoo; only hisglittering eyes revealed the feeling that slumbered in the depths ofhis soul.
"I guessed there'd be a stir about that letter," went on Wily, "an'that's the reason I made up my mind to pull out. I'd had to explain,an' no matter what I'd said I'd have been fired, anyway. I used to livein Grand Rapids, and the home town was a good place for me to cut loosefrom the show, see?"
"Why are you treating me like this?" asked Matt quietly.
"Couldn't help it. Them kid pards o' yours was the cause o' the hullbloomin' twist-up!" Wily Bill swore savagely under his breath. "I'dlike to take the kinks out o' that Dutchman. He's too much on thebuttinsky order. You chased after me, hung on, an' wouldn't let go.What else could I do but make myself safe?"
"You didn't have to have Dhondaram knock me down."
"It wasn't him did that. He tried, but I had to finish the job. But Iwas treatin' you well, at that. I could have dropped down back of aclump o' bushes, there in the timber, and picked you off with this."Wily touched his hip pocket. "But I didn't. That ain't my style. I'drather have you like this an' come to a little agreement with you. Asfor Dhondaram, I hadn't an idea he was in the house. I'd given him akey, an' I knew he might be here, but I wasn't expectin' him so soon.Mebby it was lucky for me that he was around."
"So that's it, eh?" commented Matt sarcastically. "You've been meetingDhondaram, and helping him, when you knew he had been a prisoner ofBurton's and had escaped from the show train between Jackson andKalamazoo. If a person helps a fugitive of the law to escape, he isguilty of a crime and can be punished for it."
"There you hit it! But I was ducking out--and you wouldn't let me duck.I'm going to leave, in spite of you and Burton. That's the worst I'vedone--talkin' with Dhondaram and carryin' Hindoostanee letters. ButI'll not be jugged for that, or----"
A hiss of warning came from Dhondaram. At the same moment he leaneddown and replaced the cloth over Matt's lips.
Distant voices were heard, then the sound of a key rattling in a lock.
"The fellow that was here before has brought some others," whisperedWily. "Hang the luck! I wish we had got out o' here while we had thechance. Now, then, we're in for it an' no mistake."
"Listen, sahib!" frowned the Hindoo.
The voices that had been heard outside the house were now talking inthe hall. It was impossible to distinguish words, but Matt's heartleaped as he recognized McGlory's voice and Burton's.
They were looking for him!
"They cannot find us down here, sahib," murmured the Hindoo, his voicesoft and purring as that of a tiger cat. "They will go as the first onewent, then we can leave."
This was Wily's hope. Breathlessly he listened to the sounds above.The footsteps and the voices faded away into the upper regions of thebuilding.
"Now," muttered Wily, "we might be able to dodge through the frontdoor. They're all upstairs."
Dhondaram shook his head.
"The door in the floor, sahib, cannot be found," he whisperedreassuringly. "The _feringhis_ will not discover us. Be patient."
Presently Matt heard his friends returning to the lower floor, heardthem enter the kitchen, heard the sound of lifted windows and openingblinds, marked the slow and steady advance from the kitchen into thehall, and along the hall to a point under the stairs.
By then, even Dhondaram had begun to take alarm.
"They're at the trap!" gasped Wily Bill.
"Is there no way out of this hole, sahib?" demanded Dhondaram throughhis teeth.
"Only by the way we came in. I lived in this house and I know all aboutit."
Dhondaram smashed the flat of his hand down over the light of thecandle. The Stygian blackness that reigned showed plainly the rim ofdaylight under the lifting door.
"The revolver!" hissed Dhondaram. "Shoot, sahib!"
"No, I tell you!" answered Wily. "I'll have none o' that, or----"
With a savage snarl, Dhondaram hurled himself on Wily Bill in a furiouseffort to secure the revolver and fight off the approaching rescuers.
The trapdoor had been thrown entirely back, and daylight was floodingthe pit. The sounds of the struggle between the Hindoo and Wily Billreached the ears of those above.
"Here they are!" cried the voice of McGlory, and instantly he leapeddownward.
With a blow of his fist the Hindoo staggered the cowboy, leaped upward,and gained the floor.
"Dhondaram!" yelled Burton, who was just preparing to follow McGlorydown under the floor.
The word was hardly out of his lips before the showman was compelled todrop back to avoid a sweeping blow of the knife in the Hindoo's hand.
McGlory was looking for Matt, and paid little attention to the Hindoo.He found his pard with his groping hands, for his eyes were blinded bythe sudden change from day to the darkness of the pit.
"Bully for you, pard!" exclaimed McGlory. "Lashed hand and foot, or I'ma Piegan! Speak to me about this, will you? And gagged, too. Sufferin'blazes, but you've had a time! There, how's that?"
The cowboy pulled away the cloth.
"Wily's here," were Matt's first words. "He and the Hindoo had a fight,and----"
"Bother Wily! It's you I'm after," and, with his open knife, McGloryslashed at the cords. "Now we can look after Wily."
Leaving that part of the work to his chum, Matt leaped upward andclimbed over the edge of the floor. Burton was running toward one ofthe front rooms.
"Where's the Hindoo?" cried Matt.
"The Englishman tagged him in here, after heading him off at the door,"panted Burton. "I always knew that thug was a killer, and if I hadn'tbeen quick he'd have knifed me."
A smash of glass came from the front room and two of the blinds weresmashed open. The light afforded by this gave Matt and Burton a view ofa desperate struggle in which the attach? of the British Legation wasproving himself a whole man, in every sense of the word.
Unarmed, and with every disregard for his personal danger, Twomley hadset upon the Hindoo. Dhondaram's knife had ripped Twomley's coat andbrought a stain of red, but the Englishman had both hands around theHindoo's throat, and they were flinging here and there around the room.
The smash of glass and the crash of the blinds h
ad been caused byDhondaram falling heavily against one of the windows. Then suddenly,before either Matt or Burton could go to his aid, Twomley hurled hisantagonist from him with terrific force. The Hindoo fell sprawlingagainst the wall, and dropped stunned to the floor. His knife slippedfrom his hand, and Burton kicked it aside while he and Matt threwthemselves upon the supine figure.
"Take his turban," said Matt, "and bind his hands with it."
The turban was merely a long strip of twisted cloth, and there were twoor three yards of it--enough for both his wrists and ankles.
Barely was the tying finished when McGlory drove Wily into the roomwith his own six-shooter.
"Talk about this, friends," laughed McGlory. "Wily Bill fights withthe Hindoo, and has the tuck about all taken out of him. I snatch hisrevolver, and then we come out from under the floor, Wily in the leadand acting real peaceable. You've caught Dhondaram, too. Everything'slovely, eh?"
"All serene," answered the Englishman.
He had removed his coat and was binding his handkerchief about his arm.
"Twomley captured Dhondaram, Joe," said Matt, "and did it alone."
"Getting stabbed for his pains," added Burton.
"A scratch," was Twomley's cool response. "How could you expect meto do a thing like that without getting a nick or two? A pretty showaltogether. And it might have been a good deal worse."