The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 10/202

Hawksley heard the panting of an engine and turned his head. Dimly he

saw a giant bridge and a long drab train moving across it. He picked up

the fallen man's cap and tried it on. Not a particularly good fit, but

it would serve. He then trotted round the deckhouse to the street side,

jumped to the wharf, and sucking the cracked knuckles of his right hand

fell into a steady dogtrot which carried him to the station he had left

so hopefully an hour and a half gone.

An accommodation train eventually deposited him in Poughkeepsie, where

he purchased a cap and a sturdy walking stick. The stubble on his chin

and cheeks began to irritate him intensely, but he could not rid himself

of the idea that a barber's chair would be inviting danger. He was now

tolerably certain that from one end of the continent to the other his

presence was known. His life and his property, they would be after both.

Even now there might be men in this strange town seeking him. The closer

he got to New York, the more active and wide-awake they would become.

He walked the streets, his glance constantly roving. But apparently no

one paid the least attention to him. Finally he returned to the railway

station; and at six o'clock that evening he left the platform of the

125th Street Station, and appraised covertly the men who accompanied him

to the street. He felt assured that they were all Americans. Probably

they were; but there are still some stray fools of American birth who

cannot accept the great American doctrine as the only Ararat visible

in this present flood. Perhaps one of these accompanied Hawksley to the

street. Whatever he was, one had upon order met every south-going train

since seven o'clock that morning, when Quasimodo, paying from the

gold hidden in his belt, had sent forth the telegraphic alarm. The man

hurried across the street and followed Hawksley by matching his steps.

His business was merely to learn the other's destination and then to

report.

Across the earth a tempest had been loosed; but Ariel did not ride

it, Caliban did. The scythe of terror was harvesting a type; and the

innocent were bending with the guilty.

Suddenly Hawksley felt young, revivified, free. He had arrived.

Surmounting indescribable hazards and hardships he walked the pavement

of New York. In an hour the mutable quicksands of a great city would

swallow him forever. Free! He wanted to stroll about, peer into shop

windows, watch the amazing electric signs, dally; but he still had much

to accomplish.

He searched for a telephone sign. It was necessary that he find one

immediately. He had once spent six weeks in and about this marvellous

city, and he had a vague recollection of the blue-and-white enamel

signs. Shortly he found one. It was a pay station in the rear of a news

and tobacco shop.