The car jerked into motion. A hoa.r.s.e voice ordered them to stop. A pistol was fired. The bold voice said:

"Step on her hard!"

The car roared down the street with wide open exhaust, turned a corner on two wheels, and another corner, and soon outdistanced all sounds of pursuit.

The power of movement was coming back to Evan, but he still lay still; he was at too great a disadvantage to put up a struggle. That which enveloped him was a thick cotton comforter; it clove to his tongue, and the stuffy smell of it filled his nostrils. Moreover, he had a lively recollection of the blackjack or whatever it was that had laid him out in the beginning. It was useless to cry out; even if he should be heard above the noise of the engine, who could stop the flying car?

As his wits cleared he set them to work to try to puzzle out the direction in which he was being carried. He could tell from the lurch of the car whether they turned to the right or the left. In the beginning they turned so many corners that all sense of direction was lost, but after a while they struck a car-line and held to it for a long time. He knew they were running in car-tracks by the smoothness of their pa.s.sage, broken by occasional b.u.mpings as they slipped out of the rails. It was a street with little traffic, for their progress was rapid and uninterrupted.

Presently he heard an elevated train roar overhead, and he knew where he was. "Greenwich street or Ninth avenue," he said to himself. As they still held to their car-line he knew they were bound up-town; headed the other way, they would have reached the end of the island before this. Bye and bye they coasted down a long hill and puffed up the other side. He guessed this to be the valley between Ninety-third street and One Hundred and Fourth, and presently knew he was right, when he heard the wheels of the elevated trains grinding on a curve high overhead. The Hundred and Tenth street curve, of course; there is no other such curve on the island.

The car turned to the right and then to the left again, still running in the rails. "Eighth avenue now," he said to himself, "and still heading north."

Later he heard a car-gong of a different timbre and the unmistakable hiss of a trolley wheel on its wire. There are no overhead wires on Manhattan Island except at the several points where the off-island railways terminate. "Union railway," Evan said to himself. "We've reached the Harlem river." Sure enough, they pa.s.sed over a draw-bridge; the double clank-clank of the draw could not be mistaken.

"Central Bridge," thought Evan.

But in the smoothly paved streets of the Bronx he lost every clue to his whereabouts. They ran in the car tracks for a while, then left them; they made several right and left turns and crossed other tracks.

Evan guessed they were in a well-travelled motor highway for he heard other cars, but that told him nothing; there are a dozen such highways radiating from Central Bridge.

He lay against the feet and legs of his two captors. He listened eagerly for any talk between them that might furnish him with a clue.

But if they conversed it must have been in whispers. On one occasion, though, he heard him of the milder voice say:

"He's so quiet! Do you suppose he's all right?"

"Search me!" was the indifferent response. "His body is hot enough on my feet, I know."

"Hadn't I better look at him?"

"Sure! And print your face on his memory forever!"

"I believe that comforter is half suffocating him."

"What of it? You can't make a cake without breaking eggs."

Gradually the noises of the street lessened, and Evan gathered that they were getting out into the spa.r.s.ely settled districts. They were bowling along rapidly and smoothly. About twenty minutes after they had crossed Central Bridge (if Central Bridge it was) the more determined voice suddenly said to the chauffeur:

"Don't turn in now. There's a car behind. Run slow and let it pa.s.s.

Then come back."

This was evidently done. They turned in the road. As they came back the voice said:

"All clear. Go ahead in."

The car turned to the right and jolted over what seemed to be a shallow ditch. The road that followed was of the roughest character. If it was a road at all it was a wood-track; Evan heard the twigs crackle under the tires. They lurched and b.u.mped alarmingly. Once they had to stop to allow the chauffeur to drag some obstruction out of the way.

Evidently they had not had the car that way before, for the chauffeur said anxiously:

"Are you sure we can get through?"

The resolute voice answered: "We've got to."

The chauffeur said: "I couldn't turn around here."

The other voice replied: "There's a clear s.p.a.ce in front of the house."

This way was not very long; a quarter of a mile, Evan guessed. They came to a stop, and the two men climbed out over Evan. He was unceremoniously dragged out feet foremost. They carried him a short distance--Evan heard gra.s.s or verdure swishing around their legs. They entered a house and laid him down on a floor, a rough worn floor.

Here Evan heard a new voice, a woman's voice with slurred accents and a fat woman's laugh. The strong-voiced man said:

"Here's a guest for you, Aunt Liza."

"Lawsy! Lawsy! What divelment you been up to now!"

A general laugh went round. To the bound Evan it had a blackguardedly and infamous sound.

He was abruptly turned over on his face. While one man held the folds of the comforter tightly round his head, the other two knelt on his back and, pulling his arms behind him, tied his wrists together. Evan put up the best struggle he could against such heavy odds. The man who had taken the princ.i.p.al part against him laughed.

"You see, there's life in him yet," he said.

After his wrists they tied his ankles, and got up from him. The comforter was still over Evan's head, and he was powerless to throw it off. The same voice said:

"After we're out of the room you can uncover his head, and give him air. And feed him when dinner's ready."

A door closed.

CHAPTER XV

THE CLUB HOUSE

The coverlet was thrown back from Evan's head, and breathing deep with relief, he saw bending over him a grinning, fat negress, not evil-looking, but merely simple in expression.

She exclaimed like a child: "Laws! it's a pretty man!"

"Where am I?" asked Evan.

"Deed, I do' know, chile!"

"I'll pay you well if you'll help me out of here."

"Deed, I cain't help you, honey. I'm here, but I don' know where it is no more than you do. White folks brung me here, and white folks will take me away again I reckon."

Evan looked around him. He seemed to be in a room of an ancient abandoned farm-house. There was no furniture. The ceiling was low; the great fireplace was certainly more than a century old. The smell of rotting wood was in the air; the plaster was coming down, revealing the wrought hand-split laths beneath; the floor was full of holes.

There were two windows with many missing panes. The sun was streaming in. From Evan's position flat on his back on the floor he could only see the sky through the upper sashes.

In contrast with the wreckage that surrounded them the old negress was neat and clean. She wore a black cotton dress and a gingham ap.r.o.n and on her head was a quaint, flat-topped cap made from a folded newspaper.

She seemed neither ill-disposed nor well-disposed towards Evan but regarded him simply as an amusing curiosity.