CHAPTER XIX

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF KATHERINE

The curious spell of the "Fata Morgana" descended upon Katherine again as

she emerged from the concert hall and made her way through a poorly

lighted side street toward the main avenue where the street cars passed.

The long, waving shadows seemed to clutch at her ankles as she walked;

strange noises sounded in her ears; the trees that bordered the curb left

their places and began to move toward her with a grotesque, circling

motion, while the distant glare of light toward which she was traveling

began to recede until it was a mere twinkling speck, miles away in the

distance. Again her strength forsook her, and with violently trembling

hands she grasped an iron fence railing and clung desperately to keep

herself from falling. The touch of the cold metal sent a little shock

tingling through her; she braced herself and looked steadily at the

spectres crowding about her. The trees had gone back into their places;

the shadows no longer seemed to be crouching ready to spring at her.

"Silly!" exclaimed Katherine, though her teeth still chattered.

She let go of the fence and started on; immediately the trees resumed

their fantastic circling, and again her knees threatened to double under

her. Then she realized that it was not the "Fata Morgana" that held her

in thrall, but the extra lobster croquette. The disastrous fate which

Mrs. Lehar had predicted would overtake Veronica had befallen her

instead--she was in the throes of acute indigestion! O, if only she had

not eaten that second croquette! Lobster never agreed with her; she

should have known better than to eat it, especially after she had just

eaten shrimp salad. Why hadn't she had the sense to refuse that second

one? (Katherine was still unaware that she had eaten, not two, but three

of the deadly things, a circumstance which had undoubtedly saved Veronica

from a like fate.)

She clung dizzily to the fence for a few moments, and then, feeling

somewhat relieved by the cold wind blowing strongly against her face,

struck out once more for the carline. A few steps convinced her that she

could not make it; the world was whirling around her, and her limbs

refused to obey her will. A little farther up the street, where the fence

ended, the arched entrance-way into a church offered a resting-place and

shelter against the high wind and beating rain. Stumbling up the steps,

she sank down on the stone floor, and, pressing her cold hand against her

throbbing temples, leaned weakly against the wall of her little

sanctuary.

Weariness overcame her and she sank gradually into a doze, from which she

wakened with a start at the sound of a steeple clock chiming. Boom! Boom!

Boom! The clanging tones echoed through the narrow street. Katherine sat

up hastily and stared around her in bewilderment for a moment; then

recollected herself and rose cautiously to her feet. To her infinite

relief she found that her knees no longer had any inclination to knock

together; the feeling of illness had passed. Taking a deep breath, and

setting her hat straight on her head, she walked steadily down the steps

and out upon the street once more. The clock which had wakened her so

rudely was in the steeple just above her and Katherine gave a gasp of

dismay when she saw the time. A quarter to eleven! She should be down at

the station now, taking the ten-forty-five train back to Oakwood. What

had happened? Could she possibly have fallen asleep in that cozy little

entrance way? Why had she not heard the clock strike the half hour? How

worried Nyoda would be when she did not come in on that ten-forty-five

train! she thought in sudden panic. She must hasten down to the station

immediately and telephone Nyoda that she had missed that train, but would

come on the next.

Was there another train to-night? she wondered, in fresh panic.

Ten-forty-five sounded like the last local. She stopped under a street

light for the purpose of consulting her time-table, and then she made a

discovery which drove the matter of time-tables out of her head entirely,

and brought the weakness back to her knees in full force, namely, the

discovery that she no longer carried her handbag. Her heart almost

stopped beating, for in that handbag was Nyoda's watch--the little

jewelled watch Sherry had given her for an engagement present. Aside from

its intrinsic value, which was considerable, Nyoda cherished that watch

above all her other possessions.

She must have left the bag in the entrance-way where she had stopped to

rest, Katherine decided, and, forgetting all about the weakness of a half

hour ago, she ran swiftly across the street and up the steps of the

church. She felt over every inch of the floor in the darkness, but the

bag was not there.

Had she brought it with her out of the auditorium? Yes, because she had

dropped it in the lobby, and in stooping to pick it up had felt the first

touch of that dizzyness which had overpowered her so soon afterward. She

must have lost it in the street. She retraced her steps back to the

concert hall, now dark and deserted, carefully searching all the way. Her

search, however, was unavailing; and with a sinking feeling she realized

that either someone had picked it up, or else she had been deliberately

robbed while she slept; in either event, the bag was gone, and with it

Nyoda's watch.

It seemed to her that she could never go home and tell Nyoda that it was

lost; she wished the earth would open up and swallow her where she stood,

thus releasing her, at one stroke, from her distressful position. She

bitterly reproached herself for having stayed in town that evening,--if

she had gone home on the five-fifteen train this wouldn't have happened.

Nyoda had given her precious watch into her keeping, trusting her to

bring it back safely, and she had betrayed that trust; had proved herself

unreliable. Nyoda would never trust her with anything valuable again;

would never send her on another errand. True, it was not exactly her

fault that she had lost the bag; but if she had not been foolish enough

to eat all those lobster croquettes after eating shrimp salad she would

not have had any dizzy spell to distract her attention from her

responsibility.

For fully five minutes she stood still and called herself every hard name

she could think of, and ended up by making an emphatic resolution in

regard to the future attitude toward lobster croquettes. In the meantime,

she decided, she had better notify the police about the watch. A block

ahead of her the green and blue lights of a drug store shone blurred but

unmistakable through the misty atmosphere, and she splashed her way

toward it, only to find on arriving that the place was closed. She walked

several more blocks, searching either for an open drug store where she

could telephone, or a corner policeman, and finding neither. A street

clock pointed to eleven, and from somewhere in the darkness behind her

came the subdued tone of the steeple chime.

The rain had stopped now, and it was growing colder; the puddles on the

sidewalk began to be filmed over with ice. The wind took on a cutting

edge and came sallying forth in great gusts, shrieking along the

telephone wires and setting the electric arc lights overhead swaying

wildly back and forth, until the rapidly shifting lights and shadows

below gave the street the look of a tossing lake. Now billowing out like

a sail, now wrapping itself determinedly around her ankles, Katherine's

long coat began to make walking a difficult proceeding. Then, without

warning, the arc lights suddenly went out, plunging the world into utter

blackness. With that, Katherine abandoned her intention of searching for

a telephone and decided to get down to her train as fast as she could.

With every other step she went crashing through a thin coating of ice

into a puddle, for in the darkness it was impossible to see where she was

going, and once she tripped over an uneven edge of flagging and went

sprawling on her hands and knees. Thereafter, she felt her way, like a

blind person, with the point of her umbrella.

It was gradually borne in upon Katherine, as she floundered on through

the puddles, that she was not retracing her steps toward the carline, but

was proceeding in a new and entirely unknown direction. The store fronts

which loomed indistinctly through the darkness were not the same ones she

had passed before; surely those others had not been so shabby and

disreputable looking. But so intense was the blackness of the night that

she could not be sure about anything; she might be on the right track

after all. Undoubtedly the next turn would bring her back to the lighted

drug store, and from that point she could easily locate herself. No green

and blue lights appeared when she turned the next corner, however; as far

as she could see, there was only gloom in the distance. Katherine tried

street after street with no better success; they all led endlessly on

into darkness. She met no one from whom she dared ask the way; for there

was only an occasional passer-by, and he usually looked tipsy. It was

evidently a factory district Katherine had wandered into, for all around

her were great dark buildings with high chimneys, long, dim warehouses,

box cars standing on sidings, silent, gloomy freight sheds; there seemed

to be no end of them anywhere; in all directions they stretched out, like

Banquo's descendents, apparently to the crack of doom. The nightmare of

the "Fata Morgana" had come true, and she was lost in the wilderness of a

strange city.

For a long time Katherine had not heard the rumble of a street car, and

this phenomenon finally became so noticeable that she realized what must

have happened--the traction power had been cut off as well as the

lighting current. With that realization her last hope of getting down to

the station went glimmering--unless she could get a taxicab. But where

was one to find a taxicab in this district? A faint light gleaming in the

window of a small shop that crouched between two tall factories lured

Katherine on with the hope that here was a telephone, or at least someone

about who could tell her the way. She hastened toward it, but her heart

turned to water within her when she saw that the lettering on the window

pane was Chinese. More than anything else in the whole universe,

Katherine feared a Chinaman; she was so afraid of the little yellow men

that even in broad daylight she could never go by a Chinese laundry

without holding her breath and shuddering. Even the picture of a Chinaman

gave her the creeps. When she discovered that she was in a Chinese

neighborhood after eleven o'clock at night, with the street lamps all

out, a hoarse cry of terror broke involuntarily from her lips, and she

began to run blindly, she knew not where, penetrating deeper and deeper

into that jungle of factories which flanks the railroad on both sides for

miles.

Out of breath finally, she came to a stop, and for a few moments stood

gasping, with a hand to her side. Not far ahead of her a light from a

building shone across the darkness of the street, and loud sounds of

revelry coming from the direction of the light told her that the place

was a saloon. She stood still for another moment, trying to get up

courage to pass it; decided at last that with Chinamen in the other

direction it was the lesser of two evils, and walked on, praying

fervently that none of the revellers inside would come out at the moment

she was going by. She had hardly gone a few steps when a figure appeared

on the lighted sidewalk in front of the place with a suddenness which

left no doubt of his having come from within. In the bright glare

Katherine recognized the long light coat and visor cap of the man who had

stood beside her that evening in the flower shop where she had purchased

Veronica's violets, and who had looked with such a covetous eye upon the

roll of bills she had taken from her inside coat pocket. The bills were

still there, and it seemed to her now that they made a very telltale

bulge over her right breast. The man was coming toward her; in a few

minutes he would see and recognize her, and then----

Katherine darted into an alleyway which opened near her, and on through a

half-open gate in a low, solid wooden fence, and crouching there behind

the fence in the darkness, she waited until the footsteps had gone

past,--creak, creak, creakety-creak, with a rhythmic squeaking of shoes.

Not until the sound had died away completely did she venture forth from

her hiding place, and then she stood perfectly still and looked

cautiously about her in every direction before she made a move to

proceed. With the knowledge that the danger had passed, her feeling of

panic began to leave her, and her native coolness began to assert itself.

She took a careful stock of her situation and tried to think up a way to

escape from her predicament. That she was hopelessly lost in this

wilderness of streets whose names meant nothing to her, even if she had

been able to see the sign boards, she realized full well; instinct warned

her not to betray her situation to anyone she might meet in this

neighborhood--providing she met any one, for the wind seemed to have

blown all pedestrians off the streets; and the lateness of the hour made

it extremely unprobable that she would find a telephone. She stood on one

leg in the storklike attitude which always indicated deep thought with

her, and pondered all the phases of her dilemma with the calm

deliberation which invariably came to her in moments of great stress.

"The only time Katherine is composed," Sahwah had said once, "is when she

is in a pickle." And if Katherine was now in the biggest pickle she had

ever experienced, by the same token her brain had never worked so coolly

and logically before.

"When lost in the woods," she said to herself, going over in her mind her

knowledge of woodcraft, "the first thing to do is to climb a tree and get

your bearings. That's all right for the woods, but there aren't any trees

here to climb. I might climb a telegraph pole," she thought whimsically,

as her eye fell upon one nearby, "and see if I can locate myself. No,

that wouldn't do, either, for the whole city is dark, and I couldn't see

anything if I did get up. So much for rule number one.

"Now for rule number two. 'Establish your directions by observing and

reading the signs of nature. Moss always grows on the north side of

trees.' Hm. Trees again, and telegraph poles won't do as substitutes this

time. Moss doesn't grow on the north side of telegraph poles. There isn't

any difference between the north side of a telegraph pole and any

other----"

Katherine's train of thought was suddenly interrupted by her glance

resting on the pole in question. One side of it, she could see in the

light from the saloon, was glazed with ice where the driving rain had

frozen in the chill wind. That wind was now coming from every

direction--north, south, east and west--at once, and it was therefore

impossible to judge from the whirling gusts which was north; but earlier

in the evening, when the rain was falling, the wind had blown steadily

from the north. Accordingly, the strip of ice on those poles carried the

very same message as the moss on the trees in the woods. Katherine

exclaimed aloud in delight at her discovery. In a twinkling she had her

bearings.

"North, south, east, west," she said triumphantly, pointing in the four

respective directions. "Not a bad piece of scouting, that. What's the

difference, whether it's moss or ice?--it's the same principle. Talk

about your _pole_ stars!

"I believe I know approximately where I am," she continued, her brain

keeping up its logical working. "We turned south from B---- Avenue to go

to the Music Hall, I remember hearing Veronica say so; therefore, not yet

having come to B---- Avenue in my wanderings, I must still be on the

south side of it, and by going due north will come to it eventually. The

way is as plain as the nose on your face; just follow the ice on the

telegraph poles. I can feel it in places where it's too dark to see. All

aboard for B---- Avenue!"

Katherine set off as fast as she could go through the darkness, whistling

in her relief, and confidently keeping her feet pointed toward the north.

As if acting upon the principle that the gods help them who help

themselves, the street lights came on again just at that moment, showing

up the corners and crossings, and making progress very much easier. She

had gone some half dozen blocks, and was once more passing the long row

of gloomy, windowless warehouses which she remembered having seen before,

when it became apparent to her alert senses that she was being followed.

For the last two or three blocks she had heard the sound of a footfall

behind her, turning the same corners she had turned, taking the same

short-cut she had taken through a factory yard, and gradually drawing

nearer. "Creak, creak, creakety-creak!" Through the still night air it

sounded with startling distinctness; the same squeaking footfall that had

passed her ten minutes before, when she had crouched, with wildly beating

heart, behind the fence in the dark alley. Filled with prophetic

apprehension, she turned and looked around, and in the light of a street

lamp several hundred yards behind her saw the figure that had loomed so

large in her fears all evening. It required no second glance to recognize

the long, light overcoat and the visor cap drawn low over the eyes. For

an instant, Katherine's feeling of alarm held her rooted to the spot,

even while she noticed that the man had increased his speed and the

distance between them was rapidly lessening; then the power of locomotion

came back with a rush and she began to run. Her worst fears were

confirmed when she heard the man behind her start to run also.

Katherine doubled her speed and fled like a deer, slipping wildly over

the icy sidewalk and expecting every minute to fall down, but by some

miracle of good luck managing to retain her balance. Yet, run as she

might, she realized that her pursuer was gaining; the footsteps pounding

along behind her sounded nearer and nearer every minute. Her long coat,

winding about her knees, caused her to slacken speed; her breath began to

give out; she developed an agonizing pain in her side. She knew that the

race was lost; in a moment more she would be overtaken. She had just

summoned breath for a last final spurt when she heard a crash behind her

and the sound of a body falling on the sidewalk; she dashed on without

slackening speed. The next minute she slipped on a sheet of ice in the

middle of a crossing and fell headlong to the ground, just as a taxicab,

coming out of the side street, turned the corner. Katherine heard a

hoarse shout and the jamming of an emergency brake, then, before she had

time to draw breath, the car was on top of her. A blinding light flashed

for a moment in her eyes; her ears were filled with a deafening roar;

then all of a sudden light and sound both ceased to be.

Hearing came back first with returning consciousness. The roaring noise

no longer sounded in her ears, and from somewhere, a long distance off,

came the sound of a voice speaking.

"Can't you lift the car? She's pinned underneath the wheels. No, you

can't back up; you'll run over her head. Don't you see it's right behind

that left wheel? Got a jack in your tool box? All right. Here----

Now----"

Gradually the weight that was pinning her to the ground was lifted, and

she opened her eyes to find herself beside, and no longer under, the

quivering monster with the hot breath. Three figures were moving about

her in the light of the head-lamps, and now one of them knelt beside her

and laid a hand on her head.

"She isn't killed," said a voice which sounded strangely familiar in

Katherine's ears, a voice which somehow carried her back to Carver House

and the library fire.

Carver House. Nyoda. Nyoda would be worried to death because she did not

come home. Poor Nyoda, how sorry she would be about the watch!

Unconsciously Katherine groaned aloud.

"She must be pretty badly hurt," continued the voice beside her ear.

"Help me lift her now and we'll get her into the car. A hand under her

shoulders--so. I'll take her head. Easy now."

Katherine felt herself being lifted from the ground and carried past the

glare of the headlamps. Suddenly there came an explosive exclamation from

one of the rescuers--the one who had done the talking--and the hand that

supported her head trembled violently.

"Good God! It's _Katherine_."

Katherine opened her eyes fully and looked up into the dumfounded face of

Sherry.

"Fo' de lan' sakes!" came an echoing exclamation from beside Sherry, and

the black face of Hercules shone out in the light.

"Hello Sherry," said Katherine, in a voice which sounded strange in her

own ears.

"Katherine!" cried Sherry in terrified accents, "are you badly hurt?"

"I d-o-n-'t k-n-o-w," replied Katherine thickly, through a mouthful of

fur from the collar of her coat.

"I guess not," she resumed, after Sherry had laid her on the back seat of

the car. "Nothing cracks when I wiggle it. My nose is skinned," she

supplemented a minute later, "and there's a comb sticking straight into

my head. I guess that's all."

"Oh," breathed Sherry in immeasurable relief. "It's a miracle you weren't

killed. I thought sure you were. It looked as though both front wheels

had gone over you."

"One went over my hat and the other over the tail of my coat," replied

Katherine cheerfully. "They just missed me by a hair's breadth."

"Are you sure your head isn't hurt?" Sherry continued anxiously. "You

were unconscious when we lifted the car off of you, you know."

Katherine solemnly felt her head all over. "There _is_ a bump there--no;

that's my bump of generosity; it belongs there. Anyway, it doesn't hurt

when I press it, so it must be all right," she assured him. "I must have

fainted, I guess, when the car came on top of me. It came so suddenly,

and it made such a terrible noise. You can't think how awful it was."

"It must have been." A shudder went quivering through Sherry's frame at

the thought of it. "I can't get it out of my mind. I thought those wheels

went right over you. It's nothing short of a miracle that they went on

each side of you instead of over you," he said, repeating the sentiment

he had just uttered a moment before. "It all happened so quickly the

driver didn't have a chance to turn aside. There was no one in sight one

minute, and the next minute we were right on top of you. That driver out

there's so scared he can't stand up on his legs yet."

"How did you happen to be in that taxicab?" Katherine inquired curiously.

"We're on our way home," replied Sherry. "We missed the Pennsylvania out

of New York and had to take the Nickel Plate, which meant we had to

change from one station to the other here in Philadelphia. We were going

across in a taxi."

"So you were too late to catch Dr. Phillips?" said Katherine soberly.

"Yes," replied Sherry gloomily. "The boat had gone yesterday."

"How did Hercules stand the disappointment?" asked Katherine, with quick

sympathy.

"He's pretty badly cut up about it," replied Sherry. "He had quite a bad

spell with his heart on the train. He says he's had a 'token' that he'll

never see Marse Tad, as he calls him, again. I'm afraid he won't, myself.

Even I've got a gloomy hunch that fate has the cards stacked against us

this time. From Hercules' account, I don't think Dr. Phillips will live

to reach South America."

"How unutterably tragic that would be!" sighed Katherine, beginning to

feel a load of world-sorrow pressing on her heart. What a dismal business

life was, to be sure!

Sherry interrupted her doleful reverie. "But tell me, Katherine, what, in

the name of all that's fantastic, were you doing here in this

neighborhood at this time of night?"

Katherine explained briefly, and in her overwrought state, burst into

tears at the mention of the watch.

"And you say there was a footpad actually following you?" asked Sherry in

consternation. "You were running away from this man when you fell under

the car? Where is he now?"

Katherine shook her head. "I don't know. He slipped and fell just before

I did, and I don't know what became of him after that."

Sherry gave a long whistle, and, thrusting his head out of the taxi, gave

a look around.

"There's a man coming up the street now," he said. "He's limping badly.

Is that the man? He's probably trying to slip away quietly in the

excitement."

Katherine raised her head and glanced out. "That's the man," she

exclaimed. "He's the same one that followed me. Why, he's coming over

here toward us!" she said, in a tone of surprise. "How queer! Is he going

to hold us all up, I wonder?"

The man in the light overcoat, limping painfully, crossed the curb and

approached the car standing, temporarily disabled, in the middle of the

street. Sherry thrust out a belligerent face, at the same time looking,

out of the tail of his eye, for his driver and Hercules. Both were out of

sight, kneeling on the ground at the other side of the raised engine

hood.

The stranger limped up and hesitated before Sherry. Katherine, looking

over Sherry's shoulder, noticing with a start of surprise that the man

had snow white hair. Although the long, light coat and the visor cap were

the same as those she had seen on the man in the flower shop, this was an

entirely different man. His blue eyes were mild and pensive; his whole

bearing was gentle and retiring, and, standing there with the electric

light behind him making a halo of his white hair, he looked like some

little, old, melancholy saint.

"The young lady that you just picked up," said the stranger in a voice

mellow with old-fashioned courtesy, raising his cap politely. "I have

been following her for some time, trying unsuccessfully to catch up with

her. I saw her drop this bag on the street, some two hours ago, and since

then have been attempting to restore it to her, but have not been able to

reach her. As soon as I saw her drop the bag I picked it up and hurried

after her, but she suddenly disappeared like a conjurer's trick. I walked

around for some time, looking for her, when all of a sudden the street

lights went out, and in the darkness I mistook my way and wandered down

into the factory district, where it was not long before I was hopelessly

lost. The only place that showed any signs of life was a saloon down on a

corner, and, although I have my opinion of those places, sir, I went in

and asked the proprietor the way out of the neighborhood. It was not long

afterward that I saw this same young lady who had dropped the handbag not

far ahead of me in the street, having evidently wandered down there in

the darkness just as I had done. I hurried after her, but she became

frightened and began to run. I ran, too, thinking to overtake her and

explain the reason for my pursuit, but just when I was nearly up to her I

slipped and fell on the sidewalk. I must have lain there stunned for

several minutes, for when things had become clear again I saw this car

standing here and you gentlemen carrying the young lady into it. She is

not badly hurt, I trust? Here is the bag I spoke of."

He spied Katherine looking over Sherry's shoulder at that moment, and

held out the handbag, again lifting his cap as he did so.

At sight of the precious bag Katherine gave a shriek of joy, and seizing

it with trembling fingers, looked inside to see if Nyoda's watch was

still there. She almost sobbed with relief when her fingers closed upon

the little velvet case, from which a faint ticking came to reassure her.

"Then you aren't the man I saw in the flower shop at all!" exclaimed

Katherine, covered with confusion. "When I saw your light coat and that

cap I was sure it was the same."

The two men laughed heartily.

"Isn't that just like a woman, though?" said Sherry. "They think that

every man walking on the streets at night is a burglar, as a matter of

course. It never occurs to them that an honest man could possibly have

any business on the street after dark."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Katherine sheepishly, "but I really was

frightened to death when you began to run after me. You say you have been

following me ever since I dropped the bag? Where did I drop it?"

"Along by that iron fence on --th Street," answered the old man.

"That's where I was taken with the dizzy spell," said Katherine. "I must

have dropped it without knowing it when I caught ahold of the fence to

steady myself."

"But where did you go right after that?" asked the old man curiously.

"You disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had swallowed you. I put up

my umbrella for a few minutes to shield my face from the rain and when I

looked out from behind it you were nowhere in sight."

"That was where I went into the dark doorway of a church, and sat down to

wait for the dizzy spell to wear off," replied Katherine. "I must have

fallen asleep, for the first thing I knew a clock was striking a quarter

to eleven. When I discovered the bag was gone I ran around like mad

looking for it, and the first thing I knew I was lost, and the lights

were out, and there I was down in those awful factory yards. I saw you

coming out of that saloon and thought you were the man who had watched me

take out some bills out of an inner pocket earlier this evening, and hid

behind a fence until you had gone by."

"But fate evidently intended that our paths should cross again," resumed

the old man, with the faint flicker of a smile on his pensive

countenance, "for it was not long before you were just ahead of me again.

The lights came on then, and I saw you plainly."

"And I saw you, and started to run," finished Katherine, joining in

Sherry's burst of laughter.

Just then Hercules straightened up from the ground and came around the

front of the car.

"Kin we have yo' pocket flasher, Mist' Sherry?" he asked.

Then his glance fell upon the stranger standing beside the car. His eyes

started from their sockets; his jaw dropped, and for a moment he stood as

if petrified. Then he gave a great gasp, and with a piercing cry of

"Marse Tad!" he sank upon his knees at the old man's feet.