CHAPTER IV

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ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF THE TWO FRIENDS--THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW--A SINGULAR SPOT ON THE WALL--A CLIMB, A TUMBLE AND A PURSUIT--HOW IT ALL ENDED FOR THE TIME.

We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclusion of a former chapter, coming out from the lodgings of the latter, on Bleecker Street near Elm, Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery before betaking himself to bed. "Man proposes but God disposes," says the French proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in the matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. It was somewhat longer than either had expected, before he reached the "desired haven" of home and a bed-chamber.

It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and the Third Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were running less frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of the green lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker Street, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soon do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days, or any thing of that kind); and they walked down to the corner of Prince to meet the tardy conveyance. There was a green light coming up, some blocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if it would never reach the corner. They walked listlessly a block or two down Prince Street toward Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left the house on Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes of Harding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the upper windows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large and stately and giving evidence of having once been the residence of some person of fortune, though now a little dilapidated.

"People in that house must have an interest in one of the Gas Companies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they show at this time of night! Why, the window is all ablaze!"

Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on the opposite side of the street from the house in question, and consequently had a fair view of the lighted window. It _was_ very light indeed, a perfect flood of gas-light pouring on a white curtain that partially covered the whole sash. Partially, not altogether. Whether accidentally or by intention, it was swept away at the lower right-hand corner, leaving a little of the top of the white wall of the room visible, with the edge of the ceiling. Was there ever a man (or woman) who did not look in through a half-closed curtain, precisely because there is no propriety whatever in doing so? Willis has made some of his most taking verbal photographs, during his "lookings on at the war" at Washington, from the glimpses caught of the lower half lengths of notables, more or less undressed, through windows supposed to be closed against outside observation.

Both Walter Harding and Tom Leslie took an eager look up at the white wall and the edge of the ceiling, in the upper chamber of the house on Prince Street. Harding either had sharper eyes than Leslie, or stood in a more favorable position, for he saw what Leslie did not, and his discovery was communicated in the brief exclamation:

"By Jupiter!"

"What?" asked Leslie.

"Look!" said Harding, drawing his friend's head into position for a better view. "If that is not a secesh flag draped up near the ceiling, may I never brag of my eyesight again!"

Tom Leslie took a nearer look. "If it is _not_ a secesh flag," he said, "draped over some kind of a gilded ornament like a star, may I never find another opportunity to look at a pretty girl through this double-barrelled telescope."

And with the word he had whipped out an opera-glass from his pocket, large enough to have been formed out of two moderate-sized specimens of the optical instrument he had named, and levelled it at the object on the wall. His observations and those of Harding through the same powerful instrument resulted in the same conclusion. The two red bars and one white one of the Confederate flag, with the blue field in the corner and meagre number of stars, were all plainly visible, and beneath the flag was a gilded circle, some four or five inches in diameter, with a radiating centre.

"A nice house that, I don't think!" was Tom Leslie's not very classical comment, as he took the double-barrelled telescope finally down from his eye, after a second inspection. (It may be mentioned, in a parenthesis, that the Third Avenue car had some time since rumbled by, and that the very existence of that entire line of communication had been forgotten by the two friends.) "Where is Provost Marshal Kennedy, I wonder?"

"Oh, it may not be quite so bad as you think," said Harding, reading the whole of his friend's thought. "Who knows?--that secesh flag may be a trophy won by one of our soldiers, and brought or sent home."

"Humph!" said Tom, significantly. "That won't do, Harding! If the flag was a trophy, and in the house of a loyal man, it would not be quite so neatly draped on the wall, with the lodge emblem of the Knights of the Golden Circle under it!"

"Phew!" said Harding, "is that really the emblem?"

"_The_ emblem, and nothing else," answered Leslie. "There is mischief in that house, and the nest must be looked after."

Suddenly, and while the two friends yet looked, there were dark shadows flung on the white curtain, as if of moving figures, and then one shadow, as if of a human arm, began to move up and down on the curtain and kept moving steadily. Directly there was one quick sharp scream, followed by no other sound, though both listened intently. Then a figure came to the window, and apparently looked out, disappearing again in a moment and leaving every thing as before.

"By George, I cannot stand this!" said Leslie.

"Nor I," said Harding, moved by quite a different feeling. "I am getting sleepy and must go home."

"Must you?" said Tom Leslie. "Well, you are not going a step. You cannot be spared just yet. Do you see that tree?"

Harding had seen the tree for some minutes--a tall one with wide branches, standing a little to the left of the window. But he did not see anything special in the tree, while Leslie did, and that made the great difference.

"I am going on a perilous expedition," continued Leslie, in a bantering tone, but his voice sinking lower, almost without his being aware of the fact, and jerking off his boots meanwhile on the sidewalk. "If I never come back, comfort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck, see me comfortably buried, _without_ a coroner's inquest if possible."

"What are you going to do?" asked Harding, with a faint premonition, however, of his intention.

"I am going to get a peep in at that window," was the reply, "or I am going to break the most precious neck in America in making the attempt. I used to be able to climb, though some years ago. Keep still, here goes!"

There seemed to be at the moment no passers in the street, and Harding's anxious gaze around showed no policeman in the vicinity. By the time he had fairly spoken the last words, Leslie had thrown off his broad hat, crossed the street, and commenced climbing the tree. Harding followed and stood under the tree, as if Leslie was going to throw down apples and he must catch them. Leslie was a little awkward, but hugged the bark handsomely, and was soon on a level with the window. Harding saw him distinctly, by the reflected light from the window, clutch his arm around one of the main limbs, and throw his head and body forward so that his face was not more than a foot from the window. He had not looked in more than a moment, when Harding heard him utter a quick, short cry, and the next instant he seemed to be trying to regain his hold of the tree. Then there was a rush, a tumble, and he seemed to be falling. Harding threw himself beneath him, and Leslie half slid and half fell to the pavement, with such violence as to send both sprawling into the middle of the street. Harding was not much hurt; Leslie seemed to be injured, and limped a little as he sprang up.

"Are you hurt, Tom? What made you fall?" was the double question that Harding attempted to ask.

"My God! can that be possible?" was the inconsequent answer, and his hand went up to his head as if the organs of thought were for the moment disordered.

"What do you mean? What did you see, Tom?" was Harding's next double question. Leslie was pulling on his boots.

"See? Nothing--every thing! I will tell you all about it when my brains get settled!" was the reply. "I have simply been frightened out of my boots--no, I left my boots down here. But I was frightened out of the tree, and came devilish near to killing myself and _you_. Eh, didn't I?"

"Never mind about that! Tell us what you saw?" said Harding, whose bump of curiosity now began to be seriously agitated.

"The red woman! witch! devil! What does it all mean?" was the torrent of incoherence which next burst from Leslie, not affording Harding a very close solution of the mystery, but promising at least something.

"Well?" said the latter, expecting more. They had again crossed the street, and stood opposite the house of mystery. Leslie was endeavoring to brush his soiled clothes with that most difficult of all brushes, the hand. Harding was looking full at the window, and waiting for the further explanation. Suddenly, a carriage whirled through Prince from the direction of Broadway, and pulled up immediately before the house. Leslie stopped brushing his clothes. At the same moment, a head was again thrust against the window, and immediately withdrawn. Then the light against the curtain dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and that together" with the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man of the world. The people in that house were going away. Where? That was something to be looked into.

"You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on Houston?" he asked hurriedly of Harding.

"Yes," was the reply.

"I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very rapidly. "We must follow those people, if they go to perdition. Go to the stable, quick--do. There is always at least one carriage standing ready, and have it here as soon as money can bring it. I will watch meanwhile. Hurry! hurry!"

Probably Harding, who was rather precise in his ordinary movements, had not gone so fast in ten years. He was around the corner before the last words had fairly left Leslie's mouth--going as if an enraged woman and three lively policemen had been close after him. Leslie stepped across the street again, took a glance at the number on the lamps of the hack as he passed, and then ensconced himself in a deserted doorway very near, to watch what followed. Every moment that Harding was gone seemed an hour. Would they come out and get away, after all, before the coming of the other vehicle? What kept him so long? (He had been gone about half a minute!) Had there been, for once, no carriage in waiting at the livery? or had Harding concluded to go to sleep on the road? And what the deuce did it all mean--the half-dozen persons, and one a woman almost completely stripped, whom he had seen in that moment's glance into that upper chamber? And the red woman!--aye, the _red woman_!--that bothered Tom Leslie the worst, and as he had himself confessed, frightened him.

At this juncture the door of the house opened, and a man and two women came out. The man, from his stature and general appearance, and especially from his hat, struck Tom as strangely like the tall Virginian whom they had seen two hours before on Broadway. One of the women might be the girl, Kate; and the third--Leslie indulged in another bit of a shudder as he thought that possibly the third might be the red woman. They were all muffled up, however, and Leslie dared not quit his shelter to observe them more nearly. The driver kept his seat on the box. The man opened the door of the carriage, all stepped in, and the carriage whirled away out into the Bowery and up town. There they were, going, gone, and Harding not yet returned with the means of pursuit! Confusion, vexation and every cross-grained word in the language! So thought Leslie, as he dodged out to the Bowery and watched the disappearing carriage. It had not turned off into any one of the cross-streets, and seemed making for one or the other of the forks of the avenues at the Cooper Institute. Half a minute more, however, and it might as well be the proverbial "needle in the hay-stack" for any chance they would have of finding it again.

Hark! yes, there came tearing hoofs round into Prince Street from Crosby, and the lamps of a carriage shivered with the speed at which they were going. The horses were on the run. It was _their_ carriage after all, for nobody else could be in such a hurry. Twenty seconds brought the flying carriage to the corner--a second's pause--a hail from each of the friends--and Leslie was inside with Harding, and the carriage was dashing up the Bowery about as fast as two good horses could run, with Leslie and Harding each peering out of the opened windows at the side, to see if they could catch any glimpse of a carriage ahead.

There is no doubt that the horses attached to the hinder carriage, whatever may have been the opinions of those attached to the one before,--thought that the rate of speed was a little rapid for a hot midnight in June; and certainly one or two pedestrians who came near being run over at the crossings just below the Cooper Institute, had an impression that some rebel prisoner must be running away from Fort Lafayette or some government official trying to stop one. As Harding and Leslie neared that highly respectable but very ugly monument to the profits of iron and glue and the public pride of Mr. Peter Cooper,--of course there arose a question, the carriage being out of sight, which of the two branches it had taken. The Third Avenue being the plainer road, Leslie decided for the Fourth, and with a shout to the driver just before they reached Tompkins Market, the horses' heads were turned in that direction, and away they went up the comparatively quiet avenue.

At the rate they were going they soon overtook a carriage, as they would have overtaken any thing less rapid than a locomotive or a whirlwind. It was lucky that Leslie had taken the precaution to note the number on the hack, as otherwise they would have been at fault after all. As they dashed by the carriage, which was going at good speed, that cosmopolitan saw that the number on the lamps was a wrong one; and so they kept on. Another carriage was passed at the same speed, their horses by this time dripping as if they had been plunged into the river, but the driver of hack No. 2980 going ahead under the influence of a private five dollars and the promise of an extraordinary glass of brandy. At Twenty-eighth Street they jerked the check-string and the driver pulled up. There was nothing in sight, short of the railroad tunnel.

"We have lost them!" said Harding, whose organ of hopefulness was not so large as that of his friend.

"Humph! maybe so!" was Leslie's reply, his eyes peering out of the windows on all sides, meanwhile. "One thing is certain, that I am not going to bed until I find that hack and know where it has been to-night!"

At that moment, with better fortune than two such wild-goose chasers deserved, they saw the lamps of a carriage flash across Twenty-eighth Street, going up Lexington Avenue.

"By George! there they are!" said the sanguine Leslie.

"Maybe so!" was the reply of Harding, echoing the words his friend had used the moment before.

A word from Leslie to the driver, and away went the carriage down Twenty-eighth Street toward Lexington Avenue. On the avenue there was a carriage ahead, driving at good speed but not at such a headlong rate as their own had been pursuing. Leslie pulled the check-string. "Pass that carriage!" he said to the driver, and the horses sprung out at full speed again. The speed of the carriage ahead did not increase: whoever occupied it probably had no idea of being pursued. Before it had gone two blocks further the pursuers had passed it, and Tom Leslie brought his hand down upon Harding's leg with a force that made him wince, as he saw the number on the near lamp.

"Got them, by the tail of the holy camel!"

It was indeed the same carriage that had left Prince Street less than a quarter of an hour before. They were now ahead of it, and it would not answer either to slacken speed so perceptibly as to let it pass, or to turn back to meet it. Either course might excite apprehension, if there was really anything worth watching in the adventure. A word more to the driver arranged all. They wheeled down Thirty-fourth Street to Third Avenue, drove rapidly around the two blocks to Thirty-sixth, and came out again on Lexington, with the carriage just ahead of them and a fine opportunity to dog it at leisure.

Two or three minutes afterwards the leading carriage wheeled out of Lexington Avenue into East 5-- Street, not very far from the Eastern Dispensary, which has lately so well supplied the place of a soldiers' hospital. It was driving slowly, now, and unless some peculiar dodge was intended, Leslie knew that the occupants must be near their destination. To follow them further with the carriage would be both useless and dangerous. Stopping the carriage and telling the driver to wait for them in the avenue half a dozen blocks above, the two friends alighted and followed their quarry on foot. They were close behind the carriage, now, but keeping the sidewalk, and even if observed they might have been supposed to be a couple of late wayfarers plodding home, and not _spies_ as they at that moment felt themselves to be, in however meritorious a cause! About half way between Fourth Avenue and Madison, the carriage stopped before a handsome brown-stone house. "Nothing venture nothing have!" is an old motto that never wears out. Before the rumble of the carriage had fairly stopped or the driver could have had time to turn around, the two friends were over the area railings and under the steps. Not a dignified position, perhaps, nor a pleasant one in which to be caught in the event of a sudden opening of the area door; but other men have risked as much for a much idler curiosity!

Perfect silence under the steps, except two loudly-beating hearts and a little quick breathing. Leslie ventured a look around the corner of the stoop--saw the driver get down and open the door, and the one man and two women alight and go up the steps. For the rest, they were obliged to depend upon the ears. One of the women spoke:

"It will come to-morrow at midnight?"

Harding could feel that Leslie shuddered, and could distinguish his sharp whisper to himself:

"The red woman's voice! I knew I could not be mistaken!"

Then the voice of the man said: "Wait a moment!" and Leslie fancied that he recognized that voice quite as well as the other. Then there was a quick pull of the bell, the sound tinkling far back in the still house. Then came two sharp pulls after the pause of a moment, and then a fourth after another pause. Not until the fourth tinkle had been heard was there any other sound within the house. Then a door was heard to open and shut, and feet were heard in the hall. The man's voice said "All right!" and the carriage drove away. An inner door opened, but the outer one (as the friends could easily distinguish by the sound of the voices) remained closed until some one within asked:

"How many?"

"Seven!" answered the man's voice. Then the outer door opened, all went in, the doors closed and were locked, the footsteps in the hall died away, and the friends heard no more.

Very gingerly, as if some depredation on personal property had lately been committed, the two volunteer midnight guardians of the public weal climbed again over the area railings, after all had been still for a moment. Not a word passed between them. Harding stepped softly up the stone steps to the door and noted the number on it, then down again, as if he was treading on eggs. Leslie counted the number of houses from the corner, with steps not more sonorous, and looked around to see whether they could possibly not have been watched by a policeman, when getting into and out of the area, because they did _not_ intend to steal. All these things accomplished, and apparently nothing more to be done, they went quietly down 5-- Street to Lexington Avenue and sought their carriage.

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