“From Cassel to Hamburgh.”
“Gracious Heavens!” ejaculated Helen to herself; “it is he again. I could recognise that voice anywhere, now,” and as the idea flashed across her mind, the man turned his head and looked towards her, out of the corners of his eyes, with the same threatening glance as when he left her.
As soon as the window was closed, and the guard had retired along the little external ledge to the second-class carriages, the man threw the cloak back, and slightly raising his hat to the young lady, inquired with a bow, “whether she had expected to see him back so soon again.”
CHAPTER IV. BLIND FOLDED.
“You didn’t think to meet me so soon again, did you, Fraulein?” repeated the new comer.
The trembling girl could only stammer out “I imagined you had fled—I mean gone to Frankfurt.”
“Ay, and so the railway officials will fancy too. There’s nothing like throwing the hounds on the wrong scent,” returned the fellow with a triumpant chuckle. “But why should the Fraulein have made use of the word fled when speaking of my movements?”
“Why I—I—I—” Miss Boyne hesitated, for she hardly knew what excuse to give for so significant a slip of the tongue.
“There, it’s no use palavering, girl,” was the surly rebuke of the man, “I see it all. The “Kreis-Blatt” there, he added, referring to the Eisenach journal, that I forgot to put back into my bag, has told you all. No one with half an eye could mistake the description; but it would require a pretty good judge of character to recognise me now. Well I don’t mind about you knowing my secret, for I shall be far away before you can harm me. Do you know where I am bound to now?” he inquired significantly, as he again commenced unlocking the little carpet-bag.
“You said you were going to Hamburgh,” the girl shuddered out, as the question revived the idea of her having such a companion all the way.
“So I told the guard; but that’s not my road, depend upon it, or I should not be fool enough to mention it,” was the knowing answer of the runaway. “Men in my desperate condition stick at nothing, and I can tell you that in the mood that’s on me I’m ready to sacrifice everything—truth, honesty—ay, and even human life if necessary, to get clear away. You are sure you said never a word to the guard at Cassel, girl?” and he looked her so full and savagely in the face while he went towards her and seized her by the wrists, “for if you had, he has told it to the men on duty by this train, and then I shall have hard work to dodge them yet. Are you sure you have kept faith with me, girl?” and he wrenched her wrist round in the fury of his doubts, that Helen shrieked out with pain. “My God, if I thought you had sold me, I would have your blood on the spot, young as you are,” and the next minute he held her face tightly in his hands, and looked straight into her eyes to see if he could detect the least look of treachery in her gaze.
The stare of the man was like that of a furious wild beast, and so terrified the girl, that in a minute or two the eyes began to swim, and the blush to fade rapidly from her cheeks. On the fellow releasing his hold, her head fell back as powerless as if her soul had withered under his glance.
“Fainted, or shamming,” said the man, callously, and he flung himself down in the seat before her, and began to unlock his bag for the second time, and to draw from it the revolver as before. “Come, come, Fraulein,” he then cried, as he proceeded to shake the comatose girl violently by the shoulders, “I’ve no time to put up with this fine-lady nonsense. Open your eyes, girl, I have something else that you must do for me.”
Half insensible as the damsel was, still the stupor was not sufficient to render her deaf to such words. The speech was too terrible for her to admit of her quickly fainting at such a time. Accordingly she started up wildly, and rubbing her eyes as if roused by some sudden commotion out of a deep sleep, and staring wildly about her, asked almost frantically, “What would you have me do now?”
“Give me your handkerchief,” was the answer; and Helen watched him anxiously as he spread it out upon his knee, and then proceeded to fold it up into a broad bandage, nor did she fail to notice that the revolver lay on the cushion at his side.
“Oh, Heaven,” she cried aloud piteously, while she raised her clasped hands and fell upon her knees before the fellow, “what would you do with me?”
“Blindfold you, girl,” bluffly rejoined the other.
“Oh, mercy! mercy! you are never going to take my life?”
The ruffian, however, made no answer, but merely forced her head down, while he placed the bandage over her eyes and tied it securely at the nape of her neck. What pen shall tell the agony that poor maiden suffered in her darkness: for she made sure that the fellow had seen her speaking with the guard while the train waited at Cassel, and that fancying she had betrayed him, he had returned solely to execute the vengeance he had threatened her with. She expected each moment to be her last. How she listened for the clicking of the pistol that was to warn her of her doom. But though her senses were rendered tenfold more acute by the horrible suspense in which she was kept, she could hear only the man tumbling the articles out of his carpet-bag. “Oh,” she cried in her anguish, “tell me what you are going to do with me—any fate is better than this. My heart will break. My head will burst if you keep me here much longer. But let me know how I am to die, and I will try and bear it patiently. Oh, cousin! cousin! if you only knew what has befallen me.”
For some five minutes the bewildered girl was left to suffer in this manner, and then to her utter surprise the bandage was suddenly withdrawn, and to all appearances an utter stranger sat before her.
Had she really gone mad? she asked herself. That man there—he with the short black ringlets and long raven whiskers and moustache—could he possibly be the same person as the red-bearded and yellow-haired creature that had entered the