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Page 41
VI
THE KNIGHT ERRANT
Recognizing the superior strength of his captors, young Kerry
soon gave up struggling. The thrill of his first real adventure
entered into his blood. He remembered that he was the son of his
father, and he realized, being a quick-witted lad, that he was in
the grip of enemies of his father. The panic which had
threatened him when first he had recognized that he was in the
hands of Chinese, gave place to a cold rage--a heritage which in
later years was to make him a dangerous man.
He lay quite passively in the grasp of someone who held him fast,
and learned, by breathing quietly, that the presence of the
muffler about his nose and mouth did not greatly inconvenience
him. There was some desultory conversation between the two men
in the car, but it was carried on in an odd, sibilant language
which the boy did not understand, but which he divined to be
Chinese. He thought how every other boy in the school would envy
him, and the thought was stimulating, nerving. On the very first
day of his holidays he was become the central figure of a
Chinatown drama.
The last traces of fear fled. His position was uncomfortable and
his limbs were cramped, but he resigned himself, with something
almost like gladness, and began to look forward to that which lay
ahead with a zest and a will to be no passive instrument which
might have surprised his captors could they have read the mind of
their captive.
The journey seemed almost interminable, but young Kerry suffered
it in stoical silence until the car stopped and he was lifted and
carried down stone steps into some damp, earthy-smelling place.
Some distance was traversed, and then many flights of stairs were
mounted, some bare but others carpeted.
Finally he was deposited in a chair, and as he raised his hand to
the scarf, which toward the end of the journey had been bound
more tightly about his head so as to prevent him from seeing at
all, he heard a door closed and locked.
The scarf was quickly removed. And Dan found himself in a low-
ceilinged attic having a sloping roof and one shuttered window.
A shadeless electric lamp hung from the ceiling. Excepting the
cane-seated chair in which he had been deposited and a certain
amount of nondescript lumber, the attic was unfurnished. Dan
rapidly considered what his father would have done in the
circumstances.
"Make sure that the door is locked," he muttered.
He tried it, and it was locked beyond any shadow of doubt.
"The window."
Shutters covered it, and these were fastened with a padlock.
He considered this padlock attentively; then, drawing from his
pocket one of those wonderful knives which are really miniature
tool-chests, he raised from a grove the screw-driver which formed
part of its equipment, and with neatness and dispatch unscrewed
the staple to which the padlock was attached!
A moment later he had opened the shutters and was looking out
into the drizzle of the night.
The room in which he was confined was on the third floor of a
dingy, brick-built house; a portion of some other building faced
him; down below was a stone-paved courtyard. To the left stood a
high wall, and beyond it he obtained a glimpse of other dingy
buildings. One lighted window was visible--a square window in
the opposite building, from which amber light shone out.
Somewhere in the street beyond was a standard lamp. He could
detect the halo which it cast into the misty rain. The glass was
very dirty, and young Kerry raised the sash, admitting a draught
of damp, cold air into the room. He craned out, looking about
him eagerly.
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