Bernard Brooks' Adventures: The Experience of a Plucky Boy

CHAPTER XXXII. SUSPENSE

Neither Bernard nor his companion slept much that night. Both realized that it might be the last night of their lives. Bernard felt solemn, but mingled with Sanderson’s alarm and anxiety was a feeling of intense anger against Walter Cunningham for his desertion of them.

“It is a mean, contemptible trick that Cunningham has played upon us,” he said. “For the sake of saving his paltry money he has doomed us both to death.”

“I am sure it isn’t his fault.”

“Oh, you may excuse him if you will. I won’t do it. I understand him better than you do.”

“I don’t feel like disputing you,” said Bernard gravely, “but I know him well, and I am sure he would not leave me in the lurch.”

They tossed about on their beds and neither one slept. They woke and rose unrefreshed.

Breakfast was brought them, but neither could eat a mouthful.

“I can’t eat anything. It would choke me,” said Sanderson.

“Walter Cunningham may come yet,” said Bernard, but his hope was very faint.

“Then he had better hurry, that’s all I have got to say. I wish I could communicate with the American minister. Our government should send over a fleet of war vessels and blow Naples sky high.”

“You must remember that these men are outlaws – that it is their work, and not the work of the government.”

“Then the government should suppress them. I wish,” Amos Sanderson continued, with a groan, “that I had never set foot in this forsaken country. I should have stood a better chance in a savage land.”

“The signor is not hungry?” said the bandit who had brought in the breakfast. He spoke in Italian, but Bernard understood.

“No,” he answered, “we are not hungry.”

“How can you expect a man to have an appetite when he’s going to be murdered?” growled Sanderson.

The bandit did not understand, and merely looked at him gravely.

“It’s too bad,” went on the American, “to leave the world, when a man has made a fortune and is able to enjoy it. Why, I ought to live twenty-five years yet. I am only forty-seven.”

“And I am not yet seventeen,” said Bernard.

“Yes, it’s hard luck for us both. And to think Cunningham has doomed us to all this! I’d like to wring his neck. If I had gone it would have been different.”

Bernard felt too despondent to defend his friend. In his secret heart he felt that Cunningham ought to have managed somehow to come back and save them from the doom which now awaited them.

“It is half past eleven,” said the American, drawing out his watch, which, perhaps because it was only of silver, the bandits had not confiscated.

“Then we have half an hour to live. If only Mr. Cunningham would appear in that time!” sighed Bernard.

Slowly the minutes passed, but there was no arrival.

Punctually at twelve o’clock the door opened and the bandits entered, accompanied by the interpreter. There was a stern gravity upon the faces of the three Italians, which caused the hearts of the captives to sink within them.

“Well,” said the interpreter, “your friend has not come.”

“No, confound him!” exclaimed Sanderson fiercely. “I’d like to strangle him.”

“Give him another day,” pleaded Bernard. “He must have met with some delay.”

The interpreter shrugged his shoulders.

“Naples is only fifteen miles away, and it is now the seventh day. Doubtless he is enjoying himself. He has no thought of returning.”

“I have no doubt you are right,” said Amos Sanderson bitterly.

“The signor agrees with me, then.”

“You should have let me go.”

“Would it have been any better?” asked the interpreter gravely.

“Yes. I give you my word it would.”

Then a sudden thought came to Mr. Sanderson.

“Look here,” he said, “you want money, don’t you?”

“That is what we want.”

“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Send me to Naples, and I’ll bring you five thousand scudi. I’ll hurry back as soon as I can.”

“Does the signor take us for fools? We have lost one of our prisoners. Shall we let another go?”

“But you will have the boy left.”

“Well?”

“If I don’t come back you will have him in your power.”

Bernard looked at Amos Sanderson.

He was not especially pleased with his proposal, nor did he feel in the least certain that he would come back. Still, his life would be prolonged, and that would lead to something. Possibly it would give Walter Cunningham time to return.

“I am willing to be left,” he said, “if you choose to let this gentleman go.”

“You’re a trump, Bernard!” said Mr. Sanderson cordially. “I’ll come back, I assure you. You see the boy is willing.”

“But we are not,” said the interpreter decidedly. “Of the three the boy is the last one that we wish to retain.”

“But you want the money, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me go.”

“How will the signor get the money?”

“From my bankers.”

“But you gave your letter of credit to the other signor.”

“So I did,” said Amos Sanderson, with sudden recollection.

“And without your letter of credit you could get no money.”

Amos Sanderson was silent. He had no answer to make. He had still harder thoughts in his heart of Walter Cunningham, whom he accused of the basest treachery.

“Have you any more to say?” asked the interpreter.

“No,” answered Sanderson sullenly.

“And you?” turning to Bernard.

“I ask you to wait another day.”

“We cannot do it. It is clear that Signor Cunningham will not return.”

At a signal one of the bandits went to the door and opened it.

“Follow me,” said the interpreter.

Bernard and Sanderson had been so long confined that they were glad to pass through the portal into the bright sunshine without.

“Now what are you going to do with us?” asked the American.

“You can choose in what way you will die. Shall it be by the knife or the pistol?”

Just then Bernard turned his head. He uttered a joyful exclamation.

“Look!” he said in delight, “there he comes! There is Walter Cunningham.”

A dozen rods away could be seen the figure of their missing companion. He seemed to be extremely fatigued, and his clothing was covered with dust.

“I knew he would come,” said Bernard triumphantly.

CHAPTER XXXIII. RESCUED

I’m glad to see you, old man,” called out Amos Sanderson joyfully. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come. It came near being serious for us.”

“Yes, I have come,” said Walter Cunningham wearily.

He looked ready to drop, and there was an expression of sadness on his face.

“You seem very tired,” said Bernard compassionately.

“Yes, I was afraid I would be too late. Why are you all out here? What is going to happen?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Sanderson. “These gentlemen were about to kill us. They had just offered us the choice of how to die. But now that you have come with the money – ”

“I have no money,” said Cunningham in a low voice.

“What!” exclaimed Sanderson, in dismay.

“You have no money?” said the interpreter, in amazement.

“What have you been doing all this time, then?” asked the American.

“I will tell you, but I must sit. I have been walking for hours.”

He sat down on a broken branch of a tree and breathed a deep sigh.

The bandits looked puzzled. They did not understand what he had said, but felt that it was something of importance, and they looked to the interpreter for an explanation. The latter said nothing, but waited.

“Listen,” began Cunningham; “a week since I left here and went to Naples.”

“You did go to Naples, then?”

“Yes, I reached Naples, though it took me rather longer than I anticipated. I went to see the bankers, and – ”

“Got the money?”

“Yes, I got the money.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“You will soon. I was delayed two days, and this will account in part for the length of time I have been absent. As soon as I could I started on my return.”

“With the money?”

“Yes, with the money. But I was waylaid by two men twenty miles back, and robbed of every scudi.”

Amos Sanderson groaned.

“Is this true?” asked the interpreter.

“Yes; I wish it were not.”

“And you have come here with empty pockets?”

“Yes.”

“Why, then, did you come back at all?”

“Because I felt that I could not desert my comrades. I went out as their agent, and it was my duty to report to them, and share their fate if any harm should befall them.”

“You hear that, Mr. Sanderson?” said Bernard triumphantly.

“If I had been the messenger this thing would not have happened.”

“Will you explain to these gentlemen what I have said?” said Cunningham to the interpreter.

The latter did so, and the result was scowling looks on the swarthy faces of the three Italians. The three captives awaited in silence the result of their conference. They had not to wait long.

“I am sorry, gentlemen,” said the interpreter, “for what is going to happen. My friends here are deeply disappointed.”

“It is not our fault,” said Amos Sanderson.

“They have stated the terms of release. They required five thousand scudi, and they are not forthcoming. Under the circumstances they have no choice but to doom you all to death.”

It was a terrible sentence, and the hearts of the three captives quailed.

“At least spare the boy – spare Bernard,” said Walter Cunningham.

“We can make no exception,” replied the interpreter, after a brief conference with the bandits. “All we can do is to give you the choice of the knife or the pistol.”

“I choose the pistol,” said the Englishman.

“Look here, you are making fools of yourselves,” cried Amos Sanderson. “Send me to Naples, and I will bring back the money. I see that you are in earnest, and I will keep my word.”

Again there was a whispered conference. Then the interpreter spoke again.

“My friends do not trust you,” he said. “You would not return.”

Sanderson wished to argue the question, but the interpreter silenced him by an imperative gesture.

“No words of yours can alter our purpose,” he said. “We have been more lenient with you than with most of our prisoners. We have given you seven days to get the money for your ransom, and it is not here. We have no time to waste. What is to be done must be done quickly.”

“There seems no help for it, Bernard,” said the Englishman.

Within five minutes the three captives, with hands tied, were bound to trees, and with blanched faces awaited the fatal volley from the three bandits, who stationed themselves at the distance of twenty paces fronting them.

Bernard gave himself up for lost when something unexpected happened. He heard shots, and for the moment thought they came from the pistols of their intended murderers. But to his astonishment it was the robber opposite him who fell. Another shot and another and the other two fell, fatally wounded. Then a party of soldiers came dashing forward, accompanied by a man whose face looked familiar to Bernard.

“Mr. Penrose!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, Bernard, it is I. I was robbed by these men a month since. I tracked them, and I have at last brought them to justice.”

“You’re a trump, squire!” said Amos Sanderson. “I never felt so relieved in the whole course of my life. Come and untie me.”

William Penrose took a jack-knife from his pocket, but he untied Bernard first.

“You have the prior claim on me,” he said.

It was found that two of the bandits were dead.

The third was taken by the soldiers, and carried on an extemporized litter to the nearest town, where he was imprisoned, but later tried and sentenced to be executed.

Overjoyed at their unexpected rescue from peril, the three travelers made the best of their way to Naples, where, despite the loss of five thousand scudi, Walter Cunningham and Amos Sanderson enjoyed themselves by trips to Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii, and a ride to Sorrento along the shores of the magnificent Bay of Naples.

“Have you consoled yourself for the loss of two thousand scudi?” asked Bernard, addressing himself to the American, as they sat on a balcony in their Sorrento hotel, looking out upon the moonlit waters of the famous sea.

“Yes,” answered Mr. Sanderson. “Now that the three rascals who captured us and nearly put us to death have met the same fate themselves, I don’t make any account of the money. Thank Providence, I have plenty, left.”

“That’s the right way to look upon it,” said Walter Cunningham.

“I am the only one who has lost nothing,” said Bernard. “I have the best reason to be satisfied.” The three still remained together. They had been companions in misfortune, and this was a tie that still held them. Yet, truth to tell, neither Bernard nor his English friend enjoyed the society of the American, who was hardly congenial, and had some objectionable qualities.

“I have no prejudice against your countrymen,” said Mr. Cunningham to Bernard. “I have known many cultivated and refined Americans, whose society I enjoyed, but they differed essentially from Mr. Sanderson. I own I wish he would leave us.”

“He seems determined to stand by us,” said Bernard.

“Yes, so it seems.”

“There is one chance of separating from him. He has made up his mind to go to Sicily and wants us to go with him.”

“We can refuse. But in that case he may give up his plan.”

“I don’t think he will. He tells me he has always wanted to go to Sicily.”

“He may stand a chance of being again captured by banditti. I understand that Sicily is more infested with them than the mainland.”

“I earnestly hope not. I don’t care especially for Mr. Sanderson, but I think he has had his share of that kind of peril.”

That evening Mr. Sanderson broached the subject, and strongly urged his two companions to start with him for Palermo.

“We shall have to disappoint you,” said Walter Cunningham. “We have other plans.”

“But it won’t take long, and I surmise you have no important business to keep you from going.”

The next day, however, Mr. Cunningham was provided with an excuse. He received a letter from England informing him that an uncle, his mother’s brother, was dying, and wished to see him.

“Are you ready to go back to England with me at once, Bernard?” he said.

“I shall be glad to do so.”

“Then pack your luggage, and we will go.”

In London Bernard received a letter from America that interested him.

CHAPTER XXXIV. NAT BARCLAY’S LETTER

The day after Bernard reached London he received at his old address a letter bearing the familiar postmark of Doncaster. It will be remembered that it was at Doncaster our story opened, and it was there that the boarding-school of Professor Ezekiel Snowdon was located. Bernard’s face lighted up with pleasure, for in the superscription he recognized the handwriting of his friend Nat Barclay.

He tore open the envelope and read the letter quickly. It ran thus:

“Dear Bernard:

“I write this with great anxiety, for I don’t know if you are living or dead. Yesterday I met Septimus Snowdon, who is the same disagreeable bully as ever, and he said, ‘Well, I have some news for you about your friend Bernard Brooks.’ I was rather surprised at this, for I didn’t suppose you would be very likely to write to him. Still I asked, ‘Have you heard from him?’ ‘No,’ he answered disdainfully. ‘I wouldn’t have any correspondence with a fellow like him. But he isn’t likely to write any more letters.’ ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because he’s dead, that’s why,’ snapped Septimus, and I saw that he seemed pleased. ‘I don’t believe it,’ I returned. ‘Where do you get your information?’ ‘You’ll have to believe it,’ he said. ‘Pa received a letter from his guardian, Mr. Cornelius McCracken, of New York, saying that his death had been reported to him by the gentleman in whose company he went to Europe. I believe he wrote that he had met with an accident in Marseilles.’ Now I had a good deal of doubt about the correctness of this statement, for I knew from your own letters that you parted with Professor Puffer in London, and were not likely to be in Marseilles with him. I asked Septimus some further questions, but he seemed to have no more information.

“‘Well,’ said Septimus sneeringly, ‘are you going to put on mourning for your great friend Bernard?’ ‘I might,’ I answered, ‘if I believed him to be dead, but I don’t believe it.’

“‘You’ll never see him again,’ said Septimus positively.

“Now, Bernard, though I don’t believe the story, I am anxious, and if you are alive I hope you will write me again and tell me. I won’t believe it till I have your own authority. That sounds like a bull, doesn’t it? But I’ll go on and write as if you were still alive. You may wish to know something about the school. To the best of my belief it is far from prosperous. There are very few scholars, and those don’t look as if their parents or guardians paid much for them. Then the professor himself is looking very shabby and seedy. I don’t believe he has had a new coat for over a year. Septimus looks better. There is a pupil in the school about his size, and I really believe that Septimus is wearing his clothes. I hear that old Snowdon gave the boy a dollar and a half for his best suit. The boy was glad to sell it in order to get a little pocket money. I know how he spent a part of it. He went to the baker’s in the village and bought a supply of cakes and doughnuts, of which he stood in need, for I hear that the seminary table, never very good, is now poorer than ever.

“When are you coming back to America? I long to see you. If you do come you must be sure to come out to Doncaster and see

“Your affectionate friend,

“Nat Barclay.”

Bernard showed his letter to Mr. Cunningham.

“Would you like to go to America, Bernard?” he asked.

“I don’t want to leave you, sir.”

“But suppose I should go, too?”

“Then I should be delighted to go.”

“I cannot go while my uncle’s life is in doubt, but when I am released from attendance upon him I shall have nothing to hinder me.”

That day week the uncle died. After the funeral Mr. Cunningham said, “Well, Bernard, I have not forgotten the promise I made you. We will go to the office of the Cunard steamers, and see whether we can engage passage by the Etruria, which is the first one to sail.”

It was found that one of the best staterooms on the palatial steamer was still disengaged. Walter Cunningham lost no time in securing it, and the two embarked on the following Saturday.

There is no occasion to dwell upon the voyage. The weather was good, and the Etruria made one of the quick passages for which she is famous.

When Bernard steamed into port, and saw the familiar roofs and spires of the great American city, his heart thrilled within him, and he felt that warm glow which the sight of home is apt to enkindle.

CHAPTER XXXV. PROFESSOR PUFFER’S DECLINE AND FALL

Bernard,” said Walter Cunningham, as they sat together in a handsome apartment at the Brevoort House, “I feel that I have not done as well by you as I should.”

“You have been a kind friend to me, Mr. Cunningham. I have lacked for nothing since I have been with you. I think you do yourself injustice.”

“That is true, but suppose anything should happen to me, how would you fare?”

“We won’t think of that, Walter. You are a young man. You are likely to live for many years.”

“So I hope,” said the young Englishman, smiling. “Life is sweet to me, and I have something to live for, especially now that I have you. But I feel that I ought to make a provision for you, to place your future beyond a contingency.”

Bernard did not reply. He waited for Mr. Cunningham to finish what he had to say.

“I shall therefore go to my banker’s this morning, and turn over to you the sum of fifteen thousand dollars. It is not all I intend to do for you, but it will prevent your experiencing inconvenience in the event of any sudden accident to me.”

“Fifteen thousand dollars!” repeated Bernard, in astonishment. “Why, that will make me rich. How can I thank you for your great kindness?”

“I look upon you as a brother, Bernard. With the affection I feel for you I could not allow you to run the risk of poverty and destitution. To be sure, you are young and a boy of capacity, but for a time you might be in trouble.”

That very morning Mr. Cunningham took Bernard to the office of his banker in Wall Street, and transferred the sum he had mentioned to Bernard’s account.

“I advise you to keep your money for the present in the hands of my good friends here, unless you should prefer to deposit it with your old guardian, Mr. McCracken.”

“I would not trust Mr. McCracken,” said Bernard, “but I should like before I leave the city to pay him a visit.”

Walking down Broadway in the afternoon Bernard was treated to a surprise. Marching in front of him with a slow and weary step was a thick-set man of over fifty, sandwiched between two advertising boards, bearing in large capitals these words:

There was something familiar in the figure, but from a rear view Bernard could not immediately place it. However, the man presently turned partly round, showing his side face, and Bernard was startled by a sudden recognition.

It was Professor Puffer!

Yes, the celebrated professor, author (by his own account) of several large and elaborate works on the antiquities of the old world, had actually sunk so low as to become a sandwich man, earning the miserable pittance of fifty cents a day.

Bernard at once in some excitement imparted his astonishing discovery to his companion.

“What! Is that your Professor Puffer?” asked Cunningham in wonder. “How have the mighty fallen!”

“He was never so mighty as I supposed,” said Bernard. “I feel quite sure that he was a humbug and no professor at all.”

“I am inclined to agree with you. I don’t think any real professor would ever be reduced to such shifts as this. What are you going to do? Shall you make yourself known to your old companion?”

“I think I would like to do so,” said Bernard thoughtfully. “He may be able to give me some information, concerning my guardian, for instance that may be of service to me.”

“Perhaps you are right. At any rate, it will do no harm, unless you are afraid that the professor will try to get you into his power again.”

Bernard smiled as he regarded with complacency his own well knit figure – he was three inches taller than when he had been a fellow passenger of the professor on the ship Vesta.

“If he should try to get me into his power, will you stand by me, Mr. Cunningham?” he said.

“Yes; but I fancy that you are quite able to fight your own battles.”