Colonel Thorndyke's Secret by G. A. Henty (acx book reading TXT) 📖

Several of the men had been cut with knives, but the blows had been given so hurriedly that no one was seriously injured. Twelve men lay on the ground.

“Now sir, what shall we do with these fellows?”

“I should say we had better leave them alone, Gibbons. I don't want any row over the affair. It is the work of these two fellows here. I think I pretty well settled one of them.”

Gibbons stooped over Flash.

“You have broken his jaw, sir; but he will come round in time. I believe this other fellow is only shamming. I don't see any of our handiwork upon his face. The others have all got as much as they want, I think,” and taking a candle he looked at their faces. “There is not one of them who will want to show up for a week or so,” he said, “and there are two or three who will carry the marks to their graves. Well, sir, if you don't want anything done to them, the sooner we are off the better. Those fellows who got away may bring a lot of others down upon us. As long as it is only fists, we could march through Westminster; but as they would have knives, it is just as well to get out of it before there is any trouble. You are got up in a rum way, Mr. Thorndyke.”

“Yes; I will tell you about it afterwards. I agree with you that we had best be moving at once.”

But the men who had fled were too glad to have made their escape to think of anything but to make for their dens as quick as possible, and the party passed through the lanes into the open space in front of Parliament House without interruption.

“We will go up to your place, Ingleston, and talk it over there,” Mark said. “You can get those cuts bound up, and I shall be very glad to get a drink. That thing they shoved into my mouth hurt my tongue a good deal, and I have not gone through a pleasant half hour, I can tell you.”

He walked up past Whitehall with Gibbons and Ingleston, the others going in pairs, so as not to attract attention. As soon as they reached Ingleston's place, the latter told the man in the bar to put the shutters up, led the way into the bar parlor, and mixed a large bowl of punch.

“Now, Gibbons, in the first place,” Mark said, after quenching his thirst, “how did you know of my being in danger?”

“Well, sir, a black sailor chap ran into my place suddenly and told me.”

“Do you mean a colored man, Gibbons?”

“Yes, sir, one of those Lascar chaps you see about the docks. I did not ask any questions, but ran as hard as I could. I had only left here five minutes before, and knew that Tring and some of the others would still be here. They did not lose a moment, and off we went. The sailor chap he kept ahead. I tried to come up to him two or three times to get to know something about it, but he always seemed to quicken his pace when I was coming up, and I soon got too blown to want to do much talking. He led us to the door, and after that I saw nothing more of him. What became of him I don't know. I expect he was better at running than he was at fighting.”

“It is curious,” Mark said thoughtfully. “He might have been in the place when I went in, and slipped out while I was making a fight for it. I have seen a Lascar several times while I have been down there. I dare say it was the same man, though why he should take such trouble for the sake of a stranger I don't know. There seems to be a good many of them about, for now I think of it, I have run against them several times wherever I have been in town.”

“Now, sir, what did they want to kill you for?”

“Well, Gibbons, it happened in this way. My father, you know, was murdered by a man who had a grudge against him, and who is both a highwayman and a house breaker.”

“They don't often go together,” Ingleston said. “The highwaymen generally look down upon the burglars and keep themselves to themselves.”

“I hew they do, Ingleston; but this fellow has been a convict, and is not particular what he turns his hand to. The detectives have been after him for a long time, but have failed, and I determined to take the matter up myself, and ever since I have been up here I have been hunting about in the worst quarters of the town. The people of Bow Street have aided me in every way they could, and I suppose some of these men have seen me go in or out of the place. Of course, when I am going into these bad quarters, I put on a disguise and manage to get in with some of these thieves, and so to try to get news of him through them. Three weeks ago I decided to try Westminster. I was getting on uncommonly well there, principally because I gave a tremendous thrashing to a fellow they call Black Jim. He has been a prize fighter.”

“I know him,” Tring said; “it was the fellow that was kicked out for selling a fight. He was not a bad man with his fists, either; but I expect you astonished him, Mr. Thorndyke.”

“Yes, I knocked him out of time in three rounds. Well, he has been a bully down there, and everyone was very glad he was taken down. After that I got to know several of the worst lot down there. They fancied that I was one of themselves, and several of them made proposals to me to join them, and, of course, I encouraged the idea in hopes of coming upon the man that I was after. Then some fellow in the street recognized me, I suppose, and denounced me to the rest as being one of the runners. I suppose he told them this evening, before I went in.

“The place was a regular thieves' den, which, of course, was why I went there. Naturally they were furious, especially those who had been proposing to me to join them. Anyhow, they had evidently settled among themselves that I was to be put out of the way, and directly I went in I was attacked. I knocked down a few of them, but they jumped on my back, and one of them managed to get a rope round my legs, and down I went with three or four of them, and before I could get up again they had tied and gagged me. Then they held a sort of court. Man after man got up and said that I had been drawing them on to find out what they were up to, and had agreed to join them, of course with the intention of getting them caught in the act, and two got up and said that they knew me as one of the runners. They all agreed that I must be put out of the way.

“I suppose, as the landlord did not want blood spilt in his house, they did not knife me at once; however, they told me that they had decided that as soon as the coast was clear I should be carried down to the river, and chucked in, with an old anchor tied