CHAPTER XV
A NARROW ESCAPE
MR. MILFORD was stretched out in a hammock on the front porch of thebungalow when the children came back from the dunes with their emptybasket. They could not see him as they climbed up the terrace, the porchbeing high above them and draped with vines; and he deep in a new bookwas only vaguely conscious of approaching voices.
They were discussing the "Rescues of Rosalind," the play they had seenthe night before on the films. Their shrill, eager tones would haveattracted the attention of anyone less absorbed than Mr. Milford.
"I'll bet you couldn't," Georgina was saying. "If you were gagged andbound the way Rosalind was, you _couldn't_ get loose, no matter how yousquirmed and twisted."
"Come back in the garage and try me," Richard retorted. "I'll prove itto you that I can."
"_Always_ an automobile dashes up and there's a chase. It's been thatway in every movie I ever saw," announced Georgina with the air of onewho has attended nightly through many seasons.
"I can do that part all right," declared Richard. "I can run anautomobile."
There was no disputing that fact, no matter how contradictory Georgina'sframe of mind. Only the day before she had seen him take the wheel andrun the car for three miles under the direction of Cousin James, whenthey came to a level stretch of road.
"Yes, but you know your Cousin James said you were never to do it unlesshe was along himself. You wasn't to dare to touch it when you were outwith only the chauffeur."
"He wouldn't care if we got in and didn't start anything but theengine," said Richard. "Climb in and play that I'm running away withyou. With the motor chugging away and shaking the machine it'll seem asif we're really going."
By this time they were inside the garage, with the doors closed behindthem.
"Now you get in and keep looking back the way Rosalind did to see hownear they are to catching us."
Instantly Georgina threw herself into the spirit of the game. Climbinginto the back seat she assumed the pose of the kidnapped bride whoseadventures had thrilled them the night before.
"Play my white veil is floating out in the wind," she commanded, "andI'm looking back and waving to my husband to come faster and take meaway from the dreadful villain who is going to kill me for my jewels. Iwish this car was out of doors instead of in this dark garage. When Ilook back I look bang against the closed door every time, and I can'tmake it seem as if I was seeing far down the road."
"Play it's night," suggested Richard. He had put on a pair of gogglesand was making a great pretence of getting ready to start. Georgina,leaning out as Rosalind had done, waved her lily hand in franticbeckonings for her rescuers to follow faster. The motor chugged harderand harder. The car shook violently.
To the vivid imaginations of the passengers, the chase was as excitingas if the automobile were really plunging down the road instead ofthrobbing steadily in one spot in the dim garage. The gas rolling upfrom somewhere in the back made it wonderfully realistic. But out on theopen road the smell of burning gasoline would not have been sooverpowering. Inside the little box-like garage it began to close in onthem and settle down like a dense fog.
Georgina coughed and Richard looked back apprehensively, feeling thatsomething was wrong, and if that queer smoke didn't stop pouring out insuch a thick cloud he'd have to shut off the engine or do something.Another moment passed and he leaned forward, fumbling for the key, buthe couldn't find it. He had grown queerly confused and light-headed. Hecouldn't make his fingers move where he wanted them to go.
He looked back at Georgina. She wasn't waving her hands any more. Shewas lying limply back on the seat as if too tired to play any longer.And a thousand miles away--at least it sounded that far--above theterrific noise the motor was making, he heard Captain Kidd barking. Theywere short, excited barks, so thin and queer, almost as thin and queeras if he were barking with the voice of a mosquito instead of his own.
And then--Richard heard nothing more, not even the noise of the motor.His hand dropped from the wheel, and he began slipping down, down fromthe seat to the floor of the car, white and limp, overcome likeGeorgina, by the fumes of the poisonous gas rolling up from thecarburetor.
Mr. Milford, up in the hammock, had been vaguely conscious for severalminutes of unusual sounds somewhere in the neighborhood, but it was notuntil he reached the end of the chapter that he took any intelligentnotice. Then he looked up thinking somebody's machine was making aterrible fuss somewhere near. But it wasn't that sound which made himsit up in the hammock. It was Captain Kidd's frantic barking and yelpingand whining as if something terrible was happening to him.
Standing up to stretch himself, then walking to the corner of the porch,Mr. Milford looked out. He could see the little terrier alternatelyscratching on the garage door and making frantic efforts to dig underit. Evidently he felt left out and was trying desperately to join hislittle playmates, or else he felt that something was wrong inside.
Then it came to Mr. Milford in a flash that something _was_ wronginside. Nobody ever touched that machine but himself and the chauffeur,and the chauffeur, who was having a day off, was half-way to Yarmouth bythis time. He didn't wait to go down by the steps. With one leap he wasover the railing, crashing through the vines, and running down theterrace to the garage.
As he rolled back one of the sliding doors a suffocating burst of gasrushed into his face. He pushed both doors open wide, and with a handover his mouth and nose hurried through the heavily-charged atmosphereto shut off the motor. The fresh air rushing in, began clearing away thefumes, and he seized Georgina and carried her out, thinking she would berevived by the time he was back with Richard. But neither child stirredfrom the grass where he stretched them out.
As he called for the cook and the housekeeper, there flashed into hismind an account he had read recently in a New York paper, of a man andhis wife who had been asphyxiated in just such a way as this. Nowthoroughly alarmed, he sent the cook running down the Green Stairs tosummon Richard's father from the studio, and the housekeeper totelephone in various directions. Three doctors were there in amiraculously short time, but despite all they could do at the end ofhalf an hour both little figures still lay white and motionless.
Then the pulmotor that had been frantically telephoned for arrived fromthe life-saving station, and just as the man dashed up with that, Mrs.Triplett staggered up the terrace, her knees shaking so that she couldscarcely manage to climb the last few steps.
Afterwards, the happenings of the day were very hazy in Georgina's mind.She had an indistinct recollection of being lifted in somebody's armsand moved about, and of feeling very sick and weak. Somebody saidsoothingly to somebody who was crying:
"Oh, the worst is over now. They're both beginning to come around."
Then she was in her own bed and the wild-cat from the banks of theBrazos was bending over her. At least, she thought it was the wild-cat,because she smelled the liniment as strongly as she did when she climbedup in the wagon beside it. But when she opened her eyes it was Tippy whowas bending over her, smoothing her curls in a comforting, purry way,but the smell of liniment still hung in the air.
Then Georgina remembered something that must have happened before shewas carried home from the bungalow.--Captain Kidd squirming out ofTippy's arms, and Tippy with the tears streaming down her face tryingto hold him and hug him as if he had been a person, and the Milford'scook saying: "If it hadn't been for the little beast's barkin' they'dhave been dead in a few minutes more. Then there'd have been a doublefuneral, poor lambs."
Georgina smiled drowsily now and slipped off to sleep again, but laterwhen she awakened the charm of the cook's phrase aroused her thoroughly,and she lay wondering what "a double funeral" was like. Would it havebeen at her house or Richard's? Would two little white coffins havestood side by side, or would each have been in its own place, with thetwo solemn processions meeting and joining at the foot of the GreenStairs. Maybe they would have put on her tombstone, "None knew her butto l
ove her." No, that couldn't be said about her. She'd been wilfullydisobedient too often for that, like the time she played with thePortuguese children on purpose to spite Tippy. She was sorry for thatdisobedience now, for she had discovered that Tippy was fonder of herthan she had supposed. She had proved it by hugging Captain Kidd sogratefully for saving their lives, when she simply _loathed_ dogs.
Somehow Georgina felt that she was better acquainted with Mrs. Triplettthan she had ever been before, and fonder of her. Lying there in thedark she made several good resolutions. She was going to be a bettergirl in the future. She was going to do kind, lovely things foreverybody, so that if an early tomb should claim her, every heart intown would be saddened by her going. It would be lovely to leave awidespread heartache behind her. She wished she could live such a lifethat there wouldn't be a dry eye in the town when it was whispered fromhouse to house that little Georgina Huntingdon was with the angels.
She pictured Belle's grief, and Uncle Darcy's and Richard's. She hadalready seen Tippy's. But it was a very different thing when she thoughtof Barby. There was no pleasure in imagining Barby's grief. There wassomething too real and sharp in the pain which darted into her own heartat the thought of it. She wanted to put her arms around her mother andward off sorrow and trouble from her and keep all tears away from thosedear eyes. She wanted to grow up and take care of her darling Barby andprotect her from the Tishbite.
Suddenly it occurred to Georgina that in this escape she had been keptfrom the power of that mysterious evil which had threatened her eversince she called it forth by doing such a wicked thing as to use the"Sacred Book" to work a charm.
She had been put to bed in the daytime, hence her evening petitions werestill unsaid. Now she pulled the covers over her head and included themall in one fervent appeal:
"And keep on delivering us from the Tishbite, forever and ever, Amen!"
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