Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall Part 30

"No; ask me anything else than that."

"Then I'll tell you what I'll do. The National Guards are on their way now. When they come, I'll give them all the information they wish. I know who urged this on. I know who killed the Italian. Oh, I know lots of things that I've kept to myself because my telling would harm you. But--"

She was excited. Whether she pretended this high state of emotion, or whether it was real, was difficult to tell. She had flung open her coat.

The vivid coloring of her gown, her crimson cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes made a brilliant bit of coloring in the dark room lighted by a solitary, smoking oil-lamp. Her tones were clear and decisive.

"Why, Nora, listen to reason. How--"

"No, I will not listen to anything but your promise to go and stop that mob. Listen to them yelling like a pack of hyenas. I'm not through yet.

You must choose and choose quickly. Stand by the miners or me. If you forsake me, I'll never see you again. I'll never let you do anything for me. I'll be as though you never had a daughter. Then what will be the good of all your money and your saving? There'll be no one to waste it on; no one to care about you. You know that mother left me enough to live on.

Besides, I can work. Will you go?" She fairly blazed her words at him. She stamped her foot until the chairs and tables shook.

Dennis O'Day had been her slave since babyhood. She had always had her way, and had done as she had threatened. He knew, too, that she was the only one who had a bit of tenderness for him. The men outside cared little for him. Fear of the consequences was the sole reason that many a miner had not quietly a.s.sisted him into the next world.

Nora came up to him again. She rested her head against his shoulder.

"Listen, daddy, to what I tell you," she said gently, her anger disappearing. In a few words she told him of her isolation at school, and how Elizabeth Hobart had befriended her. Her eyes filled as she talked.

Her hearer, too, was moved. When she had finished, she kissed him again.

"I'll be to you the best daughter a man ever had. Go now," pus.h.i.+ng him toward the door. "And tell them that I have brought you news which changes the program. I'll go with you, daddy. If they harm you, I'll bear the blows too."

He told her to stay, but she followed close after him. He had no fear of bodily harm. There would be growls and snarls, and perhaps threats, but the trouble would end there. Gerani, Colowski, Raffelo, Sickerenza, were the bell-sheep. He could control them.

Pus.h.i.+ng his way to the front of the saloon, he stood in the doorway and shouted with the full force of his lungs. He spoke Slavic, and they listened. There were mutterings and growls as might have been expected. He gave no reason for the delay of the attack, but his words suggested much.

Gerani, in the background, in low tones was urging a group of Slavs to answer O'Day, and declare that they would go on. O'Day's eyes were on the big Slav. He understood the conditions. Nothing would please Gerani better than to have the miners rush upon the speaker and kill him.

O'Day understood. He called out, "Take my word for it, Gerani. We won't get into this to-night. They've filled the cars on the incline with dynamite. The moment we set foot there, down comes the car. Do you want your men blown to pieces? Besides, my daughter," he drew her against him, "brings news of the militia close at hand. Go back to your homes, men--back to bed. Let the National Guards find you all asleep, and their work for nothing. If they see all quiet, they'll leave. Then will come our time. While I think of it, Gerani, Father O'Brady still keeps safe in the church those papers you know of.

"Sickerenza, you haven't forgotten, have you, about the breakers being burnt up at Wilkes-Barre? Seeing you, put me in mind of them.

"Colowski, I know a man who's looking for Sobieski."

The three men thus addressed swore beneath their breath. Thus O'Day forever kept the noose about their necks. They slunk from sight.

"Speak to the men, you curs," commanded O'Day in English which but a few understood. "Tell them to go back home, Gerani."

Thus admonished, the man cried out in Slavic, ordering the men home, to meet the following night. The other two leading spirits followed his example. There was a movement toward dispersion. The flickering lights in their caps moved slowly away in groups of threes and fours.

The distance grew greater until to Nora O'Day they looked like fire-flies.

The light from the open door was upon her. The vivid orange of her evening dress gleamed in the shadows. She had stood there fearless, erect, looking straight into the eyes of the mob, until one by one they had disappeared in the darkness.

Then she turned and leaned heavily against her father.

"I'm tired, daddy dear, but I'm happy. I have my father, and Elizabeth will have hers. Come, take me to her. We must tell her the good news."

THE END.