Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale Part 42

They did not wait for him to kneel, but pushed him to his knees. He found himself as the neophytes did, at the bottom of a stairway; then they told him to mount, and prodded him in the back and legs to make him start on.

Miller started, for he could not help himself. His journey upward then was like that described in the case of Frank during his initiation.

What he felt cannot be described, for Miller, so far as is known, never told anybody about it.

He arrived at the top of the long, winding flight of stairs in a state of almost complete collapse. The noise had been more deafening and hideous than ever had been endured by any neophyte.

The whole force of the Pi Gamma were out to make the thing a success, and every kind of racket that ingenuity could devise was added to the usual programme.

When at last Miller found that there were no other steps ahead of him to be climbed, he stumbled forward, face downward, and lay upon the floor gasping and groaning.

The noise suddenly ceased, for Baker had held up his hand and the students who understood the programme obeyed his silent command immediately.

"The mystic gates have been pa.s.sed," remarked Baker, in a solemn tone.

"It is understood that the person who has thus entered within the circle of Pi Gamma is not a member and that he has been permitted to come here simply that he may defend his own life.

"We will, therefore, proceed to try him at once. Set the prisoner on his feet."

A couple of students lifted Miller up, and obeying another sign from Baker, took the bandage from his eyes.

Miller looked around then with a stare of fright and surprise. The hooded figures had disappeared and in their places were students dressed just as he was accustomed to seeing them.

The room was a large one, but what it contained besides the students he was too frightened to notice. His knees were shaking and his lips quivered, although in the presence of these rather familiar faces he tried to pull himself together and look cool.

"Miller," said Baker, sternly, standing squarely in front of him, "you are in a very serious situation, and it is necessary for your safety that you should have as good control of yourself as possible. We intend to give you every chance for your life."

"I ain't done nothing!" muttered Miller.

"That will be found out later," was the stern reply; "meantime you're in no condition to defend yourself. We'll give you a bracer so that you may be able to understand what goes on and take part in it the best way you know how."

With this Baker nodded to a senior, who immediately came forward with a gla.s.s filled with some kind of liquor.

"Drink this," said Baker.

He held it out to Miller, who took it with a trembling hand.

"You're going to poison me," he stammered.

"In the presence of all these witnesses?" returned Baker, sharply.

"Hardly. The stuff will not harm you; if you don't drink it you'll be worse off."

Miller still hesitated. He looked doubtfully at the liquor, smelled of it and then stared helplessly at the faces around him.

Baker raised his hand. At the signal every student seized a club of some kind and got in a circle around Miller, holding the clubs up.

"We don't want any nonsense about this," said Baker then. "You can either drink that dose now or the clubs will fall."

The instant he had spoken every student brought his club down hard upon the floor close to Miller's feet. The man fairly danced in an agony of fear, and a part of the liquor fell from the gla.s.s.

"Drink!" thundered Baker.

The cigar dealer then put the gla.s.s to his lips and poured it down with one gulp. Baker nodded in a satisfied way.

"Now put him in the prisoner's chair!" he said.

Two of the students then led Miller trembling and more than half convinced that he had taken deadly poison, to the swing in which the neophytes had been drawn up to the ceiling.

Miller was seated in the chains and told to grip the chain and then the windla.s.s was worked, and he was raised three or four feet from the floor.

The students grouped themselves in front of him, seated on chairs; Baker alone remained standing.

It seemed to Miller then as if everybody moved very slowly. He thought he could count a hundred between every two words that were uttered.

Before many minutes had pa.s.sed it seemed to him as if he had been a year in this place.

This sensation on his part was due to the liquor he had drunk. It was a harmless preparation of hasheesh, a well-known Indian drug that, taken in sufficient quant.i.ties, is poisonous, but in small doses produces simply a half dream-like effect upon the mind that causes the time to seem intolerably long.

It is a dangerous drug to fool with, but the preparation of it in this instance had been made by a senior who was the best student in college in the department of chemistry.

He knew just how to put it together so that the effect on Miller's brain would not endure for more than two hours and would leave him entirely uninjured. As he expressed it:

"It won't do him half as much harm as an ordinary jag, and he'll remember everything that occurs during the time that he's drugged, and everything that's done will impress him most seriously."

Taking his fear and the influence of the drug together, therefore, Miller was in very ripe condition for the trial that then took place.

It was really very brief, for knowing that the time was pa.s.sing slowly to the victim, the students hurried through the proceeding in order to get more quickly to the climax.

"Miller," said Baker, sternly, "you are accused of pus.h.i.+ng Frank Merriwell in front of a moving car. What have you to say for yourself?"

"I--I--I----" stammered Miller, very slowly.

"If you're going to tell the truth," interrupted Baker, "you can take less time about it. We know the facts, for you were seen by four of us and recognized. We should have let the matter pa.s.s if it hadn't resulted fatally."

"I didn't go for to do any real harm," answered Miller, the perspiration breaking out upon his face.

"But you admit that you did do it?"

"I just thought I'd give him a scare."

"Very well, gentlemen," said Baker, calmly, "what's your verdict?"

"Guilty!" thundered the students in chorus.

Miller trembled so that the chains to which he was clinging rattled.

"See here," he said, feebly, "I don't see how it could be fatal, for I heard that Frank Merriwell was seen around on the streets day before yesterday."

"Then you doubt, do you, that your cowardly trick has proved fatal?"

"How could it," asked Miller, "if he was going around just as usual? I think this is some infernal trick of you students----"