Part 10 (2/2)

The owner of the hand I had never seen before. He was young and ragged, with one eye blank, but the other ablaze with some fell excitement. And straightway he burst into a low torrent of words, of which all I knew was that they were Italian, and therefore news of Raffles, if only I had known the language! But dumb-show might help us somewhat, and in I dragged him, though against his will, a new alarm in his one wild eye.

”Non capite?” he cried when I had him inside and had withstood the torrent.

”No, I'm bothered if I do!” I answered, guessing his question from his tone.

”Vostro amico,” he repeated over and over again; and then, ”Poco tempo, poco tempo, poco tempo!”

For once in my life the cla.s.sical education of my public-school days was of real value. ”My pal, my pal, and no time to be lost!” I translated freely, and flew for my hat.

”Ecco, signore!” cried the fellow, s.n.a.t.c.hing the watch from my waistcoat pocket, and putting one black thumb-nail on the long hand, the other on he numeral twelve. ”Mezzogiorno-poco tempo-poco tempo!” And again I seized his meaning, that it was twenty past eleven, and we must be there by twelve. But where, but where? It was maddening to be summoned like this, and not to know what had happened, nor to have any means of finding out. But my presence of mind stood by me still, I was improving by seven-league strides, and I crammed my handkerchief between the drum and hammer of the bell before leaving. The doctor could ring now till he was black in the face, but I was not coming, and he need not think it.

I half expected to find a hansom waiting, but there was none, and we had gone some distance down the Earl's Court Road before we got one; in fact, we had to run to the stand. Opposite is the church with the clock upon it, as everybody knows, and at sight of the dial my companion had wrung his hands; it was close upon the half-hour.

”Poco tempo-pochissimo!” he wailed. ”Bloom-buree Ske-warr,” he then cried to the cabman-”numero trentotto!”

”Bloomsbury Square,” I roared on my own account, ”I'll show you the house when we get there, only drive like be-d.a.m.ned!”

My companion lay back gasping in his corner. The small gla.s.s told me that my own face was pretty red.

”A nice show!” I cried; ”and not a word can you tell me. Didn't you bring me a note?”

I might have known by this time that he had not, still I went through the pantomime of writing with my finger on my cuff. But he shrugged and shook his head.

”Niente,” said he. ”Una quistione di vita, di vita!”

”What's that?” I snapped, my early training come in again. ”Say it slowly-andante-rallentando.”

Thank Italy for the stage instructions in the songs one used to murder! The fellow actually understood.

”Una-quistione-di-vita.”

”Or mors, eh?” I shouted, and up went the trap-door over our heads.

”Avanti, avanti, avanti!” cried the Italian, turning up his one-eyed face.

”h.e.l.l-to-leather,” I translated, ”and double fare if you do it by twelve o'clock.”

But in the streets of London how is one to know the time? In the Earl's Court Road it had not been half-past, and at Barker's in High Street it was but a minute later. A long half-mile a minute, that was going like the wind, and indeed we had done much of it at a gallop. But the next hundred yards took us five minutes by the next clock, and which was one to believe? I fell back upon my own old watch (it was my own), which made it eighteen minutes to the hour as we swung across the Serpentine bridge, and by the quarter we were in the Bayswater Road-not up for once.

”Presto, presto,” my pale guide murmured. ”Affretatevi-avanti!”

”Ten bob if you do it,” I cried through the trap, without the slightest notion of what we were to do. But it was ”una quistione di vita,” and ”vostro amico” must and could only be my miserable Raffles.

What a very G.o.dsend is the perfect hansom to the man or woman in a hurry! It had been our great good fortune to jump into a perfect hansom; there was no choice, we had to take the first upon the rank, but it must have deserved its place with the rest nowhere. New tires, superb springs, a horse in a thousand, and a driver up to every trick of his trade! In and out we went like a fast half-back at the Rugby game, yet where the traffic was thinnest, there were we. And how he knew his way! At the Marble Arch he slipped out of the main stream, and so into Wigmore Street, then up and in and out and on until I saw the gold tips of the Museum palisade gleaming between the horse's ears in the sun. Plop, plop, plop; ting, ling, ling; bell and horse-shoes, horse-shoes and bell, until the colossal figure of C. J. Fox in a grimy toga spelt Bloomsbury Square with my watch still wanting three minutes to the hour.

”What number?” cried the good fellow over-head.

<script>