O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 51

So he chopped away, how long he did not know. Suddenly his pick struck an obstacle again. He hacked at it. It gave slightly. A third time he struck it, and it seemed to recede. An odour of mouldy air filled his nostrils. In that little aperture his pick touched nothing now! He heard something fall! Then he knew! There was a hollow place in front of them! The abandoned conduit? He stifled a shout.

From somewhere, m.u.f.fled at first, but ultimately faintly strident, rose a prolonged wail that seemed to issue from the very earth. The sound rose, and fell, and rose again. Frantically the pick of Old Man Anderson hacked away at the dirt, and then at whatever was in front of him. Detroit Jim snapped the feeble flashlight then. It was a wall--the conduit wall!

Meantime, the prison siren shrieked out to the countryside the news of an escape.

What time it was--whether night or day or what day, neither Jim nor Old Man Anderson knew. They had slept, of course, and Jim had forgotten to wind his watch. Had one week or two weeks pa.s.sed? If two weeks had slipped by and if the prison officers ran true to form they would by now have ceased searching inside the prison walls.

Old Man Anderson and Detroit Jim huddled close to each other in the darkness of the conduit. A hundred times they had crawled from one end to the other of their vaultlike trap! In their desperate and fruitless search for an outlet to the conduit they had burned many matches and several candles. Besides, Old Man Anderson had required light in which to fight off his attacks of nerves, and the last of the candles had gone for that. Now total darkness enveloped them.

The conduit was blocked! By earth at one end, and by a brick wall at the other! All along the winding hundred feet of vault they had hacked out brick after brick only to encounter solid earth behind. Only a few tins of food remained and the water was wholly gone; the liquid from the food cans only served to increase their thirst.

Old Man Anderson had grown to loathe Detroit Jim. Every word he murmured, every movement he made, intensified the loathing. He had made up his mind that Jim was planning to desert him the next time he should fall asleep; perhaps would kill him and leave him there--in the dark. The two had practically ceased speaking to each other. In his mental confusion Old Man Anderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction, a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim should fall asleep he would crawl back through the aperture in the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the opening into the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chances in getting over the wall somehow! Better even be shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down on account of the things that were forever crawling through the place!

His contemplation of his plan was broken in upon by his companion clutching him spasmodically by the arm. The old man's cry died in his throat.

Footsteps! Dull and distant they were, and somewhere above them--momentarily more distinct--receding--gone!

Detroit Jim pulled Andersen's head toward him, and whispered:

"Sidewalk! People going by! We've never sat right here before! We wouldn't hear them if they weren't walking on stone, or slate, or something hard!"

The old man's heart pounded like a trip-hammer. Detroit Jim seized the pick and began to pry the bricks loose from the arched roof of the conduit. They worked like mad, picking, hacking, pulling, piling the bricks softly down on the conduit floor.

Once, for an instant, Jim stopped working. "How far from the hole we came in through, do you think we are?" he whispered.

"'Bout a hundred feet, I guess," answered the old man. "Why?"

Without replying Detroit Jim resumed his picking, picking, at the bricks. A hundred feet from where they had entered would not be under the sidewalk. Finally, he understood. This conduit wound around a good deal; it would take a hundred winding feet to cover thirty straightaway.

Finally, also, Detroit Jim turned the pick over to the old man, who, feeling in the blackness with his hands, discovered the span as wide as his outstretched arms, from which Detroit Jim had removed the bricks. It was a span of yielding earth into which the old man now dug his pick. As he worked, the loosened dirt fell upon him, upon his head, into his eyes and nose and ears....

Abruptly the old man's pick struck the flagging above them! Detroit Jim mounted upon the pile of bricks and shoved Anderson aside.

Jim felt along the edges of the stone clear around. It seemed to measure about three feet by two, and to be of slate, and probably held in place only by its contact with other stones, or by cement between the stones. No light appeared through the crevices. Detroit Jim took from his pocket a huge pocket-knife and with the longest blade poked up between the main stone and the one adjoining. The blade met resistance.

Ultimately, and abruptly, however, the blade shot through to the hilt of the knife. Jim drew it back instantly. No light came through the crevice.

"I smell good air," he whispered, "but I can't see a thing. It must be night!"

They knew now what to do. The flagging must be removed at once, before any one should go by! The hole would be big enough to let them out!

Old Man Andersen's heart leaped. It was over. They had won. Trust him to go where they'd never get him for the Slattery business! As for Detroit Jim, he already knew the next big trick that he would pull off--out in Cleveland!

Ultimately, as Detroit Jim worked upon it, the stone began to sag. An edge caught upon the adjacent flagging. The two men, perched upon the wobbly bricks, manipulated the stone, working it loose, until, finally, it came cras.h.i.+ng down.

The stone had made noise enough, it seemed, to wake the dead; yet above them there was no sound. Swiftly they raised the flagging and set it securely upon the heap of bricks. When Detroit Jim stood upon this improvised platform his head was level with the aperture they had made. He could see no sky, no stars, could feel no wind, discover no light such as pervades even the darkest night.

"Good G.o.d!" he breathed. His fingers went out over the flagging. His knife dropped. The tinkle echoed dully down the conduit. He stooped to where Old Man Anderson stood, breathing hard.

"It's a--a room!" he whispered.

"A--a room?" repeated Old Man Anderson dully.

"Come! After me! Up! I'll pull you up!"

Detroit Jim, being wiry, swung himself up, and then bent down, groping for the old man's hands. Winded, panting, exhausted, the two men stood at last in this new blackness, clutching each other, their ears strained to catch the slightest sound.

"For G.o.d's sake, don't fall down that hole now!" hissed Detroit Jim.

"Listen. We'll both crawl together till we get to a wall. Then you feel along one way, and whisper to me what you find, and I'll crawl the other. Look for a window or a door--some way out! We'll come together finally. Are you ready?"

"I'm--I'm afraid," whined the old man.

Detroit Jim's fingers dug into the other's arm, and he pulled the latter along. Their groping hands touched a wall--a wall of wood.

Detroit Jim stood up and pulled Anderson beside him. He felt the old man s.h.i.+ver. He shoved him gently in to the left and himself moved cautiously to the right, slowly, catlike.

Finally, Jim came to a door. He could perceive no light through the c.h.i.n.ks in the door. Sensing the increasing uncanniness of a room without windows, without furniture, with flagging for a floor, he turned the k.n.o.b of the door gently, and it gave under his touch.

Just then there came to him a hoa.r.s.e whisper from across the room. It made him jump. "I've--I've found some wires," the old man was saying, "in a cable running along the floor----"

"See where they lead!" Detroit Jim was breathless, in antic.i.p.ation.

And then, shattering the overwhelming tension of the moment, shrilled, suddenly, a horrible, prolonged, piercing shriek ending in a gasp and the sound of a heavy body falling to the floor! What, in G.o.d's name, had happened to the old man? And that yell was enough to awaken the entire world!

Detroit Jim groped his way across the room. He could hear now no further sound from the old man.... Steps outside! He sank upon his knees, his hands outstretched. He heard a lock turn; then following upon a click the whole universe went white, and dazzling and scorching!

He raised one arm to his blinking, throbbing eyes. A rough voice shouted: "Hands up!"

There was a rush of feet, the rough clutch of hands at his shoulders.... Presently he found himself blinking down upon the fear-contorted face of Old Man Anderson dirt-streaked, bearded, gaunt, dead!

Slowly his eyes crawled beyond the body on the floor.... Before him, its empty arms stretched toward him, its straps and wires twisting snakily in front of him, was The Chair!

"AURORE"

By ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD

From _Pictorial Review_

"Your name!--_Votre nom_?" Crossman added, for in the North Country not many of the habitants are bilingual.

She looked at him and smiled slowly, her teeth white against cardinal-flower lips.

"Ma name? Aurore," she answered in a voice as mystically slow as her smile, while the mystery of her eyes changed and deepened.

Crossman watched her, fascinated. She was like no woman he had ever seen, radiating a personality individual and strange. "Aurore," he repeated. "You're not the dawn, you know; not a bit like it." He did not expect her to own to any knowledge of the legend of her name, but she nodded her head understandingly.

"It was the Cure name' me so," she explained. "But the Cure and me,"

she shrugged, "never could--how you say?--see--hear--one the other--so, I would not be a blonde just for spite to him--I am a very black dawn, _n'est-ce pas_?"