The Dozen from Lakerim Part 7

X

So they all left the gymnasium with its prisoners, and Sawed-Off locked the door firmly behind him. Then they went at a double-quick for Moore's restaurant and the waiting banquet, which, they suspected, was by this time growing cold.

When MacMa.n.u.s left his room he had thrown on a long ulster overcoat with a very high collar. When this was turned up about his ears it completely hid the gag around his mouth, and Tug and Sawed-Off locked arms with him and hurried him along the poorly lighted streets of Kingston without fear of detection from any pa.s.ser-by. MacMa.n.u.s dragged his feet and refused to go for a time, till Tug and Sawed-Off hauled him over such rough spots that he preferred to walk. Then, without warning, when they were crossing a slippery place he pushed his feet in opposite directions and knocked Sawed-Off's and Tug's feet out from under them. But inasmuch as all three of them fell in a heap, with him at the bottom, he decided that this was a poor policy.

The Dozen were soon at Moore's restaurant; and there, at the door, they found waiting one of the Crows whom they had forgotten to take into account. He was the fat boy whom Tug and History had seen hazed just before their turn came, on the eventful night at Roden's Knoll.

Having been hazed, and having been taxed, this boy who was known as "Fatty" Warner, was ent.i.tled to banquet with the Crows; but he had been invited out to a bigger supper than he could get at the "Slaughter-house," and so he did not receive his note, and escaped the fate of the Crows who had been put in cold storage in the gymnasium.

B.J. and Bobbles, however, took him to one side and told him that they were afraid they would have to tie him up and put him in a corner with MacMa.n.u.s. But the tears came into his eyes at the thought of sitting and looking at a feast in which he could not take part, and he reminded the Lakerimmers that he had had no share in the attack on Tug and History, and had done nothing to interfere with their escape from Roden's Knoll, and besides, he had been compelled to pay out his last cent of spending-money to the Crows for this banquet: So the Lakerimmers decided to invite him to join them in eating the feast of the enemy.

Mr. Moore, the proprietor of the village restaurant, had a very bad memory for faces, and when the Lakerimmers came into the room where the table was spread, and told him to hurry up with the banquet, it never occurred to him to ask for a certificate of character from the guests. He was surprised, however, that there were only twelve men where he had provided for eighteen or more; but Jumbo said, with a twinkle in his eye:

"The rest of them couldn't come; so we'll eat their share."

The Lakerimmers grinned at this. Mr. Moore suspected that there was some joke which he could not understand; but the ways of the Academy boys were always past his comprehension, so he and the waiters came bustling in with the first course of just such a banquet as would please a crowd of academicians, and would give an older person a stomach-ache for six weeks.

Besides, the wise Mr. Moore knew the little habit students have of postponing the payment of their bills, and he had insisted upon being paid in advance. Poor MacMa.n.u.s suddenly remembered how he had doled out the funds of the Crows for this very spread, and he almost sobbed as he thought of the hard time he had spent in collecting the money and preparing the menu--and all for the enjoyment of the hated Lakerimmers, who had already spoiled the final hazing of the year, and were now giggling and gobbling the precious banquet provided at such expense! Mr. Moore wondered at the presence of such a sad-looking guest at the feast, and wondered why he insisted on abstaining from the monstrous delicacies that made the tables groan; but he reasoned that it was none of his affair, and asked no questions.

Before they had eaten much the Lakerimmers grew as uncomfortable over the torment they were inflicting on poor MacMa.n.u.s as the poor MacMa.n.u.s was himself. And Tug explained to him in a low voice that if he would promise on his solemn honor not to make any disturbance they would be glad to have him as a guest instead of a prisoner. MacMa.n.u.s objected bitterly for a long time, but the enticing odor drove him almost crazy, and the sight of the renegade fat boy, who was fairly making a cupboard of himself, finally convinced the president that it was better to take his ill fortune with a good grace. So he nodded a.s.sent to the promises Tug exacted of him, his m.u.f.fler and overcoat were removed, and he was invited to make himself at home; and his misery was promptly forgotten in the rattle of dishes and the clatter of laughter and song with which the Dozen reveled in the feast of its ancient enemies.

The delight of the Lakerimmers in the banquet was no greater than the misery of the Crows whose wings had been clipped, and who had been left to flop about in the dark nooks of the chapel. The feast of the Dozen had just begun when two of the Crows in the cupola and two others in the cellar bethought themselves to roll close to each other, back to back, and untie the knots around each other's wrists. They were soon free, and quickly had their fellows liberated and the gags all removed. But the liberty of hands and feet and tongues, though it left them free to express their rage, still left them as far as ever from the banquet which, as they soon suspected, was disappearing rapidly under the teeth of the Lakerimmers. They groped around in the pitch-black darkness, and finally one of the men in the cupola found a little round window through which he could put his head and yell for help. His cry was soon answered by another that seemed to come faintly from the depths of the earth.

XI

The far-off cry which the six Crows in the cupola heard coming from the depths of the earth was raised by the eleven Crows in the cellar.

By dint of much yelling the two flocks made their misery known to each other. The trouble with the cellar party was that it could not get up.

The trouble with the cupola crowd was that it could not get down. And they seemed to be too far apart to be of much help to each other, for the cupola Crows had lost little time in lifting the trap-door of the belfry and finding that the ladder was gone, and none of them was hardy--or foolhardy--enough to risk the drop into the uncertain dark.

So there they waited in mid-air.

The cellar Crows, when they had released each other's bonds, and groped around the jagged walls, and stumbled foolishly over each other and all the other tripping things in their dungeons, had succeeded in forcing apart the wooden doors between their three cells and joining forces--or joining weaknesses, rather, because, when they finally found the cellar stairs, they also found that, for all the strength they could throw into their backs and shoulders, they could not lift the door, with all the heavy weights put on it by the Dozen. There were a few matches in the crowd, and they sufficed to reveal the little cellar windows. These they reached by forming a human ladder, as the Gauls scaled the walls of Rome (only to find that a flock of silly geese had foiled their plans). But there were no geese to disturb the Crows, and the first of their number managed to worm through to the outer air and help up his fellows in misery.

It seemed for a time, though, as if even this escape were to be cut off; for a very fat Crow got himself stuck in a little window, and the Crows outside could not pull him through, tug as they would. Then the Crows inside began to pull at his feet and to hang their whole weight on his legs.

But still he stuck.

Then they all grew excited, and both the outsiders and the insiders pulled at once, until the luckless fat boy thought they were trying to make twins of him, and howled for mercy.

He might have been there to this day had he not managed, by some mysterious and painful wriggle, to crawl through unaided.

Before long, then, the whole crowd of cellar Crows was standing out in the cold air and asking the cupola Crows why they didn't come down.

One of the Crows (Irish by descent) suddenly started off on the run; the others called him back and asked what he was going for.

"For a clothes-line," he said.

"What are you going to do with it?" they asked.

And he answered:

"Going to throw 'em a rope and pull 'em down."

Then he wondered why they all groaned.

The word "rope," however, suggested an idea to the cupola prisoners, and after much groping they found the bell-rope, and one of them cut off a good length of it. They fastened it securely then, and slid down to the next floor, whence they made their way without much difficulty down the stairs to the ground. There they found the outer door firmly locked. Then they felt sadder than over.

But by this time the hubbub they had raised had brought on the scene several of the instructors, one of whom had a duplicate key of the gymnasium. And they suffered the terrible humiliation of being released by one of the Faculty!

On being questioned as to the cause of such a breach of the peace of the Academy, all the seventeen Crows attempted to explain the high-handed and inexcusable conduct of the wicked Dozen which had picked on eighteen defenseless men and made them prisoners. The instructor had been a boy himself once, and he could not entirely conceal a little smile at the thought of the cruelty of the Lakerim Twelve. Just then MacMa.n.u.s came by, and with one accord the Crows exclaimed:

"Where did they tie you up?"

"Down at Moore's restaurant," said MacMa.n.u.s, sheepishly.

"Well, what has happened to the banquet?" they exclaimed.

"It's all eaten!" groaned MacMa.n.u.s.

"Who ate it?" cawed the Crows.

"The Dozen!" moaned MacMa.n.u.s.

And that was the last straw that broke the Crows' backs.

They threatened all sorts of revenge, and some of the smaller-minded of them went to the Faculty and suggested that the best thing that could be done was to expel the Lakerim men in a body. But, by a little questioning, the Faculty learned of the attempted hazing that had been at the bottom of the whole matter, and decided that the best thing to do was to reprimand and warn both the Crows and the Dozen, and make them solemnly promise to bury the hatchet.

Which they did.

And thus ended one of the bitterest feuds of modern times.

XII

Now, Heady, who had set the whole kidnapping scheme on foot as soon as he joined the Dozen at Kingston, had brought to the Academy no particular love for study; but he had brought a great enthusiasm for basket-ball.

And this enthusiasm was catching, and he soon had many of the Kingstonians working hard in the gymnasium, and organizing scrub teams to play this most bewilderingly rapid of games.