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I had lost my sense of direction. The hills were where the bay ought to be. I seemed to have changed sides of the street, and it took me a little time to readjust the points of the compass. I reasoned at last that Dicky Nahl had led me to the street below before turning to the place, and I had not noticed that we had doubled on our course.
"It's a smart man as can put his finger on Dicky Nahl," said Mother Borton spitefully. "Nahl is his name?" "Yes. And I've seen him hobnob with Henry Wilton, and I've seen him thick as thieves with Tom Terrill, and which he's thickest with the devil himself couldn't tell. I call him Slippery Dicky." "Why did he bring me here to-night?"
The whistles of the ferry-boats, as they gave warning of their way through the mist, rose shrill on the air. The waters were still, a faint ripple showing in strange contrast to the scene of last night. "There's a steamer behind us," said Dicky Nahl, with a worried look as I joined him. "I've been listening to it for five minutes." "It's a tug," said the captain.
"You must have guards." "By the way," I said, "that reminds me. The men haven't been paid, and they're looking to me for money." "Who's looking to you for money?" "Dicky Nahl and the others, I suppose." "Dicky Nahl?" "Why, yes. He asked me for it." "And you gave it to him?" she asked sharply. "No-o that is, I gave him ten dollars, and told him he'd have to wait for the rest.
Nahl does not know him." "None of my men seems to know him," I interrupted; "that is, if one may judge by the way they were all taken in on the boy you sent to Livermore." "I think none of them ever saw his face, though some of them were with Henry Wilton when he first took the boy, and afterward." "The enemy seem to know him," said I, remembering the scene at Livermore. "Terrill knows him.
That she-devil?" cried Dicky. "She'd give you up to have your throat cut in a minute if she could get a four-bit piece for your carcass. I guess she could get more than that on you, too." Mother Borton's warnings against Dicky Nahl returned to me with force at this expression of esteem from the young man, and I was filled with doubts.
But as we stumbled up the stairway the apprehensions of Dicky Nahl came strong upon me, and I looked ahead to the murky halls, and glanced at every doorway, as though I expected an ambush. Porter and Barkhouse marched stolidly along, showing little disposition to talk. "What's that?" I exclaimed, stopping to listen.
They was a-sayin' as it might be an idee to take ye as you come out of Knapp's to-night." "How did they know I was at Knapp's?" I asked, somewhat surprised, though I had little reason to be when I remembered the number of spies who might have watched me. "Why, Dicky Nahl told 'em," said Mother Borton. "He was with the gang, and sings it out as pretty as you please."
"The carriage should be somewhere around here," she continued, peering anxiously about as we reached the foot of the wharf. The low buildings by the railroad track were but piles of blackness, and about them I could see nothing. "This way," said a familiar voice, and a man stepped from the shadow. "Dicky Nahl!" I exclaimed. "Mr. Wilton!" mimicked Dicky. "But it's just as well not to speak so loud.
My prudence suggested that I had better omit any mention of the warning from Dicky Nahl. "The same ones," said Mother Borton shortly, "only more of 'em." Then she eyed me grimly, crouching in her chair with the appearance of an evil bird of prey, and seemed to wait for me to speak. "What is the latest plot?" I asked gravely, as I fancied that my light manner grated on my strange guest.
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