"What good would it do me to be afraid?"
"Can you reason like that in a moment when your life is in the most terrible danger? Have you ice in your veins?"
"Why should you do me an injury? If you are here to rob me----"
"I am not! I am here to make you stop from robbing me. I told you I would have my right or kill you. You laughed at me. Now you do not laugh!"
"Felipe Jalisco!"
"It is my name," was the bold confession.
Frank was amazed.
"How did you get into this house?"
"I find the way. When I told you that, night or day, asleep or awake, there would never be one moment that you would not be free from the peril of death at my hand, you laughed. You do not laugh now!"
"This isn"t my time to laugh," confessed Frank. "Only fools laugh at the wrong moment."
"You were a fool when you defied me. You did not know me. You did not know the blood of the Jaliscos in me. To-night you thought yourself safe from harm. You did not dream it possible that Felipe Jalisco might strike his knife into your heart while you slept. When I told you that not one moment would you be safe, you thought it the foolish talk of a boy. Now you see."
"It is too dark for me to see very well."
"I am here to make you swear to give me what is mine. If you do it not, then you die!"
"And you will go to the electric chair at Sing Sing. Should you kill me to-night, Jalisco, you would be executed for murder."
"Paugh! I fear it not."
"Do you fancy you could escape?"
"I could."
"How little you reckon on the power of the law in this country. For you there would be no escape. You threatened my life, and that threat was heard before many witnesses. Those witnesses are all rich and powerful men. Should I be killed here and now, the first thing those men would do would be to bring all their combined influence to bear on having you arrested immediately, and convicted of that murder. Even if you were not guilty, and by some chance an unknown party should murder me, you would find it almost impossible to escape punishment for the crime. All those men would believe you did it, and they would bend every energy and the influence of their great wealth to carry you to the death chair. Did you attempt to prove an alibi, with all their influence and their wealth they would overthrow the proof, and show your witnesses were liars and perjurers. You cannot harm me without bringing destruction on yourself."
In this manner Frank forced the belief that he spoke the truth upon Felipe. Although he could not see the dark face of the Mexican, he felt that Jalisco had received his check.
"I have not come to kill you now," confessed the boy. "I want you to know I can do it. I want you to feel the constant danger. I want you to understand that when I am ready to strike I can do so, and strike to destroy. Perhaps not in New York or any great city like this shall I do it. I will follow you like a shadow. Where you go, there I will be.
Unless you give me what I demand, I will some day kill you, having chosen the spot and time. Then I will escape, and no power may stop me.
Fool of a gringo, you must give me my own! I will leave you in possession of the mine, but you must pay me one-half of all the money you make from it. It is the only thing that will save you. Senor Hagan asked for a big sum all at once, as he thought thus to get his share right away. I would have had him accept half the profit. Swear now that I shall have it! Swear you will pay----"
"Not a cent!" answered Merry grimly. "You have taken the wrong method of getting anything from a Merriwell. Not a cent shall you ever have!"
Felipe swore in Spanish.
"Then you are doomed!" he panted.
Suddenly he paused and lifted his head. A sound had reached his ears from some distant part of the house. It seemed that some one was stirring.
"Lie still!" he hissed. "If you try to follow, at the door you shall die!"
He sprang away with the soft step of a cat, and darted out at the door.
In a twinkling Merry slipped from beneath the cord, leaped from the bed, and made the house echo with the shout he uttered.
Unmindful of Jalisco"s threat, he was out of that room and after the fellow in an amazing hurry. It must have been amazing for Jalisco, for the fellow was overtaken by Merry at the head of the stairs. He whirled and struck at Frank"s breast, but the strong arm of the young American swept the blow aside.
Merry seized his foe, and together they went bounding and rolling the full length of the stairs.
When they landed at the bottom, Frank was on top, and the Mexican was pinned to the floor.
By this time the whole house was in commotion. Voices were calling, and lights were beginning to gleam.
"This way!" cried Frank. "I have him!"
He heard a sound on the stairs behind him, and supposed some one was rushing to his a.s.sistance. There was a patter of feet, and then the smothering folds of a blanket were flung over his head, and he was dragged backward to the floor, his hold on Felipe Jalis...o...b..ing broken.
When Merry succeeded in flinging off the blanket, he found some one had turned on all the lights of the house. He saw Mr. Hatch, Arthur, Carlos Mendoza, and one or two servants near at hand. The front door stood wide open.
"A thousand pardons!" cried Mendoza, in apparent consternation and distress. "It was a sad mistake I made!"
"You flung that blanket over my head and dragged me off the fellow!"
said Merry. "You permitted him to escape!"
"A thousand pardons! I thought you were the other. I thought he had you down. It was dark. I could not see."
"You deliberately aided him to escape."
"No, no; I swear I made a sad mistake--I swear it!"
"And lie when you take the oath!" retorted Frank, unable longer to restrain his feelings toward the fellow. "Mr. Hatch, you have a snake in your house, and there he is!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE POLICE RAID.
Felipe Jalisco made good his escape that night, thanks to the a.s.sistance of his friend, Carlos Mendoza.
The following morning Frank swore out a warrant for the arrest of Jalisco, and this he took with him in order to have it ready when the proper time came.
He was determined to get back at the fellow without delay.
Believing Jalisco was stopping in New York, Frank gave a description of him to the police, and set them on the lookout for the fellow. He likewise told them that Jalisco might be found in company with Bantry Hagan sooner or later.
Two days pa.s.sed without the apprehension of the Mexican lad being made or any trace of him discovered. On the forenoon of the third day Frank suddenly came face to face with Bantry Hagan in front of the Vendome Hotel, on Broadway.