# The Captive Bridegroom

Extracted from Harper's magazine, Jan 1915, pp. 176–189. Accompanying illustrations by May Wilson Preston may be omitted.
The Captive Bridegroom
BY MARGARET CAMERON
AT ten o'clock on the morning of the fifth of June, Ned Brainard would have described himself as the happiest man on earth. The trouble began at precisely nine minutes past ten, although, like many another avalanche, it started with an inconspicuous and apparently negligible pebble, which up to that time had been in no way distinguishable from the rest of the gravel of which it was a part.
Something less than four days before, Brainard and Leslie Hayne had been married at her home near Richmond, and they were to sail at three o'clock that afternoon, on a comfortably deliberate and unpretentious ship, to rediscover Europe in the light of each other's eyes. To Ned, who had even more than the normal masculine dislike of being conspicuous, the wedding had been somewhat in the nature of an ordeal. He would have preferred the simplest possible ceremony, in the smallest possible company, and an immediate escape with Leslie to the anonymity of a big hotel in a strange city. However, when he had perceived her delight in planning the large and fashionable marriage feast upon which her heart was set he had not only prepared to play the game her way, but had offered to cancel his booking on the modest Atlantis and take passage on one of the huge and sumptuous liners his soul abhorred, as possibly more in keeping with his bride's ideals of a properly conducted honeymoon. It was with lively satisfaction that he had received her veto of this suggestion.
"When I go to sea," she had written, "I don't want to go in a New York hotel. I want to go in a boat."
Therefore, having engaged a suite on the "boat" in question, there was not a cloud even so large as a man's hand in Brainard's sky at ten o'clock that morning, and the pebble had not yet been called to his attention. To be sure, a few scattered bits of bright paper caused him a moment's uneasiness. He eyed them resentfully, exclaiming:
"Suffering Mike, there's some more confetti! Where did that come from?"
Leslie, more adorable than ever in a negligee of rosy mist, giggled irrepressibly as she glanced up from the letters she was reading.
"Did you ever see anything stick like it does? But I've turned everything inside out and upside down, and brushed and brushed and brushed—and that's the very last speck of it."
"Well, thank the Lord we haven't got that to go through again! No rice and old slippers and things at the dock, anyway," he remarked, comfortably.
"Sounds like you didn't enjoy getting married."
"You know better! Wasn't I getting married to you? But, after all, once is enough, isn't it? It was all very well, leaving Richmond in a regular cloudburst of confetti and old shoes. We could shut the door of our state-room afterward and keep out of sight. But a ship's not like a train, and I'm hanged if I'd relish starting across the Atlantic tagged with white-satin ribbon and oozing rice at every fold! However, we're safe enough here. Nobody knows us."
"My goodness! there are folks enough know me." She chuckled, infectiously. "Girls I went to school with; and boys from home, in business here—lots of them. I reckon if they knew we were going on the Atlantis they'd be on hand. All that saves us is that they don't know."
"How about these people who are coming to luncheon?" he asked, rather anxiously. "They won't go to the ship and try to be funny, will they?"
"My goodness, no! Cousin Caroline's about fifty, and Mary Fairfax never did anything she could get out of in her whole life. They won't make any trouble." Laughing, she tore open the last envelope and unfolded the sheet it contained. As she read the message scrawled upon it, all the merry curves of her face flattened and drooped, and she took a quick, gasping breath.
"What's the matter? What's happened?" asked her husband. It was nine minutes past ten, but to him the pebble was still only an indistinguishable unit in a gravel bank.
Leslie read on absorbedly until she reached the end of the short letter, and then she laid the sheet in her lap and looked distressfully at her husband, exclaiming, "Well, we've just got to help that boy somehow!"
"Help who? What is it?"
"It's George—Mammy Liza's George. He's in jail, and—oh, Ned dear, you'll have to get him out!"
"My dearest girl!"
"Yes, I know—but, you see, there's only us to do anything for him—and he's in the tombs!" Her horrified tone suggested living sepulture.
"What for? What did he do?"
"He got into trouble with one of the tenants. He was elevator-boy in an apartment-house, and Mammy Liza says"—Leslie read from the letter—"'When the man tried to beat him up, George up and cut him, and they put him in jail.'"
"Well, they would, you know, under those circumstances," Brainard mildly submitted.
"But he did it in self-defense!"
"If he can prove that, he's all right.'
"Suppose he can't prove it?"
"Then I'm afraid he's in bad."
"Well, we've just got to do something for him. Where are these horrible tombs?"
"'Way down-town somewhere, I believe." He suppressed the smile evoked by her use of the plural, suggesting long lines of catacombs.
"You can find them and go to see him, can't you?"
"That wouldn't get him out of jail. It would be better to—"
"Couldn't you get him out on bail or something?" she interrupted, intent on her own plan.
"I'm afraid there isn't time for that, dear. We must leave here by two o'clock, at the very latest, and if there should be any delay we might miss the ship. Suppose, instead—"
"Then we'll just have to miss it, that's all!"
Brainard stared. "You don't mean to say you'd give up sailing to get this no-'count nigger out of jail?" he asked, slowly.
Illustration: WE'RE SAFE ENOUGH HERE. NOBODY KNOWS US"
"He's not a 'no-'count nigger'!" Leslie protested, indignant pink spots in her cheeks. "He's a good boy. He works all the time—'most all the time, anyway—and sends money to his mother every month, and you can't say that for many darkies. Anyhow, it's not Mammy Liza's fault that he's in trouble, and I just can't be happy unless we do something for him."
"Sure we'll do something for him," cordially agreed her husband. "Now listen. I know several lawyers in this town, Chicago men, mostly"—Brainard was from the West—"and, though none of them is in criminal practice, I think any of them would take an interest in this boy. Now, suppose I get one of them on the 'phone, explain the circumstances, and tell him to see that George has competent counsel and every possible chance, and to draw on me for funds—how about that, eh?"
"Y-yes—that's mighty sweet and generous of you, honey, but—would a busy lawyer really take an interest in a poor darky because another lawyer asked him to, because you asked the other lawyer, because I asked you, because his mother was my mammy? Sounds mighty like 'The House that Jack Built' to me!"
"It does, rather, when you put it that way," Brainard laughed, "but I promise to fix it so somebody will take a real, sure-enough interest in George. Will that do?"
You certainly are a comfort! And you'll tell George, so he'll know we're looking out for him, won't you?"
"Tell him? Cæsar! You don't expect me to go and see him, too, do you?"
"Why, surely! Maybe a lawyer isn't all he needs. Maybe he's sick, Maybe they don't give him enough to eat. Maybe he hasn't any money. How am I going to know without you see him?"
"But, my dearest, all this takes time—and time's what we haven't got! I must locate one of these lawyers, and in summer they're likely to be out of town, so I may have to try several—and it's more important that he should have a good lawyer than that I should see him."
Illustration: THE "SPHERE" MAN LISTENED ATTENTIVELY
"Then I'll just have to go down to those tombs myself."
"My dearest, you can't do that!"
"But don't you see that I can't go away without I know that boy's all right? He's Mammy Liza's boy—her baby—and she thinks he's mighty near all there is."
"Yes, I know, love, but if I arrange it all with the lawyer—"
"Seems like you-all up North never can understand how we feel down home about our mammies." Leslie's sweet brown eyes were full of tears, and there was a catch in her pleading voice. "Why, Ned, I just love that old black woman! She's taken care of me all my life. And now when she's written to me for help, just like—just like I'd write to you—how can I go away off yonder with you and be happy without I know for sure that no harm's coming to her? I couldn't. I just couldn't!"
"Dear love, I'll go! Don't you dare to shed that tear!" He kissed her wet eyes and quivering lips and wen them back to smiles again. "I'll manage somehow, but I'm afraid I can't get here in time for your luncheon."
"Oh, can't you?" For an instant her face was wistful. "Well, Cousin Caroline and Mary Fairfax will understand; and you won't mind if I ask them to stay until you do come, will you? Because I certainly do want them to see my husband!"
"Anything you want goes! Now, I'll order luncheon, and pay the bill, and arrange about the taxi and the luggage, and tip everybody in sight, so nothing will delay us at the end—and if I'm late you'll be all ready to start, won't you?"
"I certainly will. But if you find you're going to be as late as all that, why can't T meet you at the boat?"
"Would you be willing to do that?"
"Well, I shouldn't like it much, but I'd rather do it than have you not see poor George. I just can't bear to think of that boy in those tombs!"
"I suppose you'd be happier about him if he were in Sing Sing?" he suggested, laughing.
"Well, it certainly does sound more cheerful. 'Tisn't like I'd have to go alone to the boat. I can take Cousin Caroline and Mary Fairfax with me."
"Good! Then if I'm not here by two o'clock, you take the ladies and go to the dock, and I'll meet you there. Of course I'll telephone in the mean time, but, whatever happens, don't wait a minute after two, for we must make that ship. Sure you don't mind?"
"No, indeedy! Aren't you doing it all for me? And you'll surely see George?"
"I'll surely see George."
First making all necessary arrangements for a quick departure later, Brainard began trying to reach his legal friends by telephone, only to learn that one was ill, one was in Europe, one—a patent attorney—was in Washington, and the fourth was not in his office and was not expected there before three o'clock. He was not discouraged, however, for by this time he had remembered that among the members of his college fraternity was Tom Bidwell, city editor of The Evening Sphere, upon whose good offices he might confidently rely, and accordingly he called him up.
Illustration: "WITH YOU?" ASKED THE MAN AT THE GATE
When Ned had established his identity the busy editor was very cordial, and not only agreed to see that George had able counsel, but promised to take a personal interest in the boy. He suggested also that, inasmuch as Brainard was in haste, a cicerone familiar with the routine of the Tombs might facilitate his business there, and offered the services of Bob Wilson, the reporter covering the criminal courts for The Evening Sphere, a courtesy promptly and gratefully accepted.
After hastily outlining all this to the delighted Leslie, the young husband set forth, tenderly conscious that at his wife's behest he was about to do a good deed in a naughty world, and highly resolving to keep himself always sensitized to her unselfish and ennobling influence. In this exalted mood he arrived duly at the Criminal Court House, where Wilson awaited him in the reporter's room.
The Sphere man listened attentively while Brainard told his story, and then asked:
"When did this happen?"
"We don't know exactly, but it must have been very recently, for his mother knew nothing about it when we left Richmond, three or four days ago."
"All right. Come on," said Wilson, pushing some sheets of copy into his desk. "I guess we can find it."
They went into the office of the court, where an obliging young man opened an enormous book and after a little search found the entry: "George Johnson, 26. Assault, first degree. Indicted June 1st." In another room another young man assured them, after consulting another enormous book, that George Johnson was still in the Tombs, and that the case was on the calendar of Part Fifteen of the Court of General Sessions.
"Now we'd better go and see Aldrich, the Assistant District Attorney," Wilson suggested, looking at his watch. "He'll be going out to lunch pretty soon."
He led the way to Part Fifteen, and was about to introduce his protégé to the man they sought when Brainard chuckled a little and said:
"Hello, Petey."
The lawyer looked up with an astonished stare, and then sprang to his feet, exclaiming:
"Blinky Brainard, by all the powers!"
They explained to Wilson that they had played opposite each other in some of the hardest-fought football games a dozen years before, and fell to exchanging questions and reminiscences. Presently Brainard remembered his errand and told Aldrich all about the case of George Johnson and his own connection with it, including the fact that he was to sail for Europe with his wife within three hours. He did not, however, mention that they were setting out on their wedding-journey. At the moment this seemed to him an unnecessary and irrelevant detail. The attorney listened unresponsively, but when he spoke his words atoned for his apparent indifference.
"You go over to the Tombs and see Johnson," he said, "and make sure that he really acted in self-defense. If the case is as you heard it I'll send for all the witnesses and examine them before trial. Then if I'm convinced that the jury wouldn't convict him, I guess the court will accept a suggestion to dismiss the indictment. By the way, if I'm not here you'd better leave a note telling me what you find. I wish I could ask you to come back and have lunch with me, but I have an appointment in about half an hour that I can't sidestep."
Brainard explained that in any event his time was too limited to permit of luncheon, warmly thanked Aldrich for his promised co-operation, and continued his quest under the reporter's guidance. He would have liked to find a telephone and tell Leslie the good news immediately, but restrained the impulse after looking at his watch, and accompanied Wilson without further delay to the imposing granite entrance of the City Prison, where they found a long queue of people carrying food for their imprisoned friends. A pervasive odor of fried ham poignantly reminded Brainard that the luncheon-hour was at hand, and he hoped he would have time, after his interview with George, to hunt up a lunch-counter and snatch a sandwich to appease his already stirring appetite.
"With you?" asked the uniformed man at the gate, with an affable nod to the reporter and a glance at his companion; and when Wilson replied in the affirmative he nodded again and admitted them.
The crowd was dense in the lobby of the prison, but the newspaper man pushed through it, convoying Ned to one of the high desks at the left of the entrance, where they found a Deputy Commissioner of Correction, who, upon learning their errand, called:
"McLean."
"Yes, sir." A young clerk with reddened eyelids and somewhat swollen features approached, sneezing as he came.
"Take this gentleman up to see the prisoner he wants," commanded the deputy. "Good day. Glad to have met you."
"You're all right now," said Wilson. "I'll go back to the shop. Don't mention it. Great pleasure."
Illustration: "HELLO, MAC. STILL GOT THAT COLD?"
He shook hands and vanished in the moving throng, and Brainard's new guide conducted him through another heavy grill, guarded by two more men in blue, and past a long line of visitors waiting to get identification cards, without which no stranger may pass either in or out through the doors guarding the tiers of cells.
"You won't need a card," McLean explained, thickly. "You'll only be here a few minutes, and the keepers on the tiers will remember you."
He paused before a bulky register and ascertained, between sneezes, that "George Johnson. Assault, first degree. Indicted June 1st," was confined on Tier 3, after which he went on to a door at the foot of a stairway. The keeper hailed him sympathetically.
"Hello, Mac. Still got that cold?"
"Yep. Keep catching more all the time," was what McLean tried to say, but the best he could do was, "Geeb gatchi'g bore all dhe dibe."
"You'd better take a couple of days off and go to bed."
"Guess I'll have do. Say, do'd forged dhis ge'dlebad. He'll be bag id a few bidits—kachoo!—a'd he hasn'd ady gard. Do'd fail to led hib oud."
"All right," returned the keeper.
At the top of the stair another man in blue sat before another grill, and, like the rest, he nodded pleasantly to McLean as he admitted them. While they were climbing the next flight of steps Brainard tentatively inquired:
"A card isn't necessary at that last grill?"
"Sure id is! Bud he'll rebebber you."
"I think you forgot to tell him that I haven't any, didn't you?"
"Did I? Well, I'll dell hib whed I go bag. Thad 'll be all righd."
When they arrived on the third tier the clerk introduced Brainard to the keeper, whose name was Shanley, and briefly explained his errand, while the visitor glanced curiously about at the lobby, the desk, and the cells extending in long rows on either side of narrow corridors.
"You're all righd dow," McLean concluded. "Good-day. You're welcob." Sneezing, he disappeared down the stairway.
Shanley looked in his big book and found that "George Johnson. Assault, first degree. Indicted June 1st," was in Cell 336. "Right down that alley," he directed. "You can't miss it."
Illustration: "RIGHT DOWN THAT ALLEY. YOU CAN'T MISS IT
As Brainard turned the corner and walked alone through the corridor, his heels clattering on the stone floor, the gloom of the prison rolled down upon him like something tangible. The corridor was full of sunlight, but the light itself seemed to have had all the vitality strained out of it, the prison smell assailed his nostrils, the air seemed heavy and dead, and he gasped, with a vague feeling that he was struggling against some noisome, overwhelming miasma. He was oppressed, too, by a sense of the wretchedness of the men peering at him from their close steel cages, though he could not bring himself to look at them. The thought of Leslie alone cheered him. Again he resolved to tend faithfully every little candle she might light, now that he actually beheld one of the dismal spots a far-thrown beam might shine upon.
Two negroes looked through the bars at him as he stopped before 336, and he spoke to the younger and blacker one.
"You're George Johnson, aren't you?"
"Yassuh."
"Well, I'm Mr. Brainard, Miss Leslie's husband."
"Yassuh?" The response was ready enough, but the tone seemed tinged with uncertainty, so Ned added:
"You knew Miss Leslie was married, didn't you?"
"N-no, suh. No, suh, I don' jus' rightly 'member 'bout that."
"Well, she is. She's here in New York—been here two or three days, but she only heard this morning from your mother that you were in trouble."
"F'om—f'om who?"
"From your mother. What's the matter?" The man had fallen back a step and turned a queer, muddy gray. "Did you think your mother didn't know it? My wife had a letter from her this morning asking us to help you.
"Y-yassuh—n-no, suh," stammered the negro. "I don' wan' know no mo' 'bout it! P-please, suh!"
"You don't want to know— What the devil's the matter with you? Don't you understand that Mrs. Brainard—your Miss Leslie—wants to help you? I'm here to see what we can do for you."
"N-n-nothin, suh. Nothin' 'tall. I don' wan' nothin' to do wid sperrits! No, suh!"
"Well, I should say myself that your acquaintance with spirits was sufficiently extensive," said Brainard, severely. "Look here, Johnson. I've already got Assistant District Attorney Aldrich interested in your case, but it isn't going to help you much if I tell him I found you drunk."
"No, suh; I ain't! Fo' de Lawd, I ain't drunk. But I don' wan' nothin' to do wid sperrits an'—an' mejums—an' h'ants!"
"Good Lord! Who's asking you to have anything to do with mediums? Now listen—and try to understand. Your mother wrote—"
"Fo' Gawd, suh," wailed the darky, "fo' Gawd, she cayn't! She daid!"
"Who's dead?"
"My mothuh, suh. She been daid mos' ev' sence I c'n 'member, an' I done tol' you I don' wan' nothin' 'tall to do wid 'er now!"
"I thought you said you were George Johnson?"
"Yassuh, I sho is George Johnson."
"From Richmond?"
"No, suh. I come f'om Alabama, suh, an I don—"
"Oh, I see! You're not the man I'm looking for, at all. He's from Richmond. Do you know whether there's another George Johnson in the Tombs?"
"Yassuh, they is." The man at the back of the cell came eagerly to the grating. "They's a George Johnson in 349."
"What's he in for?"
"I don' jus' rightly know, suh, but I heerd he done cut a man."
Brainard thanked him and hurried away. In 349 he found a good-looking young mulatto who said he was George Johnson, and admitted, not without a ring of satisfaction in his voice, that he sut'nly was indicted for assault. He also informed his visitor that the complainant was a snake in the grass, whom he had always believed to be his friend, and that when he had discovered his perfidy he done trimmed him up good and proper.
"Capital!" said Brainard. "But you're not my man, either. I'm looking for a George Johnson who came from Richmond. Do 'you know where he is?"
Loath to lose so soon a sympathetic listener, the occupant of 349 volunteered further picturesque details concerning his own career, and it took some cross-examination to wring from him the reluctant admission that possibly still another Johnson might be found in 324, whither Brainard pursued his quest. He found the third Johnson, who was middle-aged and said his name was Jasper.
By this time Ned was not only beginning to perceive that he might as easily hope to find the traditional needle in a haystack as to locate a negro in the Tombs by the Socratean method, but he was also acutely conscious that all this searching and questioning had consumed a good deal of time and that as yet the beam of his little candle had made no appreciable impression on the surrounding murk. Mammy Liza's George might be in any one of six hundred cells, and the quickest way to find him would be to return to the office of the Criminal Courts and again consult the register. Accordingly, he turned into the lobby.
Illustration: "YOU GET BACK INTO YOUR CAGE BEFORE I DO SOMETHING TO YOU!"
There was nothing especially terrifying in the aspect of the keeper, busily copying entries from some large, loose sheets into his book; but at sight of him Brainard gasped and stopped short, blankly staring. It was not the man who had admitted him. After the first shock of surprise, however, he reflected that probably Shanley had gone to luncheon—it was now half past twelve—and undoubtedly the relief had been informed as to his presence, so he approached the desk with renewed confidence and a pleasant smile.
"I guess I'll have to go back to the Criminal Court House and start over again," he began, genially. "I don't find—"
"What's that?" The keeper lifted a surprised, surly face. "You'll what?"
"The prisoner I'm looking for doesn't seem to be on this tier," explained Brainard, more carefully, "so I suppose I'd better go back to the register—"
"Say, you'd better close your face and jump into your box before something happens to you," said the officer, poising his pen for the next entry and again looking down at the page. "How'd you get out, anyway?"
"You don't understand. I'm a visitor, not a prisoner."
"Where's your visitor's card?"
"I haven't any card, but—"
"Well, you get back into your cage before I do something to you!" There was an angry rasp in the man's voice as he pushed back his chair and closed a big fist, displaying three white knuckles like hungry teeth sticking out through a mass of black bristles.
"If you'll just let me explain—"
"Explain nothin'! I'm not the Court. Do you get back, or do I put you back? Huh?"
For an instant Brainard hesitated; then, remembering that for the moment the big fist represented constituted authority and that there were several other grills between him and freedom, he yielded to discretion and withdrew to the corridor. Safely around the corner, he looked at his watch and found it was twenty-five minutes to one. Doubtless the regular keeper would be back at one, and, while the delay would make it impossible for him to return to the hotel, he could still see George, provided his next attempt to find him was successful, and reach the dock in time to meet Leslie and her cousins.
For half an hour he paced the corridor, nursing a clamorous appetite and occasionally peeping to see whether Shanley had returned, but taking good care to keep out of sight of the irritable man at the desk. It was ten minutes past one when he heard the clang of the grill at the head of the stairs and discovered that the second guard had been relieved—by a third! The newcomer was not Shanley. That was when Brainard felt his first real qualm. Quickly regaining his poise, however, he stepped briskly into the lobby.
"'Morning," he said. "Shanley not coming back?"
"No. His boy's hurt, and he had to go to the hospital," the new keeper vouchsafed, eying him unresponsively.
"That's awkward for me." Ned kept his tone light and laughed a little. "My name's Brainard. I came in here to see a prisoner, and—"
"Where's your card?" The guard's eyes narrowed slightly.
"That's it! I haven't any. A clerk named McLean brought me up here—"
"Uh-huh. Well, you go back and wait till he comes after you," advised the officer. "I'm wise to you, and it don't go. See?"
"But you don't understand," Brainard persisted. "McLean introduced me to Shanley, and Shanley said he'd let me out when—"
"Maybe Shanley will, but I won't. See? Now, you g'wan back where you belong, or I'll—"
"Look here, Mr. Keeper." Ned resorted to persuasion. "Listen a minute, won't you? This is straight. I can't go back to my cell, because I haven't any, and I'm in a devil of a hole. McLean passed me in, and said you people would remember me and I wouldn't need a card. Now, what am I going to do?"
Evidently impressed by his manner, the man subjected him to a searching gaze, finally asking slowly,
"How'd you get past the other grills?"
"McLean brought me, I tell you, and the keepers promised to remember me."
"Uh-huh." The guard maintained his steady stare. "Well, I'll ask Smith, on the second tier. If he says it's all right, it goes."
"He's the only one of the lot McLean didn't introduce me to!" Brainard's attempted smile turned out a sickly effort, and the keeper's face instantly hardened. "But he promised to tell him when he went out. I guess he'll remember me, anyway."
"Uh-huh. That 'll be about all from you. You're pretty smooth, but there's nothin' doin'. See? Now, you g'wan back and stay there!"
"But—"
"Beat it!"
The big man's tone and gesture were such that Brainard stayed not upon the order of his going, retreating rapidly to the comparative seclusion of the corridor, where he paced to and fro, irritated, disconcerted, but not yet really alarmed, and still confident that he would manage somehow to extricate himself from this absurd predicament in time to catch the steamer. When occasionally a sickening doubt obtruded he shook it off, impatiently telling himself that, however such things might seem to threaten, they never actually happened to mature and responsible people. He tried to formulate plans to meet every possible emergency, but was too hungry to think clearly, and at half past one, having given the keeper fifteen minutes in which to regain his equanimity, the bridegroom again emerged into the lobby.
The custodian at the desk looked up with a savage frown at his approach, exclaiming: "Say, young feller, if you know what's good for you—"
"All right, Mr. Keeper," said Brainard, pacifically, as he detached a yellow-tinged bank-note from the impressive roll in his hand. "I understand your position perfectly, and I'm sorry to trouble you again, but I've got to get out of this place somehow, even if I haven't any card. There are plenty of people to identify me, if I can only get at them. There's that man McLean—and a reporter named Wilson, over at the Criminal Courts—and Assistant-District-Attorney Aldrich is an old friend of mine. Any of them will vouch for me, and I'm perfectly willing to pay for messengers—and haste," he added, significantly. "Now, what can you do for me? Can you fix it so I can see the warden?" He met the guard's keen scrutiny with clear and steadfast eyes.
Illustration: "OH, PLEASE, I MUST SEE THE CAPTAIN!"
"Sure," the man finally conceded. "I guess I can fix that all right."
"Thank you. That's very kind of you. I'll be even more obliged if you'll arrange it quickly. I have an important engagement at three o'clock, and every minute counts now."
"Sure," said the keeper again, evidently impressed. "I'll do what I can for you."
"I—I suppose you couldn't let me use a telephone? I want to talk to my wife."
"You'll have to fix that with the warden."
"All right. Hurry it all you can, please."
The keeper faithfully did his best, but twenty minutes passed before word came up that the warden would see Brainard in his office, and while the young man was being conducted thither some one else claimed the warden's attention, so it was after two when he was free to listen to Ned's rapid sketch of his predicament. The officer was courteous, even sympathetic, but firm.
"You understand, Mr. Brainard, that I don't question your word," he said, "but under the circumstances you'll have to be identified before I can let you go."
"Then will you send for McLean, please? He's the nearest man. And may I telephone to my wife? We're due to sail on the Atlantis at three o'clock."
"The dickens you are!" exclaimed the warden, and hastily summoned a messenger, while Ned reached for the telephone.
Learning that Leslie had left the hotel, he arranged to have one of the clerks follow her with a message that her husband had been unavoidably detained, but would arrive at the dock very soon. In case he was not there by ten minutes of three she was to see the captain, whom Brainard knew, and ask him to hold the ship a few minutes, if possible.
As he hung up the receiver the warden's messenger returned, saying that McLean had gone home sick.
"I was introduced to two other men," said Ned. "One of them sat at a high desk to the left of the door where we came in, and told McLean to take me up—no, I don't know his name—and the other was the keeper at the foot of the first stairway. Perhaps they'll remember me."
As the warden despatched the messenger for these men Brainard called up the Criminal Court House by telephone and began a frantic and futile search for Aldrich and Wilson, neither of whom could be found. He left urgent requests for each of them to call up the warden's office at the earliest possible moment, and again looked at his watch.
The men whom the warden had called both remembered that some one had been taken into the prison under the circumstances Brainard described, but neither of them could positively identify him as that person. The deputy commissioner had not noticed Wilson's friend especially, and the keeper said McLean told him his man would be there only a few minutes, so he had instructed his relief at lunch-time to let him out and supposed he had done so. This relief guard was not in the building.
"But aren't you satisfied now?" Brainard demanded. "Both these men have agreed that just the thing I have described happened."
"That's not sufficient. You will understand that letting an unidentified man out of this place is a very serious business. The prisoners frame up all sorts of schemes, and we take no chances."
"But—look here, man. I've got to catch that ship! It—it's our wedding journey! I was married four days ago."
"That so?" The warden's expression softened, but only for a moment. Shaking his head slightly, he added, with a level, penetrating glance, "I'm sorry—but you sure chose a bad day to visit the Tombs!"
Having again obtained permission to talk to his wife, Brainard called up the dock and attempted to have her summoned to the telephone, but the man at the other end scoffed, nor was he moved by promise of reward.
"Say," he said, "there's four million people here, with seven million bundles! The devil himself couldn't find anybody in that crowd, and the first gong's rung already."
Illustration: HE'S HERE! HE'S ON BOARD!
At that very moment a perspiring and somewhat wild-eyed young hotel clerk was proving the truth of this statement as he struggled through the massed humanity on the decks of the Atlantis, vainly appealing to preoccupied officers and distracted stewards to help him find Mrs. Brainard. He had managed to reach the Brainards' suite, which he found lavishly banked with flowers, hung with white streamers, and littered with confetti; but the bride had fled to the less conspicuous deck, whither he pursued her, still undelivered of his message. Later, he made an effort to return to the suite and leave a note testifying to his endeavor, but by that time it was impossible to make any headway against the strong current toward the gangway, and eventually he gave it up and went ashore, reflecting that probably Brainard had arrived.
Meanwhile, on the crowded boat-deck, surrounded by the laughing group of friends whom she had found in possession of her suite upon her arrival, Leslie anxiously wondered where Ned could be.
"Wouldn't it be terrible if he should miss the boat?" she exclaimed, for the hundredth time.
"My sakes alive, Leslie Hayne! Do you think that man's going to miss anything you're on?" demanded one of the girls. "Of course he's here somewhere, and I reckon he's about demented trying to find you-all. You'd better have stayed in your cabin, where he'd be sure to look for you."
"Ned won't look for anything in that cabin after he once gets his eye on it," said the bride, laughing.
"Maybe that's what's the matter," suggested a man of the party. "Maybe he's seen it and is keeping out of sight until we're all ashore."
"N-no; he's no coward, and I reckon he'd face the music," Leslie replied, "but Ned certainly does hate to be conspicuous. Oh, suppose something has happened—an accident or something!"
"Nothing's going to happen to a bridegroom," easily assumed one of the men. "He's on board somewhere. For that matter, so's Jack Cotharin. I saw him come up the gangway half an hour ago, and he's still hunting for us."
"Alice Jackson, too," added a girl. "She said she'd surely be here, but who's seen her? All that worries me is that your precious husband won't find us in time to receive our parting blessings," whereat they all laughed, and the visitors surreptitiously felt for their concealed bags of confetti.
It was perhaps half an hour later—just after the gangway had been withdrawn—that a pallid young woman, whose modish raiment was sprinkled with scraps of bright paper, stopped an officer hurrying along the deck and cried: "Oh, please, I must see the captain!"
"Captain's on the bridge, madam," he returned, and would have passed on.
Illustration: HASTENED TO THEIR BEGARLANDED CABIN TO AWAIT HIM
"But my husband—he's missed the boat—and I want to get off!"
"Are you sure he's not on board?"
"Oh, sure! Sure! I've been all over the boat—everywhere—"
"You may easily have missed him in the crowd, madam. We've a very full passenger-list."
"Oh, I know he's not here—and he's a friend of the captain's—he's crossed with him ever so often—and if Captain Haslett only knew that Mr. Brainard hadn't come—"
"Brainard? Are you Mrs. Brainard? Suite A? Did the gentleman find you?"
"No! What gentleman? When?"
"When the crowd was thickest here some gentleman was looking for you. He seemed very much upset because he couldn't find you."
"Oh, that must have been my husband!"
"Young man—gray clothes—smooth face—deep voice," enumerated the officer, and laughed as she nodded eagerly. "Well, he's probably still chasing you around the ship. If you'll go to your cabin and stay there I think you'll find he's on board all right."
She paused just long enough to call to her anxious friends on the dock: "He's here! He's on board!" and hastened to their begarlanded cabin to await the bridegroom, who was sitting at that moment in the warden's office, faint with hunger, his watch in his hand and futile fury in his heart.
Almost an hour later, from his post beside the warden's open window, Brainard espied, in the crowd outside, a hurrying, preoccupied, and receding figure that brought him to his feet with a yell.
"Hi! Hi! Aidrich!" he shouted. "Hi! Petey!"
The lawyer looked up, stared a moment, and wheeled toward the entrance, presenting himself at the warden's door just as that officer's telephone-bell rang.
"For the love of Mike, come in here and get me out of hock!" Ned implored.
"Here's Wilson," the warden said, smiling. "Never rains but it pours, eh?"
"Well, we need rain," said Brainard. "It's been some drought!"
Notwithstanding the warden's assurance that Wilson's presence was no longer necessary, the newspaper man smelled news and hurried over, eager for "the story."
"Good Lord! Haven't I trouble enough now?" cried Brainard. "For Heaven's sake, man, be human! Keep this out of print! I've missed my ship—"
"Have you actually missed it?" Aldrich asked.
"Sure I've missed it! She sailed at three-twenty. And I can't find my wife at the dock or the hotel or anywhere, so I suppose she's on board—alone," he added, grimly.
"Well, you can reach her by wireless," Wilson comforted him, "and arrange for her to meet you on the other side. By George, you can meet her! The Transitania sails at one o'clock to-morrow morning and docks two or three days ahead of the Atlantis!"
"Yes, I know, but—oh, well, I suppose I may as well make a clean breast of it!" Brainard cast reserve to the winds. "This is our wedding journey."
"Your wedding?—Moses, mother of Mike!" joyously crowed the reporter. "It's a sin to kill this story! Let me use it. I'll call it 'The Captive Bridegroom'!"
"Not on your life!" Brainard told him. "Tom Bidwell and I are frat brothers, and if you ever print this tale I'll have your scalp! Where's the nearest telegraph-office? I want to send a wireless. Thank God, nobody on the Atlantis knows about this bridal business, anyway!" he added, little dreaming that Leslie, convinced that he must be dead, lay weeping wildly in a very riot of bridal emblems, and that sundry rumors concerning "that poor deserted child" were already finding their way about the ship.
"What sort of accommodations did you get on the Transitania?" Aldrich asked, when, all necessary business having been transacted and several cheering wireless messages sent and received, the two friends were dining together.
"Pretty rotten, I guess," Brainard returned, "but I can't help that."
"Perhaps I can," said his friend. "I know Knowles, the captain of the Transitania, very well indeed, and he's a bully good sort. I think he'll manage to fix you up somehow."
He did. When he had heard the story he took Brainard into his own cabin until "the fastest steamship afloat" overtook the slower vessel. Then, by an arrangement between the two captains, of which Brainard knew nothing until the smaller ship was sighted, the great Transitania slowed down, the bridegroom descended the ladder lowered for him to the waiting small boat of the Atlantis, and amid the cheers and plaudits of several thousand enthusiastic spectators, the orchestras of both ships playing nuptial music on the decks, was borne over the swelling bosom of the deep to the bridal bower. As he mounted the ladder, shrieking siren and bellowing fog-horn added their voices to the congratulatory din, and at last, in a swirling hail of rice and slippers, he was reunited to his rejoicing but embarrassed bride.
That night at dinner, when the story had been told and retold in varying aspects, it occurred to Captain Haslett that one important detail had been omitted.
"By the way, Brainard," he said, "where was that nigger?"
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Ned laughed. "He was acquitted, on the ground of self-defense, two days before we were married."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 76 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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