Fighting for Fortune 33 – Franklin · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Fighting for Fortune 33In Old Meg’s Cave
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Fighting for Fortune 33
In Old Meg’s Cave
FranklinEnglish
“Don’t speak!” whispered a low voice.
The woman leaned over and bodily seized Marcus, lifting him in her powerful arms as if he were a mere child.
She bore him up the ledge of rocks and disappeared, reappeared, and carrying Dean quite as easily, landed him on the cliff overhead by the side of Marcus.
Both boys were too astonished to speak. The manner of the woman indicated an entire absence of any vicious or insane idea. She seemed to be acting from a friendly and coherent motive.
She cut their bonds with a knife, and glanced fixedly at the boys.
“Do you know me?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Marcus.
“Who am I?”
“They call you Crazy Meg.”
“Ha! ha! Crazy! Yes, yes, they say so, and those men who tied you up are bad men?”
“Terribly bad,” replied Marcus.
“They want to rob Meg?”
“Yes. They stole a lot of money and you got it.”
“Did I? Ha! ha! You must get away from here. Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
“Then follow me.”
Meg led the way along a particularly dangerous cliff path. It ended at a cave-like opening.
“I have been your friend,” she said, “and to send you safely out of the way of those men to the other side of the valley I must take you through one of Meg’s houses in the hills.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you be bad enough to say anything about it or lead those bad men here?”
“No, indeed.”
“Meg will trust you. She had boys once herself, but they died and it broke her heart, and then they put her in a cruel asylum. But--ha! ha! Meg will raise an army to batter down its walls. She has her captain now.”
She took up and lit a pine knot, and bade her companions follow her, leading the way through a dark, underground corridor.
Finally it widened, and here, to the amazement of the boys were evidences of living, for several articles of furniture and a lot of food on a table showed.
Piled around, too, were various articles, evidently the result of Meg’s predatory raids on farmhouses.
At one side was a small aperture in the rock, and chained to a ring in the solid stone was a man laying asleep.
“Come on! come on!” cried Meg excitedly. “Meg did not mean that you should see her captain. Come, hasten!”
Dean Mercer obeyed readily enough, but Marcus Ellison was startled. He had recognized the man chained to the rock, and the fact had been a terrible revelation to him.
They finally reached an opening some distance on.
“You are now far away from the bad men,” said Meg. “Promise not to betray her secrets.”
“I promise,” said Marcus. “Can I say a word to you, Meg?”
“What is it?”
“Those bad men locked this boy up in a jail.”
“Bad, bad. Bars, too?”
“Yes; in a dark, cold cell.”
Meg shuddered.
“They stole all his money--the money you got. He dare not go home to his family; he will be put in jail again because he cannot get the money.”
The simple words seemed to affect Meg deeply. She was silent for several moments.
“Are you trying to deceive Meg?” she said.
“No.”
“It is his money?”
“Yes, and there were some papers,” continued Marcus earnestly. “Meg, I know your captain; he is a bad man.”
“But strong, and he would kill the asylum men quick.”
“No, he would kill you, Meg. You know all about him. You know his secret. You know who killed James Conroyd. My father, Robert Ellison, is accused of the crime. I am his son. Won’t you help me?”
Dean Mercer stared at Marcus in blank bewilderment. The scene mystified him.
Marcus had seized the mad woman’s hand and his tears fell upon it.
That wild face softened. Meg seemed battling with strange emotions.
“Boy,” she said finally, “look around you.”
“Yes, Meg.”
“Would you know this place again?”
“Yes.”
“Come here to-night at dusk.”
“I will--I will!”
“Then, when Meg has talked with the witches she will see, she will see. Now, go.”
The boys walked from the spot.
“Marcus,” cried Dean, “for Mercy’s sake, what did all your wild talk mean?”
“About my father?”
“Yes.”
“The truth.”
“Meg knows all about James Conroyd’s murder?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Why?”
“Because that prisoner of hers--her captain, she calls him----”
“Yes, yes?”
“Is James Conroyd’s old hired man, Manseur, and his murderer.”
The minute the two boys were gone the demented woman began feeling in a cranny in the rock near the exit from the cave.
Her bright eyes gleamed as she groped about, and drew forth first parts of some dried meat and then pieces of string and paper.
Some birds fluttered away as she did this, as if they had discovered this cranny in Meg’s storehouse, and had been pillaging its contents.
“Gone!” muttered the woman in some dismay. “The package that had the money and the papers is not here.”
She groped vainly in the cavity. Evidently she had there secreted the money and the papers that she had taken from Tim and Rodney in the old cabin.
Now they were gone.
“Who has taken it?” she gasped. “Ah! maybe the witches sent the eagles for it. Those boys! they make me feel sad. But Meg has her captive. Meg must think of herself and her army.”
Meantime, the boys had left the vicinity of the cave, and they thought it best to hide in a thicket near the road until the time for again seeing Meg arrived.
Marcus Ellison had explained his suspicions to Dean.
“That woman certainly knows something about the murder for which my father has been arrested,” he said.
“She may not have known the value of the papers.”
“Oh, I do not judge from that.”
“What then?”
“Her talk about crime and her captive.”
“You are sure you know him?”
“Yes, James Conroyd’s old hired man.”
“That’s the man Lawyer Montague believed was the murderer.”
“I think so, too.”
“He tried to cast the guilt on your father?”
“I know that.”
“And as soon as Lawyer Montague began watching him, Manseur ran away.”
“He didn’t run far, it seems,” remarked Marcus.
“No, Meg has him.”
“Yes; and she has some secret about him that she boasts of, as you heard her. Oh! I am certain she knows everything about him and Conroyd’s murderer.”
