CHAPTER II THE SKY WALK
As she boarded the down-going car, the girl's mind flashed through theincidents leading up to this strange chase, and then came bang up againsta problem with no certain answer. Should she leave the car at the twohundred foot level, the spot from which the cars of the Sky Ride wentflashing away into the night, or should she ride to the ground level?
Following instinct, when she reached the Sky Ride level she darted fromthe car. At once she caught her breath. There was the long-earedChinaman.
The instant she saw him he was on the move. There was no mistaking thelook in her eyes. She meant to have that three-bladed knife. He made nomistake about that. Imitating a monkey, a spider and a snake all in one,he managed by curious contortions to make his way past the waitingrocket-car and out upon the cables that carried the cars on theirexciting journey.
At once the place was in a panic.
"A car from the other side will come and crush him! He will fall! He'llbe electrocuted!" came from the crowd as men fought for a spot where theymight view the impending catastrophe.
But no catastrophe occurred--at least not at once. Standing with the airof a tight rope walker, which indeed this long-eared one must have been,he unfolded his large yellow silk umbrella; then, apparently allunconscious of the shouting throng, he turned and walked the cables asanother person might walk the street.
"If another car comes--" Florence came near to wishing she had stuck toher resolve and made it a night of pure pleasure.
No car came from the other side. A quick-witted guard had stopped it inthe nick of time, by a phone call.
So the little yellow man in a long yellow jacket with a three-bladedknife in his belt balanced himself with his yellow umbrella and proceededblithely on his way while an ever increasing sea of faces gazed upward.
Great searchlights began playing upon him. Like fingers they pointed himout. Ten thousand, twenty, fifty, perhaps seventy thousand pairs of eyeswere fixed upon him.
Not one of all these people, save Florence, knew what it was all about."Is this one more feature, a grand surprise in this the grandest of allshows?" This is what the thousands were asking.
Other questions occupied Florence's mind. What did the man mean to do?Did he know himself? How was it all to end?
The suspense continued. It is well that it did. The first few hundredfeet of this curious person's sky walk was over the solid earth. Beneathhim was the gasping multitude. Jammed together in one solid mass, not oneof them could have moved had this sky walker come hurtling down fromthose dizzy heights.
He did not fall. Instead, with all the grace of a fine lady out for apromenade, he moved along the cables that, being all but invisible in thenight, made him seem to walk on air.
"If he were only over water!" Florence spoke without meaning to do so."Then there would be some chance."
"At two hundred feet?" some one doubted.
All the same, Florence waited and hoped. "Now he's a third of the way tothe place above the lagoon," she assured herself. "Now half--nowtwo-thirds.
"Now!"
She caught her breath. Something was happening. The man was seen toteeter.
"If he falls--" She set her lips tight. "If he does, if he falls andkills some one, I shall never forgive myself. A knife!" She all but saidit aloud. "A knife with a diamond-studded hilt--what's that to a humanlife?"
But the man had regained his poise. He was tripping along as before.
"He--he's almost there," she sighed, as a low prayer escaped her lips."He--he must be over the water. Thank--thank God!"
But, after all, what _did_ this astounding person propose to do?
Did he plan it, or was it the work of Fate? Perhaps no one will everknow. Be that as it may, just as he reached a spot above the center ofthe lagoon the man was seen once more to waver.
This time he did not regain his poise, but with a movement that seemedhalf a leap, half a fall, launched himself into mid-air.
Florence closed her eyes. She opened them at once to find the Chinamanstill going down.
"How--how remarkable!" she breathed.
"It's the umbrella," some one at her side volunteered. "It's made forthat purpose, like a parachute."
She did not give the information that, as far as she could tell, the manhad entertained no notion of making that unusual journey.
She continued to watch while the Chinaman plunged downward. With his fallchecked by the umbrella, he had, she believed, a fair chance for a safelanding.
"And then?" Some spirit inside her appeared to ask the question. "Why,then," she answered the spirit, "I'll be after him!"
The Chinaman disappeared into shadows that lay above the surface of thelagoon.
At once spotlights were playing upon the water. If he came to the surfaceno one saw him.
"But then," Florence assured herself, "there are a hundred boats outthere on the lagoon. A man with such a trick as that in his bag must haveothers. He need only come up alongside a boat, cling there until theexcitement is over, then go on his way. We shall meet again.
"But not to-night," she amended, as she surveyed the dense throng below.
"So here's for a sky ride!"
She gave herself over to the joyous excitement of the hour.
Curiously enough, upon descending from the steel tower after a half hourof shooting through space, she bumped squarely into her roommate and palof many strange adventures--Petite Jeanne.
"Oh, Jeanne!" she exclaimed. "I have found him, the little Chinaman withlong ears."
"And the knife?"
"He still has it."
"Tell me about it," Jeanne begged.
In her own truly dramatic style Florence told the story. "And when hedropped," she ended breathlessly, "I said 'that's the end of him!'"
"But it was not?" Jeanne breathed.
"I am not sure it was not. We shall see him again, perhaps many times."
"But, Florence, why does he want that three-bladed knife so very, verymuch?"
"It is set with jewels," Florence spoke slowly, "but there is somethingmore. I am sure of it. Perhaps something quite terrible. I saw it in hiseyes. He'd kill some one to possess that knife, if necessary. I am quitesure of that."
"Then, oh my Florence, you must be careful!"
"We will be careful. But we shall have the knife. It belongs to us. Webought it."
"Yes," Jeanne agreed, "we bought it."
As Jeanne closed her eyes she could see the place of purchase, a long,low auction house blue with tobacco smoke; a bald-headed auctioneershouting:
"Three dollars. Who'll make it three-fifty?"
A Chinaman in an obscure corner was bidding against her for that chestwith a blue dragon on the cover.
Sudden confusion. Three men dragging the protesting Chinaman away.
"What did it all mean?" she asked herself.
"Anyway," she sighed, "we got the chest."
Then a thought struck her all of a heap.
"Florence," she cried, "there were other things in that chest. Oh, somany more!"
"Other things?" Florence fairly sprang at her. "Why did you not tell me?Is it still in our room under the bed?"
"Yes. Oh, yes."
"Then we must hurry home. They may be in our room at this very moment,those little yellow men, carrying the chest away."
"Yes!" Jeanne exclaimed. "Let us hurry!"