Like a flash it opened inward and two pairs of hands gripped her. Her cry was stifled by a hand over her mouth. She was dragged into the room.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MUMMY'S LAST WARNING

Pauline had barely time to recognize in her new captors the four strange men who had attracted her attention on the train, before a bandage was drawn over her eyes, another over her mouth, and cruel, heavy hands began to bind her limbs.

As she listened to the rough voices of the men, the mystery of the "Carson & Brown" letter was entirely cleared away.

"That was easy," commented Wrentz.

"Easier than the rest of the work will be," said one.

"Shall we leave her on the floor, boss?" asked another.

"Yes, of course."

"Then I'll put a pillow under her head."

"Pillow? Why a pillow? Since when did you become tender-hearted, Rocco?"

Rocco scowled, but he made no reply.

"You don't need any pillows or Pullman cars on the way to heaven," said Wrentz with a snarling laugh.

The laugh was checked abruptly by a rap on the door. For an instant the ruffians looked at each other in alarm. There was no telling whether to open that door would be to face the drawn revolvers of detectives or only the expectant eyes of a bellboy.

There was nothing to do but to answer, however. Wrentz moved to the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Your trunk, sir."

"You are the porter?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you can leave the trunk at the door. I am too busy to be interrupted just now. But here--"

Wrentz opened the door an inch and pa.s.sed a dollar bill to the porter.

"I am going to need you again in a few hours," he said.

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."

"Move the girl over behind the bed--out of range there," commanded Wrentz. Two men seized Pauline and dragged her across the room where she could not be seen through the door, which Wrentz now opened wide.

In the corridor outside stood a large trunk. Wrentz and one of the men lifted it and carried it into the room.

"Your baggage is light," said the man.

"It will be heavier in a little while. Open it."

They obeyed.

"Do you think it is large enough?" asked Wrentz.

"Large enough for what--the girl?" demanded Rocco, who had been sulking since his rebuke.

"You are shrewd, Rocco. You have guessed rightly I suppose you'll want to put a pillow in it."

"Yes, I would," said Rocco, who was the youngest of the band, "or else I would kill her first. What is the use of torture?"

Wrentz's dark fact grew even blacker as he eyed the young man.

"If you were a grown man, Rocco," he said, "instead of a soft-hearted boy, you would know that there is one form of murder that is always found out--the trunk murder. And I want to say this to you," he added with growing heat, "that if I hear one more word of rebellion from you this prisoner will be alive some hours after you have departed. Now, then, into the trunk with her."

Rocco sullenly helped the others in the grim task. The trunk, large as it was, was not deep enough to permit Pauline a sitting posture, nor long enough to prevent the painful cramping of her limbs. But she was deadened to physical pain. With the words of her doom still ringing in her ears--the calm discussion of her death--her terror was her torture. The choking gag, the cutting bonds, the stifling trunk--in which the knife of Wrentz had cut but a few air holes--these were as nothing to the agony of her spirit--the agony of a lingering journey toward a certain but mysterious end.

Pauline had been a prisoner before, had been through many and desperate dangers, but her heart had never failed her utterly until she felt the pressure of the trunk lid on her bent shoulders and heard the clamping of the locks that bound her in.

She could still hear the voices.

"I'll go down and settle my bill and send up that porter," Wrentz was saying. "Don't let him help with the trunk, except to run the elevator. You're sure your car is at the side entrance--not out in front?"

"Yes."

"I will meet you there."

Pauline had been so carefully bound that she could not stir in the trunk. As she felt it lifted and carried rapidly through the corridor to the hotel elevator she strained with all her might to make a noise --to beat with hands or feet or even with her head, the sides of the receptacle. But it was no use. She was carried through the hotel and out to the side entrance without attracting attention.

She felt the trunk lifted over the men's heads, and the whirring of an automobile told her that she was being placed in the machine.

"Well, you didn't care much for your pet room this time, Mr. Wrentz,"

smiled the clerk as Wrentz asked for his bill.

"Indeed I did, but a message has called me back to New York."

He paid his bill and hurried out to the big car in the back of which Pauline's trunk had been placed. Springing to the wheel, he ordered his followers in, and they drove away.

Once on suburban roads, Wrentz, either fearful of pursuit or drunk with success, began speeding.

Along the railroad tracks the noise of their speed drew a tumult of wild sounds from a string of gaily painted cars on the siding. The snarls and howls of beasts were mingled with the angry cries of men who seemed to be at work on the other side of the cars.

To Pauline the noises came faintly, but with a horrid and unearthly note. She, who had been the victim of so many cruet and fantastic plots, knew not what new danger the roaring of the beasts threatened.