He entered the library through one door just as Mustard entered it through the other. Kerlerac closed his door behind him, thus shutting out the light from the little back hall by which Hopey had been able to see the cardboard figure, and which would have shown Kerlerac that the negro was Mustard whom he confronted. But Kerlerac was in the dark, and Mustard had the light from the drawing-room behind him. What Kerlerac saw was a big negro with a big pistol in his hand.
Mustard shot ten times at Captain Kerlerac, the bullets flying in every direction. Three of them entered the dining-room among the guests, having no effect except to splash the diners out of that room, like a brick splashes water when dropped into a puddle of mud!
The last bullet in Mustard’s pistol skimmed along the cheek of Kerlerac, making a long, painful cut, just under the lobe of his ear, adding one more bullet wound to the two he had previously received when he was fighting for Uncle Sam in the world war.
Then the captain’s baseball bat landed on the top of Mustard’s head and Mustard sank to the floor unconscious.
Kerlerac walked over with the intention of pounding the negro’s head to a jelly, but just then——
From a little house in the yard by the side of the residence, there sounded the thrilling scream of Miss Virginia Gaitskill. The woman he loved! A moment later she began to shriek, and in her tones were all the concentrated essence of agonized terror!
Miss Virginia, in her effort to escape from the flying bullets, had run out of the house through the kitchen. As she rushed out of the door into the yard, the light from the door shone full into the eyes of a six-foot alligator. He opened his mouth wide at her approach, and when she screamed, he snapped his jaws like a bear-trap!
The shrieking girl fled for refuge to the storehouse.
A stream of sweetness from a barrel of ribbon-cane sirup had been running from the spigot for two days and one night. Over the floor of that storehouse was a pool of molasses one inch deep.
Virginia stepped into that mess and both her dainty slippers stuck! She screamed. She tried to retreat and stepped out of both her slippers, and her feet stood ankle-deep in the molasses. Then came a series of shrieks which were the essence of agonized terror!