Page:John Uri Lloyd - Etidorhpa.djvu/220

 Water Streets, until at last we stood, in darkness, on the bank of the Ohio River.

Strange, the ferry-boat at that time of night only made a trip every thirty minutes, and yet it was at the landing as though by appointment. Fear began to possess me, and as my thoughts recur to that evening, I can not understand how it was that I allowed myself to be drawn without cry or resistance from my secure home to the Ohio River, in such companionship. I can account for the adventure only by the fact that I had deliberately challenged my companion to make the test he was fulfilling, and that an innate consciousness of pride and justice compelled me to permit him to employ his own methods. We crossed the river without speaking, and rapidly ascending the levee we took our course up Main Street into Covington. Still in the lead, my aged guide, without hesitation, went onward to the intersection of Main and Pike Streets; thence he turned to the right, and following the latter thoroughfare we passed the old tannery, that I recalled as a familiar landmark, and then started up the hill. Onward we strode, past a hotel named "Niemeyer's," and soon were in the open country on the Lexington Pike, treading through the mud, diagonally up the hill back of Covington. Then, at a sharp curve in the road where it rounded the point of the hill, we left the highway, and struck down the hillside into a ravine that bounded the lower side of the avenue. We had long since left the city lamps and sidewalks behind us, and now, when we left the roadway, were on the muddy pike at a considerable elevation upon the hillside and, looking backward, I beheld innumerable lights throughout the cities of Cincinnati, Covington, and the village of Newport, sparkling away in the distance behind and below us.

"Come," my companion said again, as I hesitated, repeating the only word he had uttered since telling his horrible story, "Come!"

Down the hill into the valley we plunged, and at last he opened the door of an isolated log cabin, which we entered. He lighted a candle that he drew from his pocket, and together we stood facing each other.

"Be seated," he said dryly.