Kitabı oku: «Dick Merriwell's Pranks: or, Lively Times in the Orient», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XXIII – THE FOUNT OF FURY

“You?” exclaimed Dick, in astonishment.

Bunol inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, permitted it to escape in a thin, blue cloud, and smiled triumphantly.

“As you see,” he said insolently.

“Here?” gasped the American boy.

“Here,” nodded the Spaniard.

“I don’t understand it!”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Dick’s hands were clenched and his breast heaving. He stood staring at his malignant and persistent enemy, his heart overflowing with anger.

Bunol was languidly triumphant, his contemptuous glance an irritating insult, his triumphant smile like a stinging blur in the face of the duped lad.

“Fooled!” muttered Dick bitterly.

“Completely,” nodded Bunol.

He was enjoying his triumph to the fullest. He felt that this was his hour, and he meant to make the most of it.

It was a moment when a weak boy in Dick’s place would have collapsed. Dick did not. Although astonished and dismayed for the moment, he showed no sign of weakness.

Bunol laughed harshly.

“You have pretty good nerves,” he admitted; “but I think you do not yet understand the situation. Look, Merriwell, you are in my power!”

“Where do you obtain the power?”

“I have it. You left me tied and gagged in Damascus, while you made good your escape. Only for the uproar in the hotel you would not have escaped. I beat against that closet door, but no one heard me for a very long time. I was in there hours. It seemed days. I suffered. My jaws ached, I was suffocated, I nearly perished. When they did find me and pull me out the exhaustion so overcame me that I could not talk. I tried to tell them how you had escaped, but my senses fled. Not until the following morning could I tell. Then it was too late.”

“Which was our good luck,” said Dick quietly.

“I had heard enough while in that closet to know something of the course you might pursue. I resolved to follow you. I found a Bedouin chief, Ali Beha, who knew the country about for hundreds of miles. I paid him well to aid me in finding you. He is chief over many men, and all the country was scoured in search of you. Finally we learned that you were with a camel train bound to the south. Then we located the train. Ali Beha went for you, while I waited here until he should bring you to me. I knew you expected to hear from the friends from whom you had become separated, so I told him to say a friend had sent for you, but to mention no names. You were fooled with ease the greatest, and now I have you – I have you!”

Again Bunol laughed.

“You are surely the most persistent rascal in the world,” said Dick.

“Perhaps so. Many times you have thought me crushed, but each time I rose again.”

“You are sure to come to some bad end in time.”

“But you will not live to know about that.”

“I presume you mean to murder us?”

“Oh, not with my own hands! I would not take so much trouble. But I shall see you suffer – I shall hear you whimper and beg!”

“You think you will.”

“I know. I have bought these dirty Arabs, and they are ready to do my bidding. I shall take great pleasure in having you stripped and whipped until your back is cut into ribbons. This before I bid you a last farewell and return to look for Nadia Budthorne, who shall become mine.”

“So that is the revenge you have planned. I thought – ”

“You thought – what? That I meant to have you carried back to Damascus?”

“I fancied you might.”

“Ha, ha! You do not know me. I shall take no chances that my revenge may miscarry. Were you taken back to Damascus, you would appeal to the American consul, and he might save you, for, though you were present when Hafsa Pasha was slain, I know you well enough to know you took no part in that. You haven’t the blood in you to kill a man outright!”

The Spaniard uttered these final words with a sneer.

“Do you think so?” said Dick, and Bunol failed to note the deadly gleam in the dark eyes of the trapped boy.

“I know it,” nodded Miguel. “So I shall give you no chance to escape. You shall meet a fate worse than death. After I have seen you cut up with whips, I shall leave you to that fate. Do you not suspect what it is?”

“No.”

“Then I will tell you. These Bedouins are men who deal in slaves. You will be taken from Syria into Arabia and sold as a slave to black men. There can be no escape. You will become a beast of burden. All day long you will labor like a camel beneath the scorching sun of Arabia, driven by black men, who will beat you when you falter. Your soft and tender hands will become hardened and calloused. Your fine shoulders will become stooped and your back bent. Your rounded, muscular body will grow thin and emaciated. But the distress of body that must suffer will not compare with your distress of mind. Think of it!

“Think of yourself, a wretched and hopeless slave, lost in the desert, weary and footsore, trying to sleep at night, but haunted with dreams of your home far across the ocean. You will dream of those days when you were a leader at school; when you were triumphant on the football field or the diamond; when you were lifted on the shoulders of your shouting companions and carried aloft in triumph. Then you will ’wake to realize your pitiful state and know that never again can you look on the faces of those comrades and friends, but that you must go on through the wretched days of your wretched life, a thing to be beaten, scoffed at, spit on, and perhaps finally cut to death with whips. How like you the revenge I have planned? Isn’t it a fine thing, indeed?”

Dick had grown gray and rigid as the venomous Spaniard painted the picture.

There was silence in the tent when Bunol finished. That silence was broken by Merriwell, who spoke in a low, intense tone.

“You human fiend!”

Bunol’s thin lips curled back and exposed his pointed, white teeth. He was smiling.

For a long time Dick Merriwell had controlled himself in a masterful manner, but now the aroused passions of his fiery nature burst beyond suppression. Suddenly, and without the least warning, he flung himself on his enemy, whom he clutched by the throat before an outcry could be made.

Bunol was hurled flat on his back. Dick’s thumbs bored into the Spaniard’s throat. The knee of the American boy was planted on the breast of his foe, pinning the fellow to the mat.

“You devil!” hissed Dick in Bunol’s ear. “You have said I have not the blood to kill any one, but when my hands leave your neck you will be dead!”

Bunol had goaded the boy to a point of fury that was close allied to madness.

The Spaniard was able to make no more than feeble resistance. Although he knew his peril and understood that Merriwell meant to kill him on the spot, he found himself nailed to the ground as if a stake had been driven through his body. His jaws opened, his tongue protruded, his eyes bulged from his head and his face turned purple.

“Die!” hissed Dick.

A black cloud fell on Bunol, and in his ears there was a thundering like the roar of Niagara.

Then the flap of the tent behind Dick was lifted. A man peered in. He uttered a shout. A moment later the tent was filled with men who seized Merriwell and tried to tear him from his enemy.

Dick’s hands clung fast to Bunol’s throat. The expression on his face was awful in its deadly determination. The men cried out that he would kill the Spaniard before their eyes.

Some one struck the American boy in the face several times, but still his grip did not loosen in the least.

At the tent door there was further commotion. Brad Buckhart was fighting to get in.

“Pard!” he cried – “pard, what’s doing?”

Dick made no answer.

At last Bunol was wrenched from Dick’s grip, one of the men having loosened the boy’s fingers a bit. In tearing the Spaniard free, however, they did not prevent Merriwell’s fingers from lacerating the fellow’s neck.

Dick was carried out of the tent. He offered no resistance after his hold on his enemy was broken. They bound him, and flung him on the ground not far from where Buckhart lay, tied in a similar manner.

The Texan squirmed over toward Dick and tried to find out what had happened. Although he plied Merriwell with questions, not a word in reply could he get. Dick lay staring straight up at the sky, and the expression on his face awed and frightened Buckhart.

The old professor was likewise bound.

After a long time the flap of the tent was lifted and two Bedouins appeared, supporting between them the limp form of Miguel Bunol. The Spaniard was deathly pale, and one of his hands kept wandering to his lacerated and swollen throat. When his eyes fell on Dick Merriwell they shone like the eyes of a venomous serpent.

Bunol was led over to Dick, at whom he glared.

“You came – near – finishing me,” he said, in a husky whisper, as if every word gave him great distress; “but – but you – failed. Now it is – my turn.”

He made a weak motion. Immediately several of the Bedouins seized Merriwell, unbound his hands, stripped off his clothing to the waist, and then tied him fast with his face to a heavy post set in the ground.

Two men with rawhide whips, each having many lashes, and the lashes being knotted full of bits of iron and lead, approached at a call from Ali Beha, who sat beneath an awning not far away.

Still supported, Bunol stepped before Dick.

“The revenge I promised you begins now!” he said. “But it shall be even worse than I intended. I care not if they whip you to death! I shall laugh at your shrieks and groans. Let them begin.”

One of the men was speaking to Ali Beha. The chief rose and followed this man a little apart, where he stood gazing toward a distant ridge, over which horsemen were riding. These horsemen were coming straight toward the Bedouin camp.

Quickly the Bedouins gathered with their arms, ready to repel an attack, if necessary. They set up a shout, which was answered by the approaching horsemen. This answer seemed to relieve the Bedouins, for, instead of preparing for battle, they uttered cries of welcome.

For the time attention was turned from the captive at the post. Dick was hopeless, and he paid little heed to the strange horsemen. He was watching Bunol.

The Spaniard was impatient over the delay.

“More of the dirty Arabs,” he muttered.

The leader of the strangers seemed to be a man of some distinction, for Ali Beha hastened to bow low before him, his manner most humble. This leader was an old man, yet he dismounted from his horse with some sprightliness and looked around. His eyes fell on the white youth, who was tied to the post, his bare body shining in the sun.

“What is this, Ali Beha?” he demanded.

“Only a dog of a foreigner whom we are about to flog.”

The stranger stepped quickly forward and obtained a look at Dick’s face. Instantly his manner underwent a change. He straightened to his full height, lifted his hand, and cried:

“Release him at once! He is my friend!”

“Ras al Had!” shouted Dick, in a burst of joy. “Oh, sheik, you came just in time!”

“I reached the camel train shortly after these men took you away,” said the old Arab. “They told me you had been carried off by Ali Beha, and I made haste to look for him here, knowing this to be one of his favorite camping places. But why were they about to flog you?”

“None of your business, you meddling old fool!” snarled Bunol, giving Ras al Had a thrust.

Instantly several of the sheik’s followers sprang on the Spaniard and bore him to the ground.

“Bind him,” commanded Ras al Had.

They obeyed, in spite of Bunol’s struggles and curses.

Dick was set free at the sheik’s command, as also were Brad and the old professor.

Ras al Had listened to Merriwell’s story, and a strange expression came to his wrinkled face as the boy told of his enemy’s plan to have him flogged and then carried into slavery in Arabia.

Turning toward the Spaniard, the sheik grimly said:

“Strip him as this boy was stripped, bind him to the post and flog him, even as he ordered you to flog this boy, who is the bosom friend of Ras al Had.”

Crying and begging like a frightened child, Miguel Bunol was stripped and tied to the post. Then the men with the rawhide whips began their work. The whips whistled through the air and fell on the Spaniard’s bare back, bringing the blood with the first blow.

A shriek of pain came from Bunol’s lips.

Dick could not endure much of this. After a little he implored the sheik to stop it.

“But this is merely a taste,” said Ras al Had grimly. “Do you think he would have stopped so soon with you at the post?”

“It makes no difference,” returned Merriwell. “I can’t see any human being beaten up that way.”

“If I stop them now, you must promise me not to interfere further in his behalf.”

“You will punish him in some other manner?”

“But not with the whip.”

“All right; I promise.”

Immediately Ras al Had checked the men who were wielding the whips. He spoke a few words to Ali Beha, who nodded.

Then the sheik turned to Dick and his companions and bade them prepare to leave the Bedouin camp.

“Before the sun sinks to rest,” he said, “you shall be with your friends, both of whom are safe and well.”

It was not necessary for our friends to spend any time in preparing to depart. They were ready and eager to go.

“What of Bunol?” asked Dick.

“We will leave him here with the friends he has chosen,” said Ras al Had.

An hour later, when they were miles away, the old sheik turned to Dick, a grim smile on his lips.

“Your enemy will trouble you no more,” he declared. “You will never again behold his face.”

“Why not?” questioned Dick. “Do you mean that he will be slain?”

“No; but the fate he chose for you shall be his. He condemned you to be carried a slave into Arabia. That is to be his doom. It is the command of Ras al Had, which Ali Beha must obey.”

CHAPTER XXIV – THE FATE OF A FOE

Dick and Brad were lounging in their room in the Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo, when Professor Gunn came sauntering in, with an unusually springy step, humming a tune.

“Ah, ha!” he cried, striking a pose. “You two rascals have your heads together, I see. What are you planning? What new trouble are you hatching up? Can’t you rest easy for a brief time? I have enjoyed the last two weeks. Since our escape from Damascus, we have seen Alexandria, Cairo, the Pyramids, and so forth, and nothing unusual has happened. We have not once been in peril of losing our lives, and so now, I suppose, you are seeking to devise some method of getting us into danger. Desist – I bid you desist! Already my nerves have been shattered and my constitution ruined by what we have passed through. It was pretty bad in England. It was worse in Italy. It became still worse in Greece. We had to hasten out of Constantinople to escape with our heads. But the grand climax was reached in Syria. I tell you, boys, life was becoming too strenuous for a man of my years. A few more hairbreadth escapes would have brought about my utter collapse. I should have had heart failure. But you seemed to enjoy it. And now I suppose you are seeking to devise some means of getting us all into more trouble of the same sort. I order you to stop it!”

“It happened that we were just speaking of Miguel Bunol and his fate,” smiled Dick. “I can’t help feeling pity for the unfortunate fellow, but Brad insists that he received nothing worse than he deserved.”

“That’s what I do,” put in the Texan, rising. “Bunol was thoroughly bad and vicious. His crookedness was certain to get him hanged in the end, unless some equally severe punishment fell upon him.”

“His fate seems to be even worse than death on the gallows,” said Dick.

“Well, pard, have you forgotten that he first condemned you to that fate?”

“No, but – ”

“Don’t try to make any excuses for that dog!” exploded the Texan. “He was the very limit when he attended school at Fardale. You know it, partner – you know about all the dirty, low-down things he did there. He was born a crook and a sneak. What was he doing when we ran across him in London?”

“Fleecing Dunbar Budthorne at cards.”

“Worse than that. He was ruining Budthorne by keeping him full of booze. He had found that Budthorne had a weakness for drink. But, in order to complete the unfortunate fellow’s destruction, Bunol had doped the man with a drug that made him crave liquor constantly. A cur that would do a thing like that deserves anything that comes to him.”

“I’m not going to put up an argument,” said Merriwell; “but it seems to me that one of his worst tricks was the attempt to ensnare Nadia Budthorne and force her into marriage with him.”

“You bet!” roared Brad. “It makes my blood boil to think of that!”

“But we fooled Bunol very handsomely and rescued both Budthorne and his sister from the rascal’s grip.”

“Which was no easy job. Professor, considering everything, I leave it to you if Bunol received punishment worse than he merited, when Ras al Had turned the tables on him, and commanded the Bedouins to take him into Arabia and sell him into slavery?”

“Hum! ha!” coughed Zenas. “Well, well, it may sound harsh and cruel, but I must confess that his punishment and fate has never given me a single moment of uneasiness and pity. He was bad – about the worst scoundrel I ever saw. He brought it on himself. I agree with Brad that he merited just what he got.”

“Perhaps he did,” admitted Dick; “but think of the awful life he will be compelled to endure as a slave to black men in the Arabian desert! It makes me shiver.”

“I opine it will make him hot,” said Brad, with a faint grin.

“There is no escape for him.”

“Oh, yes, there is.”

“What is it?”

“Death! A fellow can always find some way to kill himself.”

Dick was thinking of the horrible word picture of slavery in Arabia that Miguel Bunol had painted.

“I don’t like to think about it!” muttered Merriwell, his face rather pale. “Let’s do something.”

“There is only one thing more left for us to do in Egypt, boys,” said the professor.

“What’s that?”

“Why, you might take an excursion up the Nile.”

“We might?”

“Yes.”

“How about you?”

“I hardly think I’ll try it.”

“Why not?”

“Well – er – ahem! – I prefer to remain here in Cairo. I am quite contented. I have visited the Pyramids, seen the Castle of the Nile, wandered through the Alabaster Mosque, viewed the Tombs of the Caliphs, and peered into the Haunted House of the Afrit. I am satisfied. I’m willing to be quiet and rest. I’ll stay right here while you take an excursion up the river.”

Dick winked at Brad.

“What’s the attraction that interests you so much in Cairo?” he asked.

“Oh, no – no attraction,” Zenas hastened to declare. “Nothing at all. I’m contented, that’s all.”

Merriwell was puzzled, for he felt that there was something behind the old man’s strange contentment in that foreign city.

“Well, I don’t think Brad and I will go off on any excursion by ourselves.”

“Why not take Budthorne and Nadia along? That’s a good idea. They’ll enjoy it.”

“I believe you are anxious to get rid of us. There’s something doing, Brad.”

“Sure thing, pard,” agreed the Texan.

But the old man protested that they were quite wrong.

“I wish you to see all of the world that you can on this trip, that’s all. You’ll be quite comfortable on the excursion boat.”

“Not if the blamed boat carries as large a cargo of fleas and biting and stinging things as we struck on the boat from Yafa to Alexandria,” growled the Texan. “I was all chawed up by the time I landed from that old craft. My hide looked like a map of Asia pricked out in red splotches, and lines, and bumps, and scratches. The fleas and other varmints of this yere part of the world sure do love the taste of a foreigner.”

“I don’t think there will be such pests on the excursion boat,” said Zenas quickly.

“Well, I fancy we can get along without making that excursion,” observed Dick. “I’m for getting out of Cairo and continuing on our journey.”

“So am I,” seconded Brad.

“Oh, but I’m not ready,” protested the professor. “My dear boys, this is the most interesting country in the world. You don’t seem to appreciate it. You don’t seem to understand that investigation and science have established the fact that more than six thousand years ago the people of this country had acquired a high degree of civilization and culture, and that in those distant ages there flourished right here in the valley of the Nile an educated priesthood, cultured society, an elaborate system of theology and a splendid and powerful form of government. The people were then far advanced in religion, architecture, painting, sculpture, philosophy, and astronomy. Oh, my dear boys, I must remain here a while longer to study and to investigate these matters.”

Dick winked at Brad once more.

“We haven’t observed you studying or investigating a great deal, professor,” he said.

“Oh, I study far more than you suppose. I investigate by observation.”

“Well, if you wish to investigate the records of former civilization, it seems to me you cannot do better than to take a trip up the Nile, along which you will see the ruins of ancient cities and temples. You should visit the ruins of Thebes, see the temple of Rameses and behold the wonders of Karnak.”

“I’ll have to forego that pleasure,” said Zenas; “but I will not deprive you of it. You must go, boys – you shall go! I’ll make arrangements for it.”

But both lads positively declined, much to the vexation of the old man.

“Hum! haw!” he coughed. “I did have a vague idea that I was your guardian during this trip; but it seems that I am not.”

“Would you send us away into peril?” asked Dick, with pretended resentment. “We admire you, professor – we love you, and we propose to stick by you. You can’t shake us.”

“Not on your life,” chuckled Brad. “We’re going to find out whatever your little game in Cairo is. Better tell us.”

“No game at all! It’s ridiculous – simply ridiculous! All right. If you won’t go, I can’t help it; but I may find it impossible to be with you constantly while in Cairo. Private matters may call me away from you for some days. I have met a gentleman from the United States here – a very interesting man. His name is Stringer – Colonel Erastus Stringer. He is a very fine gentleman, and I – ”

“I’ve seen the colonel,” said Merriwell. “He seems to me like a rather gay old bird. Better take care that he doesn’t get you into a scrape.”

“I think I am fully competent to take care of myself,” said the old pedagogue, with dignity. “The colonel is a very quiet and retiring person. I do not approve of the disparaging manner in which you speak of him.”

“I think the colonel is inclined to look too often on the jag pot,” said Brad.

“Tut, tut, tut!” exclaimed Zenas. “Such vulgarity! Jag pot! Such slang! Bradley, you often make me blush with shame for you. I fear your travels are not doing you much good. I did hope to take you back to America quite changed and altered. I hoped to polish off your rough ways and eliminate the slang from your vocabulary. But, alas! I fear my efforts will be fruitless.”

The old man then launched into a lecture, to which the boys listened weariedly.

“I have given you a few things to serve as food for contemplation,” Zenas concluded. “I will now retire and let you think them over.”

When he was gone Dick turned to his friend, a puzzled expression on his face.

“What do you suppose the old boy is up to?” he asked.

“Hanged if I know,” admitted the Texan; “but I’ll be shot if I don’t think there’s something in the wind.”

“We must find out what it is. Colonel Stringer is something of a lusher, as well as a practical joker. I hear he was put out of the Hotel Abbat, in Alexandria, on account of some sort of practical joke in which he was concerned.”

There was a tap on their door and Dunbar Budthorne entered.

“What do you say, boys, to a trip to Citadel Hill to witness the sunset?” he asked. “Nadia wants to go.”

“Then I’m ready,” declared Buckhart, in a twinkling.

“I’ll go along, too,” said Dick, rising.