Kitabı oku: «Dick Merriwell's Pranks: or, Lively Times in the Orient», sayfa 14
“Ah, these are the favorites!” murmured Zenas, his eyes shining. “Arise, my dears, and come here. Be seated beside me.”
They needed no second invitation to sit beside the professor, however. Cooing in a coy manner, they plumped themselves down amid the cushions on either hand.
“He nice!” said one.
“Him fine!” murmured the other.
Then both giggled.
“He! he!” laughed the professor nervously, as the one on his right leaned against his shoulder. “What’s your name, my dear?”
“Fraud,” was the answer.
“Fraud? Well, that’s an odd name! How do you happen to have such a name as that?”
“Effendi, him give it. Effendi, him husband. Him call me Little Fraud.”
“Ah, I see; sort of a pet name.” Then he turned to the other one, on his right. “And what is your name, darling?” he asked.
“Fake.”
“Hey? Fake?”
“Sure. Effendi, him call me Big Fake.”
“Well, surely he has peculiar names for his wives. Do you love Effendi?”
“Oh, so, so. Him better no husband. Much tired now. Like change.”
“Well, you’re frank about it, to say the least. How many times have you changed husbands?”
“Sev’teen time.”
“What’s that? Great Scott! Seventeen times?”
“Maybe more.”
“Christopher! You’ve had seventeen different husbands – or more? Goodness, but that’s a record!”
At this juncture, Fake threw her arms round the professor.
“You be next one?” she asked. “Like you much. You be old Lobster.”
“What’s that? Old Lobster?”
“Pretty name,” cooed Fraud, from the other side, cuddling on his shoulder. “We like old Lobster, Fake.”
“You bet your back teeth!” elegantly retorted Fake. “We like him lot. Pull his leg.”
“Well, you’re frank in proclaiming your intentions, at least!” gasped Zenas.
At this moment the strange music began again, and the dancing girls reappeared, posing and pirouetting, the tiny bells on their bare ankles tinkling in a lively manner.
Zenas tried to untangle himself from the twining arms of the two favorites, but they declined to be thrust aside.
“No! no!” they cried. “Keep so. Like it, old Lobster.”
“Old Lobster!” grated Gunn. “Say, my dears, you’ll please me if you call me something else. I don’t like the name you have selected for me.”
“No like it?” questioned Fake, in apparent surprise. “Pretty name.”
“Sweet name,” gurgled Fraud. “We like it.”
“But I object! You’ll have to call me something else. I won’t stand for it.”
“All right,” said Fraud, in apparent disappointment.
Then she tried to get a strangle hold on Zenas, who was beginning to perspire and wish himself a thousand miles away.
“Well, you have a mighty queer notion about pretty names!” snapped the old man. “Don’t choke me! Those dancing girls are laughing – I know they are! I can see them laughing behind their veils!”
But they clung to him more closely than ever, and all his squirming was useless.
“Where’s the boss of this house?” he spluttered. “Be careful, both of you! I’m a respectable married man!”
“Nobody ever think it,” snickered Fraud.
“You be married lots more when you get us,” observed Fake.
“Christopher! I should say so! I’d be too much married.”
“We not all you have,” said Fraud. “You get lots more like us.”
“Only not so nice – not so pretty,” declared Fake.
“Well, I’ll have to think this thing over before I close the bargain. I’m beginning to think that one wife is enough for any man – too much in some cases.”
“How silly!” commented Fake.
“Awful chump,” said Fraud.
“But we love him,” purred Fake. “Him old. Him not last long. Then we have ’nother husband.”
“That fun,” giggled Fraud.
“Say, you’re beginning to make me sick!” snapped the distressed victim. “Call the boss of the house – call him! He can keep his harem!”
“You nervous,” said Fake. “See girls dance. Be still.”
“I see them,” groaned Gunn, “and they see us. They’re making sport of us! I didn’t come here to be laughed at! I won’t stand it.”
“No stand – sit still,” advised Fraud.
He gave over his efforts and fell to watching the dancers. They were very graceful, but he remembered that Coddington had spoken carelessly of them, declaring that the favorites of the harem were far more beautiful. To Zenas it seemed that the so-called favorites were big, husky ladies, while their free-and-easy manners, and their slang, filled him with aversion. He had fancied the beauties of a harem to be something entirely different from the ones who were boldly embracing him. And one of them had confessed that she had changed husbands sixteen times – or more! This in a land where he had supposed a man could have a number of wives, but that no wife ever had more than one husband.
The glamour of the harem was fast wearing off, as far as Zenas Gunn, of Fardale, was concerned. Already he was beginning to think he had seen quite enough of it.
Fake and Fraud were not inclined to keep still long. The former began to dally with the professor’s whiskers, running her fingers through them and pulling them playfully.
“Pretty! pretty!” she cooed.
“Ba-a-a-a!” bleated Fraud, like a goat. “Wind go z-z-z-z-z.”
“Quit your fooling!” half snarled the fretted old fellow, pushing Fake’s hand away.
Her gloved fingers seemed to catch in his whiskers and give them a fearful yank, as he thrust her hand aside.
He howled with pain.
“Nice hair,” commented Fraud, giving a pull at the professor’s wig and jerking it off. “Oh, see! Hair all loose! He look funny now!”
“Gimme that!” panted the professor, snatching at the wig; but Fraud thrust it back of her, laughing mockingly behind her heavy veil.
She was strong, astonishingly strong. He found he could not recover the wig by force, so he gave over the attempt.
“That nice,” said Fake. “Behave, old Lobster. Pretty teeth. Bite Fake’s little finger.”
Before he even suspected her purpose she thrust her finger into his mouth. In some manner she caught hold of his upper set of false teeth and jerked them out.
Then both favorites uttered exclamations of seeming surprise and merriment, while the triumphant Fake held the extracted set of teeth above her head.
“Him fine!” she cried. “Hair come off! Teeth come out! Old Lobster lots funny!”
“We take old Lobster all to pieces,” said Fraud. “Come on, Fake. Take him eyes out next.”
“Hold on, both of you!” frothed Zenas. “Don’t you dare carry thish thing any farsher! Gimme my wig! Gimme me my teesh! Hand ’em over, or shomebody going to get hurt!”
By this time he was greatly enraged, but he found himself almost helpless in the hands of the favorites.
The dancing girls were continuing their gyrations, but he knew they were laughing.
He felt that he had been robbed of his dignity and humiliated, and he was eager to take flight from the harem. Again and again he sought to struggle up, but Fake and Fraud pulled him back and held him.
“Oh, good old Lobster!” they cooed. “We love old Lobster. Him great joke.”
“I demand to be released!” gasped the professor. “If you hang onto me you’ll regret it! I’m a desperate man! I’m dangerous!”
He had managed to recover his teeth and thrust them back into his mouth, and now Fraud sought to mollify him by restoring his wig, which she placed on his head, hind side foremost.
“If this is what the owner of a harem has to endure, I’m thankful I don’t own one,” declared Zenas.
Then they patted his cheeks and sought in various ways to pacify him.
“We like you,” they protested.
“Well, you both have hanged queer ways of showing your affection, that’s all I’ve got to say!” he retorted.
“Maybe old Lobster like to kiss me?” questioned Fraud.
“No; old Lobster like to kiss me,” declared Fake.
“Who told you so much?” sneered Gunn.
“We say so, old Lobster have to kiss us,” asserted Fake.
“Have to?” gasped the perspiring pedagogue. “Why should I?”
“That rule,” explained Fraud. “We want it, no man get away less he do so.”
A groan of genuine distress escaped the lips of Zenas.
“I’m sure you don’t want it,” he hastened to say. “Just call Mr. Coddington. I’m very ill! I must see a physician at once! Please let me off!”
But they were obdurate, both insisting on receiving a kiss from him.
“It’s foolishness,” he declared. “You have veils on.”
“Oh, we move um,” Fake hastened to say.
“We move um,” echoed Fraud.
“And then will you call the boss of the house?”
“We have him called then,” they promised.
“If this ever gets out, my reputation is blasted,” sighed the professor; “but I see no other way to escape from these creatures. I’ll have to submit.”
He signified his willingness, whereupon both favorites again clasped him about the neck with an arm, while they prepared to lift their veils with their free hands.
“Here goes!” he muttered, turning to Fraud.
She lifted her veil.
A squawk of astonishment and horror burst from Professor Gunn, for Fraud was black as midnight, with huge red lips, which were parted in a horrible grin. Brass rings dangled from her ears and her nose.
“Heavens and earth deliver me!” panted the professor.
Then he turned and saw the face of Fake. It was that of an old, haglike creature, wrinkled and hideous, while her mouth was filled with horrible black teeth.
A shriek escaped the old man. Like a maniac he tore himself free from their clutches.
“Help! Murder!” he yelled.
“Come back, old Lobster!” they implored.
But he scrambled to his feet and fled from the room, yelling for assistance at every step, and pursued by a burst of laughter from the dancing girls.
The professor rushed from the room and into the arms of John Coddington and Colonel Stringer. They grasped him and held fast.
“Let go!” he shouted. “Don’t let those creatures catch me! Let go!”
“Well, by Jove!” drawled Coddington. “The man is crazy, don’t you know!”
“What’s the matter with yo’, professah?” asked the colonel, in apparent amazement. “Have yo’ lost your senses, suh?”
“How dare you insult the favorites of the harem by running away from them in such a manner?” sternly demanded the Englishman.
“Insult them!” snarled Zenas, glaring at Coddington as if he longed to throttle the man. “How dare you insult me by putting such hideous hags onto me?”
“Hideous hags? Sir, those are the most beautiful ladies in all Cairo, by Jove!”
“Beautiful! They would frighten a mummy into a fit! They would give a dog hydrophobia.”
“Suh,” said Colonel Stringer, “I am astonished, suh! My friend Coddington is a fine judge of feminine beauty.”
“Bah!” sneered Zenas. “Bah! bah! I’ve seen his beauties, and they are horrible things! Let me get out of this house! I wish never to see the interior of another harem! A man who would have more than one wife is insane. And a man who thinks such creatures as those beautiful ought to be locked fast in a home for incurable imbeciles! You’re an imbecile, Coddington – that’s my opinion of you! Don’t talk back! Don’t open your mouth! Want to sell your harem, do you? I don’t wonder! You ought to pay somebody about ten million dollars to take it – and then he’d get stuck! Good day, sir! I tell you not to attempt to detain me a moment! I am going now!”
And go he did, hurrying forth from the house with trembling steps and almost running until he was far from that vicinity.
Barely had the professor left the front door when the two “favorites” appeared, both convulsed with laughter.
They were Dick Merriwell and Brad Buckhart, the former having posed as Fraud, while the latter had given his name as Fake.
“Oh, great horn spoon!” gasped Buckhart, “I certain won’t get over this in a year!”
“I think the professor has been taught a splendid lesson,” laughed Dick. “The game worked like a charm.”
“I should say it did!” agreed Coddington, who was also laughing. “We watched it all. We were behind some curtains, and we dodged out just in time to get ahead of the professor when he took flight. It was deucedly funny, don’t you know. You boys did your parts very cleverly.”
“Did you see Dick remove the professor’s wig?” laughed the Texan. “I thought I’d blow up then, but it gave me an idea, and I managed to get my digits into his mouth and yank out the upper layer of his store teeth.”
“And then I was on the point of blowing up,” confessed Dick. “But the professor was so excited he didn’t notice it.”
“The climax came when yo’ invited him to kiss yo’,” grinned Colonel Stringer. “He’ll be ready to shoot me now.”
“Don’t you think it,” said Dick. “He’ll be round begging you to keep still about it. He’ll be humble enough.”
“We’re very much obliged to you, Mr. Coddington, for your assistance,” said Dick. “If you’ll give us a bill of expenses, I’ll settle it. If Colonel Stringer hadn’t known you, I fear we could not have carried out the plan after we formed it.”
“Oh, the expense was nothing compared with the sport I’ve had,” asserted the Englishman.
“But you had to engage the dancing girls.”
“They are professionals, and their services cost a mere nothing. It’s not worth mentioning.”
“Oh, yes it is. Then there was the costumer. You had to pay him. I insist on settling the bill.”
Coddington did his best to get out of taking anything, but Dick was obdurate and finally compelled the Englishman to state the full expense of the affair, which he paid.
It was nearly an hour later when the boys reappeared at the Shepherd’s Hotel, having washed off their make-ups and donned their usual attire.
They found the professor, looking pale and wan, pacing the floor of his room, which adjoined theirs. The old man noted their entrance, and paused to peer at them suspiciously.
“Where have you been, boys?” he asked.
“Oh, out for a little airing,” answered Dick, carelessly. “Did you enjoy the afternoon, professor?”
“Well – er – ah – I can’t truthfully say that I did,” confessed the old pedagogue.
“That was too bad. Why didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Ahem! I can’t explain, boys. Don’t ask foolish questions.”
“But didn’t you see that collection of old relics?”
“I did – I saw it!”
“And you were disappointed in it?”
“Very much so.”
“Were not the relics very ancient?”
“Well, two of them were, beyond question.”
“And did the inspection of them add greatly to your fund of knowledge?” persisted Dick.
“Greatly,” declared Zenas. “I know much more than I did when I left this hotel.”
“Then I fail to understand why you seem so terribly disappointed. You said you expected to return here a much wiser man.”
“And if I’m not wiser,” said the professor, “I ought to be shot, that’s all! I have this day learned something I’ll never forget. Don’t ask another question! I decline to discuss the matter further. But I will say that no man is too old to learn, and sometimes a man who thinks himself very wise discovers that he’s a big fool. I’m going to lie down and rest now, for I need it. I am quite exhausted.”
He closed the door between the two rooms.
“I must tell Dunbar and Nadia about it,” chuckled Buckhart. “Come on, Dick; let’s go see them.”
“You go ahead,” nodded Merriwell. “I have a letter to write, and I think I’ll do it now.”
Buckhart was not gone long, and there was something of a worried look on his face when he returned.
“Well, did they appreciate the joke?” questioned Dick, without looking up.
“I didn’ tell them.”
“Didn’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They’re not in.”
“Oh, that’s it! Where have they gone?”
“I don’t know. I inquired and found they left the hotel about two hours ago. They did not take a carriage, or even engage donkeys. They walked out, without stating whither they intended to go.”
“Well, it’s likely they’ll return soon.”
“I hope so.”
Buckhart’s tone caused Dick to look up quickly.
“What’s the matter, Brad?” he asked.
“I’m worried, pard,” confessed the Texan.
“About them? Oh, nonsense; they’re all right.”
“They may be; but you know Budthorne is a mighty poor protector for a girl, and Nadia has been watched by that strange man we observed.”
“That is, she thought that man was watching her; but she was not sure of it.”
“She was pretty sure. He was a Turk, and you know what happened to her in Damascus.”
“Which, therefore, will not happen again. Don’t be foolish, old man.”
“You remember that other man – the one we saw join the Turk on Citadel Hill?”
“Yes.”
“I dreamed about him last night, Dick.”
“Did you?”
“Sure; and it was a bad dream. I thought you and I were walking along a dark street, in a strange city, when that other man came up behind us suddenly. I turned just in time to see him drive a knife into your back, but not in time to check him. You fell! Then I sprang on your murderer and flung him to the ground. I had him by the throat and I dragged him to a corner, where there was a light. When I had pulled him into the light I discovered that he was Chester Arlington.”
“Well, you see how foolish dreams are, Brad. Chet Arlington is at Fardale, thousands of miles away.”
“That’s all right. I don’t opine the chap we saw was Arlington; but somehow I have the idea that he’s an enemy to you, and just as dangerous an enemy as Chet Arlington.”
“If you take stock in dreams, you’ll be calling on fortune tellers, next.”
“Oh, you laugh! You wait and see! That dream meant something.”
Brad relapsed into silence, and Dick went on with his writing.
Ten minutes later they heard the sound of running feet on the stairs and outside their door. The door was burst open, and Dunbar Budthorne, ghastly white and shaking in every limb, reeled in.
Buckhart made a great leap and seized the fellow.
“For Heaven’s sake, Budthorne, what has happened?” he hoarsely demanded.
“Nadia!” gasped the agitated young man, seeming barely able to utter the word.
“Nadia!” grated Brad. “Something has happened to her? Speak, man!”
“We were walking – ”
“Go on!”
“Suddenly several men sprang out on us. They tried to seize Nadia. I – I did my best. I sought to protect her. One fellow snatched her from me. Another hit me on the head and knocked me down. But I saw the one who seized her – saw him face to face! I knew him. It was Miguel Bunol!”
Brad fell back as if struck in the face. Dick uttered an exclamation of incredulity.
“You’re crazy, Budthorne!” he palpitated. “Your eyes deceived you! Bunol cannot be here, for the Bedouins carried him away to sell him into slavery in Arabia.”
“I don’t care about that,” declared Budthorne, positively; “Bunol was with those men who attacked us – he seized Nadia. I know him! I cannot be deceived!”
“But Nadia,” questioned Brad; “what became of her?”
“I was stunned for the time,” said Dunbar. “When I recovered the men were gone and she had disappeared. I ran about aimlessly, but something guided me to the river. I saw them in a boat that was rowing off to a small yacht. I saw them lift my sister from the boat over the rail into the yacht. Steam was up. The yacht hoisted anchor and away it went up the river. All this time I was running up and down the bank, trying to hire some one to take me off to the yacht in a boat. No one would. And when the yacht was far up the river I turned and came back here as fast as I could. Oh, Nadia – poor Nadia! How can we save her?”
CHAPTER XXVIII – IN BUNOL’S POWER
A small but handsome private yacht, under full head of steam, was making its swift course up the Nile.
In the tiny, Orientally furnished cabin of this yacht, Miguel Bunol stood with his feet wide apart, his hands in his pockets, puffing at a cigarette and triumphantly regarding a cowering, pale-faced, red-eyed girl.
Bunol’s manner was insolent and self-satisfied in the extreme. He felt that he was master of the situation at last and his heart beat high with exultation.
Nadia glanced at him in terror. She had crept as far from him as possible.
“I am greatly sorry to cause you such vast distress,” said the young Spaniard, with pretended regret.
Her lips curled.
“You, sorry!” she exclaimed chokingly.
“No doubt you do not believe me, but it is true, my dear – I swear it is true.”
Her eyes began to flash.
“You know you are lying, you monster!”
“At least,” he retorted, with a dark smile, “your spirit is not broken, and I like that. You made such a terrible disturbance, and you did weep so much that I feared you would not have any spirit left. I admire the girl of spirit, and for the one who cows and whimpers, like a whipped puppy, I have but little regard.”
She was silent, but scorn and loathing continued to gleam in her eyes.
“I regret to the exceeding limit that we felt it necessary to pursue the course we did, but we dared not wait longer.”
“We? You mean yourself.”
“There is another concerned.”
“What other?”
“My friend, Medjid Bey. He is the owner of this yacht.”
“A Turk! A worthy comrade!”
“Medjid Bey is a Turkish gentleman of high rank. He stands high in the regard of the sultan.”
“I am glad to know the name of your accomplice in this dastardly piece of business.”
“Oh, you will know him far better before this affair is over. He is a splendid fellow. Only for that, at this moment you might be under arrest, and on your way back to Damascus, or to Constantinople.”
She betrayed her total disbelief in the words of Bunol.
“I give you the assurance of a gentleman that I speak the truth,” he bowed.
“The assurance of a gentleman!” she exclaimed. “A fine gentleman! A gambler, a scheming scoundrel!”
“You misjudge me greatly, Nadia. You have never understood me. From the first I took a friendly interest in your brother. I knew his weaknesses, and I tried – ”
“You tried to ruin him! You got him into your power by drugging him. The drug you gave him made him the slave of drink, and you did not permit its effect to wear off. When it seemed about to wear off, you gave him more of the drug. Friendly interest! You were making him a drunkard!”
“It is useless to argue with a girl. Women do not reason. What they believe they believe, without sense or judgment.”
“I believe what I know. You had Dunbar in your grip, in London. Since then he has never been himself. His spirit is broken and his courage gone.”
“Surely he lacks courage, else he would not have deserted you to-day. He ran away in the most cowardly manner when we appeared. It was our intention to take him along with you. I thought you would feel better about it if you had him for company.”
Nadia felt a twinge of shame for her brother, who had displayed the white feather in the most pitiful manner.
The account of the affair, as given by Budthorne to Merriwell and Buckhart, was true with the single exception of Dunbar’s statement that he had defended Nadia until struck down. This part of the story he had founded on Dick’s experience in defense of the girl in Damascus. His befuddled and unimaginable brain had been incapable of devising a different yarn.
“No wonder he fears you, Miguel Bunol!” panted the girl. “He has every reason to fear you.”
“That is no excuse for his cowardly conduct. No brave man ever deserts a lady in time of peril.”
“Perhaps you think yourself competent to judge a brave man?” she sneered. “Perhaps you really believe yourself brave?”
“I know what I am! but, with your brother concerned, I wish to make no unpleasant comparisons.”
“How kind of you! You are such a gallant gentleman!”
Her scorn was scorching, but he declined to be touched by it. Coolly he lighted a fresh cigarette.
“Where is the master of this boat?” she suddenly demanded, half starting up. “I demand to see him!”
“All in good time, my dear. You shall see him soon.”
“Now! He must listen to me! He must explain his conduct! You have deceived him! You have lied to him! He cannot realize what he is doing!”
“You are wholly mistaken, I assure you. Medjid Bey understands quite perfectly what he is doing.”
“It is unlawful! It is a crime!”
“He has learned of a certain crime that was lately committed in Damascus.”
“You mean – ”
“I speak of the murder of Hafsa Pasha, a countryman of Medjid Bey.”
“How does that concern me?”
“You know you are concerned. In Damascus it is said an American adventuress ensnared Hafsa Pasha, and her friends killed him.”
“Which is a wretched story to hide the truth that Hafsa Pasha brutally seized and imprisoned an American girl. The story is told to shield the Pasha in case the affair should be too closely investigated.”
“Perhaps so; but you know by experience that the people of Damascus believe it, for you were compelled to flee from the city in disguise to escape the enraged Moslems. Had you fallen into the hands of that mob you would have been torn limb from limb.”
“Still you – fine gentleman that you are – threatened to deliver me over, and, to prevent you, Dick Merriwell and Brad Buckhart seized, bound and gagged you and fastened you in a closet of the German hotel!”
“My dear Nadia, I had no thought of permitting you to fall into the hands of the mob; but I did wish to bring those fool boys to terms by frightening them.”
“You found them boys you could not frighten.”
“They are young idiots! They do not know enough to be afraid!”
“You followed us after we escaped from the city.”
“And overtook you, too, aided by the Bedouins I engaged.”
“You did not overtake Dunbar and me.”
“But I did overtake Merriwell, Buckhart and that old fool professor.”
“Yes. Then you had Dick Merriwell stripped and were on the point of having him cruelly whipped. You threatened to have him sold into slavery in Arabia.”
“Which would have been his fate only for the unlucky appearance of that old devil of a sheik, Ras al Had. He turned up with his followers at the wrong moment.”
“At the right moment!” cried Nadia. “The whipping you intended for Merriwell you received yourself.”
Bunol’s face flushed.
“Yes,” he said, in a low, fierce tone. “The scars are on my back, and I shall bear them to the grave.”
“Retribution!”
“The end is not yet. I have sworn to make Merriwell suffer, even as I suffered!”
“That shows your true nature and the blackness of your heart, for it was not Dick Merriwell that caused you to be whipped. Ras al Had was the one. Dick interfered, or you would have been lashed until you fainted.”
“Why did he interfere? I know! It was because he feared I would be so weakened by the punishment that I would not be able to stand the journey to Arabia. He left me with those Bedouins, who were commanded to take me out of Syria and sell me into slavery in Arabia. He intended that I should perish a wretched slave of black men.”
“Which was the fate you had chosen for him and would have forced on him, only for the fortunate coming of the sheik. Do you never think that there is such a thing as retributive justice? I shuddered and was sorry for you when I learned what had happened. But now – now my only regret is that you escaped!”
“Well, I did escape, and I am here – to wreak vengeance on Merriwell!”
“And it was Ras al Had who commanded the Bedouins to carry you into captivity, not Merriwell. Merriwell did not know of the sheik’s order until he was far away and it was impossible for him to do anything.”
“He has told you that, but he lied! He urged old Ras al Had to do it! I know him, for did he not try to murder me in the tent of the Bedouin chief?”
“When you had goaded him beyond endurance by your taunts and your threats of whipping and slavery. You thought he would not touch you, because he has wonderful command of his temper; but you found out your mistake when he fastened his hands on your throat.”
“He told you of that? He boasted of it?”
“Never a word of it have I received from him. Brad Buckhart told me.”
“That fellow? Well, what I have in store for him is only second to what shall befall Merriwell. I was not carried into captivity. I am here, and I have struck a blow. The end will come soon.”
“How you escaped I do not know, but – ”
“I will tell you. I know many Turks of influence. I have had dealings with the Turkish secret police, and – ”
“Through your lies the secret police compelled Dick, Brad and Professor Gunn to leave Constantinople,” interrupted Nadia.
The Spaniard smiled in a satisfied manner.
“I think the information I furnished led to their being warned to leave the city,” he bowed. “Let me go on. Knowing a number of Turkish gentlemen of rank, I was able to impress old Ali Beha, the chief of the Bedouins, who had been commanded to sell me into slavery. I saw my only hope was to bribe and frighten the ignorant old chief into releasing me. That was no simple matter, for Ali Beha feared the sheik, Ras al Had. However, all the wires I worked as best I knew how. I talked to Ali Beha and told him how, if my Turkish friends ever learned what had happened, they would be furious and seek to have him punished. I told him that Ras al Had was now an outcast, having slain Hafsa Pasha. I told him he was aiding the accomplices of Ras al Had to escape, which would enrage the sultan when he learned what had taken place. I offered bribes and made promises. Ali Beha seemed immovable, and I was in despair.
“Think of me, a helpless captive, believing I was doomed to slavery in burning Arabia! The thought of such a fate maddened me. I nearly lost my reason. At times I raved and prayed. But through it all I kept saying I would live to be revenged on Dick Merriwell.”
“It was the fate you first devised for him,” said the girl, “and your suffering was your punishment.”
Bunol snapped his fingers.
“Whenever I recovered from those fits of despair,” he continued, “something seemed to whisper in my ear that there was yet hope and that I would not become a slave. I did not know Ali Beha had sent two of his men on fleet horses to Damascus to investigate my statements; but this was what he had done. He waited for those men to return. They came back in time, and they informed him that it was true that Ras al Had had become an outcast, having slain Hafsa Pasha on account of an old score. They also told the sheik that they had found I was known to the Turks I had claimed as my friends.
“Then Ali Beha’s manner toward me underwent a change. I was no longer a captive. He escorted me to the nearest village and set me free. From that village I made all haste to reach the port of Akka, believing Merriwell would take flight from Syria as soon as he could. I did hope he would be detained; but at Akka I soon discovered he had found a way to get off in a steamer for Alexandria. Fortunately for him, news travels slowly in Syria, and the officials had not learned that he was suspected of having something to do with the murder of Hafsa Pasha. Either that was the case, or the Turks, knowing he had not really committed the crime, were willing that he should get away. The latter supposition may be the truth. I confess that I am half inclined to so regard it. Later I will explain why.
