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At this juncture Bayazid inquired if they wished to take a boat and venture out a short distance on the water.
“Certainly,” answered Dick, at once. “I think it will be a novel experience, and I want to go. If Brad does not – ”
“Hold on, pard!” cried the Texan. “Wherever you go I go, you bet your boots! Mebbe I don’t like it a heap, but I’m with you.”
Bayazid left them and moved a short distance to the right. They watched him and saw the light of his torch fall on a black boat that lay motionless at the edge of the black lake. He stepped into the boat and soon brought it to the shore at their feet.
Dick and Brad followed the professor into the boat, which was large enough to accommodate two more persons, if the party had included them.
Bayazid had placed his torch in a socket that seemed arranged for it. He suggested that the others should extinguish theirs, as too much light close at hand would blind them, instead of making it possible for them to see better.
They accepted his suggestion, and slowly the boat slipped out upon the bosom of the soundless lake.
Suddenly there was a whirring rush through the air, and something brushed past the head of the professor, who uttered a squawk of alarm, struck out wildly with both hands and fell over backward off his seat to flounder in the bottom of the boat.
“Howling tornadoes!” gasped Buckhart. “Whatever was that?”
“A bat, effendi,” answered Bayazid.
Dick laughed.
“Goodness!” palpitated the professor, as he finally struggled up to his seat. “I confess it did frighten me, boys. Made me think of those restless ghosts which are said to wander forever above the bosom of this lake. Hadn’t we better go back?”
“Which way shall we go?” asked Dick.
They looked around. On every hand they saw nothing but marble pillars, shadows, and grim darkness.
“Waugh!” muttered the Texan. “I confess I couldn’t follow the back trail.”
“But Bayazid knows the way, don’t you, Bayazid?” anxiously asked the professor.
“I know it, effendi,” was the assurance. “Trust me.”
“I – I’m very glad you do!” breathed Zenas. “I think we will return at once.”
But Dick urged that they should go on a little farther, as Bayazid was thoroughly familiar with the place and there was no danger that they would become lost.
Brad always stuck by Dick, and the two overruled the old pedagogue.
Therefore Bayazid paddled slowly on. Had they seen his face they might have become suspicious and alarmed, but the shadows hid the crafty and treacherous look his countenance wore.
Finally they paused again, amid the labyrinth of pillars. Without the guide, not one of them could have told which course to follow in order to return to the point from which they started.
Suddenly Bayazid uttered an exclamation and stood up in the boat, staring into the darkness beyond his passengers.
Involuntarily the trio turned their heads to look, wondering what it could be that the guide saw.
Barely were their heads turned in that manner when the treacherous guide snatched the torch from its socket and plunged it into the water. There was a hissing sound and instant darkness.
CHAPTER VII – LOST ON THE BURIED LAKE
Dick Merriwell had brought along a revolver. He drew it in a moment and held it ready for use, expecting something to happen in the Stygian darkness of that terrible place.
Professor Gunn cried out to Bayazid, demanding to know the meaning of his act.
“Get hold of the onery varmint!” advised Buckhart. “Let me put my paws on him!”
The Texan floundered about, rocking the boat somewhat.
“Be careful, Brad!” warned Dick. “You don’t know what he will do! It may be intended for a joke, just to frighten us, and it may be intended for something else. I have a pistol. Keep away from him and let me do the business.”
“Pup-pup-perhaps it’s pup-pup-part of the regular pup-pup-programme,” chattered Professor Gunn. “Pup-pup-perhaps they always pup-pup-put out the tut-tut-torch when they have pup-pup-passengers on this old underground pup-pup-pond.”
“Be quiet,” directed Dick. “Bayazid.”
He called to the guide, but there was no answer.
“Bayazid!”
Again he called. His voice echoed hollowly in the unseen arches above their heads.
“Why doesn’t the blame fool answer?” growled Buckhart.
“Strike a match, Brad,” directed Dick. “I’m holding my revolver ready for use, and I’ll shoot, if necessary, the moment I can see what to shoot at.”
The Texan lost little time in producing a match, but when he attempted to strike it he failed, the brimstone breaking off. Three matches were used before one burned. The light flared up, Buckhart holding it above his head. Its glow fell on the old professor and the two boys, and simultaneously they made an amazing discovery.
They were alone in the boat!
Bayazid, the guide, had disappeared!
Dick had his revolver ready for action, and he was standing in a half-crouching position, peering over the head of Buckhart at the place in the boat lately occupied by the guide.
“He’s gug-gone!” gasped Zenas.
Brad dropped the match, and again they were buried in darkness which seemed to oppress them like an awful weight.
“Great catamounts!” said a voice that sounded strange and husky, but which Dick recognized as that of the Texan. “Where has he gone? What does it mean, partner?”
“It means that we are the victims of trickery of some sort,” answered Dick, speaking in a low tone.
“It means that we are deserted to perish on the bosom of this awful buried lake!” came from the professor, in something like a moan. “I am to blame! I brought you here!”
“But whatever could be the object?” questioned Brad, in a puzzled tone. “If it’s robbery – ”
“It’s a plot – a plot, boys! We are objects of suspicion. That agent of the secret police suspected us of something. In this awful city to be suspected is to be doomed.”
“I can’t realize it yet,” muttered Dick. “How could the guide get out of the boat?”
“I’ll strike another match, pard,” said the Texan. “Keep your gun ready for use.”
“There are other torches,” reminded Dick. “We placed them in the bottom of the boat. Find them, Brad, and light one.”
During the interval that followed the Texan was heard feeling about the bottom of the boat. After a time he confessed:
“I can’t seem to get my paws on them. I’ll have to use another match. The light will show us where they are.”
Another match was lighted, but, though it was held and moved about to illumine the bottom of the boat, not a torch was discovered. When they realized that the extinguished torches were gone they sat up and looked into one another’s eyes by the last gleams of the exhausted match, which Buckhart held until the blaze scorched his fingers.
For some moments silence followed.
Floating there on the motionless bosom of that black lake, no sound came down to them from the great city overhead. The stillness was appalling, yet all feared to speak, dreading the sound of their own voices.
Finally Dick asked:
“How many matches have you, Brad?”
“Not over four or five more.”
“And I have none. How about you, professor – have you any?”
“Not one,” was the despairing answer.
Suddenly Buckhart grated:
“I’d like to get my paws on the treacherous dog who deserted us in this fix! I’d certain fit him for a funeral! You hear me affirm!”
“I’m still unable to account for his action,” said Dick. “If his object is robbery, surely he has taken a strange way to go about it.”
“Perhaps he’s counting on frightening us good and plenty,” observed Brad. “Mebbe when he thinks we’re so frightened that we’ll be glad to cough up liberal he will appear and offer to conduct us back to the outer world.”
“Let’s call to him,” eagerly suggested the professor. Then he lifted his voice and called loudly.
When he had repeated the cry three times, they listened.
“Didn’t you hear a distant answer?” asked Dick.
“I judge whatever we heard was an echo,” said Brad.
After a time they lifted their voices in a united shout, and then listened to the mocking echoes which fled from pillar to pillar and died in the unknown distance.
“No use!” moaned Professor Gunn. “I am satisfied that we are doomed! We’ll never leave this place alive, and our fate will forever remain a mystery!”
“I’m sure that was no echo!” exclaimed Dick, as far away in the darkness they seemed to hear an answer to their repeated shouts. “Be still and let me shout.”
When he had lifted his strong, clear voice all hushed their breathing and listened.
There was a short interval, and then out of the black distance came a faint, far-away answer.
“Some one did shout, pard!” exclaimed the Texan. “It’s a dead-sure thing!”
Excitedly they all joined in the hail that followed. The answer was more distinct.
Dick had found an oar, and he slowly propelled the boat in the direction from which the answering cries seemed to come. Occasionally they bumped against the marble pillars, but these collisions did no damage.
Soon they could hear the answers to their cries and knew they were drawing nearer to the unknown person or persons who were thus responding.
Suddenly a tiny gleam of light showed amid the pillars at some distance.
“Looks like that’s a match, pard,” observed Buckhart. “I reckon I’ll strike one, too.”
He did so, but the other light disappeared even as he held his own above his head. Apparently his match was seen, for the voice of a man reached them, urging them to come in that direction.
By answering call for call they continued to draw nearer to the strangers, for they soon heard enough to satisfy them that at least two persons besides themselves were afloat on the bosom of that buried lake.
“One is a woman!” asserted Dick.
Lifting his voice, he asked:
“Who are you?”
“We are Americans. Who are yo’?”
“We are Americans, too.”
“What are yo’ doing here?”
“We are lost – deserted by our guide.”
“So are we. How many of yo’ are there?”
“Three. How many of you?”
“Two; and somebody shall suffer fo’ this outrage! Somebody shall pay the penalty fo’ it! I’ll have satisfaction as sho’ ’s my name is – ”
“Major Mowbry Fitts, of Natchez, Mississippi,” finished Dick.
“That’s my name, suh! But yo’, suh – why, is it possible that yo’ are – ”
“Professor Zenas Gunn, accompanied by Dick Merriwell and Brad Buckhart. Is Miss Ketchum, of Boston, with you?”
“I am here,” answered the well-known voice of Sarah Ann. “We have passed through a most awful and excruciating experience, the faintest remembrance of which will forever seem like a fearful nightmare. I am glad you have found us, for now you can assist us in getting out of this frightful place.”
“I am sure we would like to do so,” said Dick; “but, unfortunately, like yourselves, we do not know which way to turn. How did you get here?”
The major explained as the two boats bumped together, and floated thus. Like the professor and the boys, he and Miss Ketchum had visited the lake in company with a guide, who had vanished in a mysterious and unaccountable manner. They fancied they had been afloat for days on the bosom of the lake, and they were in a pitiful condition of collapse and fright, although the major had braced up wonderfully for a time.
“This seems to be the usual manner of treating visitors,” said Dick.
“We’ve used our last match,” said the major. “I lighted it a few minutes ago. We had been saving it. I am afraid we will never be able to escape. I have about given up hope.”
“It is the work of that terrible Turk who urged you into the duel with Professor Gunn, major,” said the woman from Boston. “He warned us to leave Constantinople, but we refused to go, and he told us we would disappear mysteriously.”
“Are you speaking of Aziz Achmet?” asked Dick.
“That is what he calls himself.”
“Then you have seen him since the morning of the duel?”
“Seen him!” indignantly exclaimed the major. “We have seen him everywhere, suh. He has followed us and watched us wherever we went. We couldn’t make a move that he wouldn’t turn up. Twice he told us that we must leave the city and the country.”
“I wish now,” confessed Miss Ketchum, “that we had obeyed him. Don’t you, major?”
“Well,” answered the little man, with a touch of reluctance in his voice, “I must confess, madam, that I believe it would have been much better fo’ us if we had obeyed.”
Barely were these words spoken when, in the pall of darkness near by, a voice demanded:
“Are you ready to depart now? Will you depart at once? Do you, one and all, swear by your God that you will lose no time about going?”.
Needless to say, the sound of that voice affected them all much like a sudden clap of thunder on a clear and sunny day. The woman gave a little scream, the major uttered a smothered oath, the professor gasped for breath, while both Dick and Brad sat bolt upright, their nerves tense.
“Answer at once!” commanded the unseen speaker. “It is your only hope of escaping. Among the Armenians we have enough so-called missionaries, and, therefore, the woman from Boston is not wanted. In the other boat are the old man and the boys against whom the secret police have been warned. It will be easy to cause all of you to vanish from the face of the earth; yet if you pledge yourselves to leave Turkey, you shall be spared.”
“I tell you one thing,” spluttered Zenas Gunn eagerly, “I’ve seen all of Turkey I care to see, and I’ll give you my pledge to leave within twenty-four hours, taking the boys with me.”
“I’ll go – oh, I’ll go!” promised Miss Ketchum.
“And if she goes,” said Major Fitts, “I shall accompany her.”
“Swear it!”
The trio were willing enough to do so.
A few moments later a light gleamed a short distance away, and then three torches were lighted. Within twenty feet of them was another and larger boat, containing four persons, three of whom were guides. The fourth was Aziz Achmet. One of the guides was Bayazid, who grinned at the professor and the boys, as if he thought the whole thing a fine joke. Another was the guide who had accompanied the major and the woman from Boston.
Achmet did not touch an oar. He sat in dignified silence as his companions slowly brought the boat close to the others.
“Mr. Achmet,” said Dick, “although we dislike to leave Constantinople under compulsion, Professor Gunn has given his pledge, and we shall stand by it. There is one thing, however, that we would like to have explained. How did our guide disappear in such a mysterious manner?”
Achmet shrugged his shoulders a bit. At first he seemed disinclined to answer, but apparently he suddenly decided to do so.
“It was very simple, boy,” he said. “Your guide stepped from your boat into this one, which he had seen floating in the shadow of a pillar. I was in this boat, with these other guides, and I gave him a signal that he understood. Immediately he extinguished the torch. That threw you into confusion. This boat silently approached, and Bayazid stepped into it. In the same manner Yapouly left the other boat.”
“Thank you,” said Dick. “It was altogether too easy!”
“A heap!” growled Buckhart.
CHAPTER VIII – ON THE WAY TO DAMASCUS
They succeeded in securing passage on a steamer that left the port the following day. Major Fitts and Miss Ketchum left by the same steamer.
“I hope yo’ will congratulate me, professor,” said the major, as proud as a peacock. “Miss Ketchum has consented to become Mrs. Fitts as soon as we reach the United States. I’m sorry fo’ yo’, suh; but yo’ never really had a show, suh.”
“That’s right, major,” smiled Dick. “He didn’t have a show, because he is already – ”
“Don’t you dare tell I’m married!” hissed Zenas, in the boy’s ear.
“He is all ready to carry out his plan to penetrate the wilds of Africa, where it would be impossible for him to take a bride, and he could not bear to be parted from one so young and charming as Miss Ketchum, were he to have the good fortune to capture her.”
“Saved your life, you rascal!” whispered Zenas, and then hastened to bow low to the coy and confused lady from Boston.
At Beirut the party split up, the professor and the boys going to Damascus, a distance of ninety-one miles, which was covered by an excellent narrow-gauge railroad, built by Swiss engineers.
“We’re off, boys!” cheerfully exclaimed the professor, as the train finally started. “We’ll soon be in the oldest city in the world.”
“Do you mean Damascus, professor?” inquired Dick.
“Of course I mean Damascus! We’re not bound for any other place, are we? Did you think I meant New York? Did you fancy I was speaking of Hoboken? Hum! Haw!”
“But there is no absolute proof that Damascus is the oldest city in the world. There may be older cities in China or India.”
“There may be,” admitted the old pedagogue; “but we do not know about them. At least, Damascus is the oldest city we know anything about.”
“That is quite true. If you had said that – ”
“Now look here, Richard, you are inclined to be altogether too wise. You keep yourself too well posted about the countries and places we visit, and thus you deprive me of the privilege of imparting information to you. It isn’t right. You make me feel that I am not earning my stipend as your guardian and tutor during this trip round the world. You place me in an embarrassing position. I wish you would feign ignorance, if you cannot do anything else.”
Dick laughed.
“All right, professor; I’ll try to reform. But it was your advice to us that we should post ourselves in advance on each place we visited, and I’ve been obeying instructions, that’s all.”
“Haw! Hum! You’re inclined to be too obedient – altogether too obedient. Now here is Bradley – I haven’t observed that he has wasted much time reading up about different countries and cities.”
“Sure not,” admitted the Texan. “It’s a heap too much trouble, for I know I’ll hear about the places from you and Dick when we hit ’em. This yere country sort of looks familiar.”
“It does,” nodded Dick. “To me it looks like Southern Colorado or Northern New Mexico. It’s a land of irrigation. The mountains, the plains, the foliage, the mud houses, everything but the people, remind me of that portion of our own country.”
“Quite true,” agreed Zenas Gunn; “although the fertile spots here have all been taken up and cultivated. For instance, look there, boys – look at that mountainside.”
Gazing from the window as the train sped along, they could see the side of a mountain walled up in terraces like gigantic stairways, to prevent the soil from being washed away by the rainfalls. These terraces were planted with grapes, figs, olive and mulberry trees. On many of these terraces laborers were at work propping up strange-looking trunks, which were six or seven feet high. In places these trunks could be seen reclining in rows on the ground, looking strangely like sleeping soldiers.
“Those are grapevines,” exclaimed the professor. “In the fall they cut them down to that height and lay them flat on the ground, as you see them. They are now beginning to prop them up. They will be irrigated and dressed, and then new branches will shoot out in all directions and cover the soil and bear fruit.”
As the train wound in and out of the gorges, clinging to the mountainsides, they beheld many strange and interesting things. Laborers were setting out mulberry trees in long trenches. Other laborers were digging the trenches, three men working a single shovel. One of the men manipulated the shovel, holding the handle and driving it down into the soil. Two others lifted it out with its load, doing so by pulling at ropes attached to the shovel just above the blade. They all worked together with astonishing ease and skill. Great hedges of cactus stretched along the railroad in many places. They gazed with interest at the old-fashioned irrigating canals. They beheld men plowing with the same sort of crooked stick that was used for that purpose in Bible times. But there were no farmhouses scattered over the country, for the people still lived in villages, as they did in former days, when it was necessary for neighbors to band together for protection.
For a great portion of the way the railroad followed the old caravan trail, and all along this trail were scattered trains of camels and donkeys, loaded with all kinds of goods, such as silk, cotton, grain, machinery, poplar trees, fuel, and other things. Petroleum, however, seemed to form the greater portion of many a cargo.
The sun shone from a cloudless sky.
Brad Buckhart was strangely silent. He gazed out of the window in an abstracted manner, paying very little attention to what the professor and Dick were saying.
Finally Dick began to joke him about his unusual manner.
“Don’t worry, Brad,” he laughed. “We’ll overtake her soon. We may find her in Damascus.”
“Her?” grunted the Texan.
“Yes.”
“Why, who – ”
“Nadia Budthorne, of course. Her last letter told you she would visit Damascus and then proceed to Jerusalem, in company with her brother. You can’t fool me, old man. You have been counting on overtaking her somewhere in the Holy Land. Don’t deny it.”
“All right,” said Buckhart, his face flushed, but his manner a bit defiant; “I won’t deny it, Mr. Smarty. You sure have hit it all right. I – ”
At this moment the whistle of the locomotive shrieked a wild alarm and the brakes were applied violently. Something was wrong. The train came to a stop.
And just outside the window of the compartment occupied by the old professor and two boys a dead camel lay stretched on the ground, blood flowing from several horrible wounds. The animal’s pack was broken open and the goods scattered in all directions.
Not ten feet from the camel lay a gorgeously dressed, black-bearded Arab, likewise apparently dead.
“Whoop!” cried Buckhart. “There certain have been some doings here! I opine the camel tried to butt the train off the track, somewhat to the grief of Mr. Camel.”
Men now came running toward the spot, all greatly excited. They were principally camel drivers and like men from a caravan. They gathered about the prostrate Arab and made a great demonstration. Their gestures toward the train were very threatening.
One of the guards flung open the door of the compartment occupied by our friends.
“Is there a doctor here?” he asked anxiously. “A serious accident has happened.”
In a moment Dick Merriwell sprang out, followed by Brad. They did not wait to enter into conversation with the guard, but started toward the dead camel and the motionless Arab.
Others from the train were doing the same thing, and the boys learned from fragments of conversation that the Arab had been struck by the engine while endeavoring to drive from the track the camel that had strayed onto the railroad and obstinately refused to budge.
At that point the train came round a sharp curve, and the engineer was unable to see either camel or man until right upon them.
Later the boys learned that the camel was loaded with certain articles of great importance, which had led the Arab to imperil his life in the effort to drive the beast from the track.
“He seems to be some sort of high mogul in his tribe,” observed Buckhart, as he and Dick paused and surveyed the injured man.
“He is a sheik of great power and influence,” explained a man standing near. “That is why the railroad people are so concerned. If he were an ordinary camel driver or donkey man, they wouldn’t stop a minute to bother over him.”
“I wonder if he is really dead?” muttered Dick, stepping forward.
In a moment he was kneeling beside the unconscious man. Deftly he began to make an examination, seeking for broken bones.
A number of Arabs were about, their heads tied up and their feet and legs bare, as is their custom in all sorts of weather. One of these objected when Dick began the examination, but a husky fellow prevented the chap from attacking the American boy.
“I don’t believe he is dead,” declared Dick. “Doesn’t seem to have any broken bones. He’s stunned – just has the breath knocked out of him. Give me a hand, Brad; let’s see if we can’t revive him.”
The Texan responded promptly.
“What do you want me to do, pard?” he inquired.
“We’ll try artificial respiration,” said Merriwell. “You work his lungs while I work his arms.”
What followed caused the wildest excitement among the watching Arabs, for Buckhart knelt astride the body of the old sheik and began a regular and steady pumplike movement on the lower part of his breast, while Dick seized the man’s arms, pulled them at full length above the Arab’s head, then bent them back suddenly and pressed them to his sides. The two boys worked together in perfect unison.
Some of the Arabs cried out that the infidels were defiling the dead. Two or three of them drew weapons and would have rushed on the boys; but the same husky fellow, who had checked them before now, produced a pistol and averred that he would “blow daylight” through the whole of them if they did not keep still.
In this manner they were temporarily checked, and that brief check gave Merriwell time enough to accomplish his purpose.
A low moan and a convulsive gasp came from the lips of the man over which the boys were working. Signs of returning consciousness were pronounced. His breast heaved. The boys ceased their work. For he breathed.
An Englishman held out a flask of whisky.
“Give him a swallow of this,” he advised.
Dick pushed it away.
“Water,” he called. “That will be better for him.”
“Allah! Allah!” cried the astounded Arabs. “The infidels are magicians! They have restored the dead to life! Ras al Had lives again!”
Some of them prostrated themselves in the dust. Others hastened to bring water.
Dick took a canteen and turned a little of the liquid between the lips of the injured man. He swallowed it greedily, coughed a little, and then lay gazing in a puzzled manner at the face of the American boy.
Finally, in very good English, he asked what had happened. His voice was weak and husky, yet his words were plain.
“You were struck by the train,” explained Merriwell. “Your camel was killed, and you seemed to be dead; but I think you are all right now.”
“For which you may thank this boy and his friend here,” said the husky chap, who had protected the boys. “To all appearances, you were as dead as old Mohammed; but they pumped the breath back into you in a hurry.”
Several of the Arabs now brought cushions, which were placed beneath the head and shoulders of the sheik. One of them spoke to him hurriedly in a low tone, and seemed telling him all about what had taken place. When this man had finished speaking the sheik made a gesture with his hand and bade him retire.
He then called for Dick.
“Be careful, Richard,” cautioned Professor Gunn. “These men are treacherous. There’s no telling what he means to do.”
Dick laughed and stepped nearer to the sheik.
“Boy,” said the old Arab, “they tell me that I was dead, and by your infidel magic you brought life back into my body.”
“You were unconscious, that was all. The shock had driven the breath from your body, and we simply revived the action of your lungs.”
“Had you not done so – ”
“You sure would have croaked for fair,” put in Buckhart.
“What you ask of me, if it is in my power, I will give,” declared the sheik. “That is the word of Ras al Had, and, though no pledge to an infidel is binding, may the wrath of Allah fall on me if I break this one. Speak.”
“If you think I did it for pay of any sort, you are mistaken,” said the young American, with a touch of resentment. “You can’t reward me for a thing like that.”
“Then if ever you are in need or in danger, and I can be of service, the sword and the life of Ras al Had shall be at your command. I swear this by the beard of the Prophet!”
“All aboard!” shouted a voice. “Train’s going to start.”
There was a general rush for the cars.
