In the Mahdi's Grasp Part 10

"And you think I have always been satisfied with you, Samuel?" said the doctor, smiling pleasantly.

"I think so, sir," replied the man. "I've been some years in your service, and you're a gentleman as will always have everything done as it should be."

"Of course."

"And you never found fault with me yet. And I _will_ say that a better mas--"

"No, you will not," said the doctor quickly. "That will do."

"Certainly, sir," said the man, looking abashed.

"You like the doctor as a master, then?" said Frank, with a twinkle of the eye.

"Like him, sir!" cried Sam.

"Well, I think you will like your new master quite as well."

"I hope so, sir. I'll do my best. Shall I see him soon?"

"Of course," said Frank. "There he is. The Hakim, Doctor Morris--the learned surgeon who is going to practise through the Soudan."

"Oh-h-h!" cried Sam, with his face lighting up. "I see now, gentlemen."

"But remember," said the doctor sternly, "the necessity for silence has begun, so keep your own counsel, which will be keeping ours."

"Yes, sir."

"Now go and begin putting together the few things you will require on our voyage and journey."

"Remembering," said the professor, "that we must take only the simplest necessaries. I shall have to overhaul every man's bag after you have brought it down to the lowest state. There, Sam, I agree to your going fully, for I believe you will not let us repent it."

"Thank you, sir. Shall we go soon?"

"Within forty-eight hours if it can be managed. Give me my hat and stick. I'll go at once and see if berths are to be had on a P. and O.

boat. You two will begin getting absolute necessaries together in the way of your professional needs, not forgetting your instruments and chemicals, Frank. Take all you said. They will be heavy and bulky, but they will pay for taking. As for me, as soon as I have settled about the boat I will get my own few things together and see to the arms. I have a pretty good selection of Arabian weapons. What more we require can be obtained in the Cairene bazaar."

CHAPTER FIVE.

SHEIKH IBRAHIM.

Time works wonders, they say; so does money in able and experienced hands.

The professor's were experienced hands, and he had ample funds at his disposition. The result of his inquiries that morning was that he found he could by starting the next night catch the mail which would bear him and his friends, travelling night and day, to Brindisi--for southern Italy, where the mail steamer would be waiting to take them on to Ismailia. Then in a few days from starting they would have changed into the not very efficient Egyptian railway, to be set down within sight of the pyramids on the borders of the mighty desert, with the south open to them, if all went as they had arranged, for their journey in search of the prisoner gazing northward and hoping still that help might come and his captivity and sufferings at last be ended.

It is wonderful what energy will do.

Now that the plans had been decided upon the professor worked like a slave. Long experience had made him an adept. He knew exactly what outfitters to go to, and when there what to select, and it was wonderful how little he deemed necessary.

"You see we hardly want anything here, Frank, lad," he said. "Some things we cannot get out there, but the majority of our necessaries we must buy in Cairo, and quietly too, for if it got wind that we were going upon such an expedition we should be stopped."

"I suppose so."

"But I can manage all that. I have an old friend or two, sheikhs who will do anything I ask, and supply me on the quiet with followers and tents and camels. For they love me as a brother, and you shall hear them say all sorts of sugary flowers of speech. They will bless me, and say that it is like the rising of the sun upon their tents to see my n.o.ble visage once again. They will kiss the sand beneath my feet in the warmth of their attachment, and do all I wish for shekels, Franky, all for shekels."

"But can you trust them?" said Frank.

"Certainly. They will keep faith, and be ready even to fight for us if the odds are not too great, and the shekels are duly paid. There, I don't think we need trouble about anything more, after the two leather cases are packed with the conjuring tricks and physic of the learned Hakim and his slaves. The sinews of war will do the rest. Hah! I am glad we are going into the desert once again. We must get to Hal as soon as possible, and somehow scheme to get him free, but you must curb your impatience. It will be all express till we reach Cairo--all the end of the nineteenth century; but once we are there, excepting for the civilisation of that modern city we shall have gone back to the times of the Arabian Nights and find the country and the people's ways unchanged.

And do you know what that means?"

"Pretty well," said Frank; "crawling at a foot's pace when one wants to fly."

"That's it; just as fast as a camel will walk."

Those hours of preparation pa.s.sed more quickly to Frank than any that he could recall during his busy young life, and over and over again he despaired of the party being ready in time, so that he could hardly believe it when the carriage-door was slammed, the whistle sounded, and the train glided out of the London terminus with the question being mentally asked, Shall we ever see the old place again?

Then sleepless nights and drowsy days, as the party sped through France and Switzerland, dived through the great tunnel, to flash out into light in sunny Italy, and then on and on south, with the rattle of the train forming itself into a constant repet.i.tion of two words, which had been yelled in the tunnel and echoed from the rocky walls of the deep cutting--always the same: "_Save Harry! Save Harry_!" till Frank's brain throbbed.

Then Brindisi, with the mails being hurried from the train to the n.o.ble steamer waiting to plough the Mediterranean and bear the adventurers south and east for the land of mystery with its wonders of a bygone civilisation buried deeply in the ever-preserving sand.

And now for the first time Frank's brain began to be at rest from the hurry of the start, as he lay back half asleep in the hot sunshine, watching the surface of the blue Mediterranean and the soft, silvery clouds overhead, while the doctor and the professor sat in deck-chairs, reading or comparing notes, but all three resting so as to be ready for the work in hand.

It was one glorious evening when Frank was leaning over the side gazing forward towards the land that they were soon to reach, and where they would give up the inert life they were leading for one of wild and stirring adventure, that the young man suddenly started out of his dreamy musings, for a voice behind him said softly--

"Beg pardon, sir." Frank turned sharply round. "Don't mind me speaking, sir, I hope?"

"No, Sam," said Frank, rousing himself and speaking in a tone which plainly suggested, "_Go on_."

"Thankye, sir. Don't seem to have had a chance to speak to you in all this rumble tumble sort of look-sharp-or-you'll-be-left-behind time."

"No, we haven't seen much of one another, Sam."

"We ain't, sir, and I don't know as I've wanted to talk much, for it's took all my time to think and make out whether it's all true."

"All true?"

"Yes, sir. Seems to me as if I'm going to wake up directly to find I've been having a nap in my pantry in Wimpole Street."

"Hah! It has been a rush, Sam."

"Rush, sir? It's wonderful. Seems only yesterday we were packing up, and now here we are--down here on the map. One of the sailors put his finger--here it is, sir, signed Jack Tar, his mark, for it was one of the English sailors, not one of the Lascar chaps. That's where we are, sir."

Sam held up a conveniently folded map, surely enough marked by the tip of a perspiring finger.

"He says we shall be in port to-morrow, and have to shift on to the rail again, and in a few hours be in Cairo on the River Nile."

"That's quite correct, Sam," said Frank, smiling; "and then our work will begin."