King of the Air Part 22

"He's rather big for that, don't you think?"

"The bigger the better! I never _heard_ of such a thing! The impudence of it! And taking us all _in_ so! What things are coming to I don't know. No obedience, no respect for age-pretending to be Scotch, too--"

"Well, he is Scotch, you know."

"Don't tell _me_! He's only Scotch when it suits him. There are others like him in the Lords. He was never Scotch in _my_ house-where he shall never show his face again, _never_!"

Tom was not deceived by this explosion of wrath. He knew very well that Mr. Greatorex was only relieving the tension of his feelings, and working off his nervous excitability on the most convenient object. "Les absents ont toujours tort," he remembered. Mr. Greatorex presently calmed down, and heard the rest of the story in comparative quietude.

"And what are we to _do_?" he said at the close. "Swob doesn't matter; we're not bound to lift a finger for _him_; but we can't leave Ingleton and M'C-- and Oliphant in the hands of those wretches. They'll break up our machine, too, and play the very deuce with _my property_. What are we to _do_?"

What Tom answered is shown by subsequent events. Two or three hours after his return to the yacht, when he had had a thorough rest and a good meal, a well-armed party, consisting of the whole ship's company except the cook and one seaman, left the yacht, on which all lights had been extinguished, and rowed with m.u.f.fled oars to a sheltered cove on the south side of the bay-that furthest removed from the Arab encampment. Mr. Greatorex had insisted on joining the party. In vain Tom pointed out that a hard march was before them, suggesting delicately that Mr. Greatorex was not so light as he once was. The merchant puffed the objection away. They disembarked in dead silence, and, leaving two of their number to take the boat back to the yacht, made their way cautiously up the cliff.

Led by Tom, the party, ten in all, struck off in the direction of the village. Thanks to the light of the moon, which now lay a little above the horizon, Tom was able to make a fairly straight course for the plantation in which he had hidden during the previous day. Once or twice he strayed from the proper track, and ultimately found that he was nearly a mile from his objective; but this was not bad, considering that there was no beaten road, and they had to tramp across rough country.

When he reached the plantation he was no longer in doubt as to the true direction; during his long stay among the trees he had had time to take his bearings pretty thoroughly.

Mr. Greatorex was blown by the time they came to the clearing in which the airship had descended, and Tom begged him to remain hidden in the plantation while the rest went on to the village.

"Pff!" panted the perspiring old gentleman. "Never gave up _anything_ yet; on you go!"

But a slight halt was made while Tom completed arrangements for his night raid. The village was walled; the gates would no doubt be shut, as at Ain Afroo; the wall must be scaled. Captain Bodgers selected the biggest men to give their more active comrades a "leg-up." These latter were provided with ropes, by which they might haul up the others when they had themselves gained a footing on the wall. Tom impressed on them all the necessity of maintaining dead silence. He estimated that the village contained about a hundred fighting men, and if the approach of the raiders were discovered in time for the walls to be manned, the chance of a successful coup would be small indeed.

All carried firearms except Mr. Greatorex. He had a k.n.o.bbed stick, capable of dealing a very damaging blow.

"There's bound to be a _fight_, I suppose?" he had said when Tom was discussing his plans on the yacht. "I don't like _that_, you know. I'd punch a man's nose and knock him down without scruple, of course; but that needn't _kill_ him, you know. Besides, how do I _stand_? This is uncommonly like a piratical raid-like Jameson's, and he might have been _hanged_. However!"

Tom a.s.sured him that no blood should be shed if it could possibly be avoided; but he had small hopes that the night would end without a fight, and a very brisk one.

The party set off for the village, stealing along under what cover was afforded by bushes and inequalities in the ground. When about three hundred yards from the wall all such protection ceased; the ground was level and apparently open. Tom's heart was in his mouth lest their footsteps should be heard as they crossed this. He dared not set them at a run, for the soil all around was stony, and the sound of near a dozen men rushing at speed could not fail to be heard in the village. So he kept up the same stealthy approach, and his caution was justified, for level as the s.p.a.ce had appeared at a distance, it proved to have patches of loose stones, and some yards of boggy land, through which ran a narrow and evil-smelling creek; to rush would have ended in disaster.

They arrived beneath the wall without having heard any alarm raised within. In a trice the men began to clamber up. It was made of mud and rubble, and was not in so ruinous a condition as the wall of Ain Afroo.

The first man reached the top. Immediately there was a shout and the sound of hurrying feet, and Tom sprang up to the sailor's side in time to see a Moor in long djellab dashing from the nearest house towards the wall. Suddenly he halted, and fired. The young sailor winced as the bullet struck him; but he was not badly hurt, and letting down his rope, calmly proceeded to haul up one of his comrades. After firing, the Moor made a rush along the wall. Tom grappled with him; both fell, dropping their weapons, and Tom felt in an instant that he was no match for the sinewy figure that had him in his arms. The Moor forced him down; his hands were already at Tom's throat, when Timothy Ball, who had accompanied the party in spite of his half-healed wound, threw himself upon the enemy from behind, dragged him backwards, and left him half-strangled, but yet alive.

When Tom rose dizzily to his feet, all his party were within the wall.

One or two shouts were heard from the village, but apparently the Moors were not yet quite awake to what was happening. Tom pulled himself together, and led the way straight for the kasbah, which, from his lofty perch in the tree during the day, he had seen slightly to the right of the place at which the entry into the village had been made. When they dashed up to the main gate, this was being opened to give exit to a couple of men who were apparently about to inquire into the cause of the slight commotion and the rifle shot that had been heard. The two were instantly bowled over by the onrush of British seamen, the party swarmed through into the kasbah, the gate was shut, and they came face to face with the head-man.

"What have you-got to-_say_ for yourself?"

The Moor had naturally nothing to say for himself. He saw himself confronted by an elderly whiskered foreigner, in a yachting cap and blue serge suit, brandishing a formidable stick. Mr. Greatorex was in a pa.s.sion. The exertions of the march, the pains of being hauled up a wall, not without b.u.mps, the scamper at the rear of his men into the Moor's kasbah, had deprived him equally of breath and of self-control.

Determined not to be left ignominiously out of the hurly-burly, he forced himself to the front, and thrust his stick under the very nose of the Moor-who stood a foot above him-calling him to account in the spluttering sentence recorded above.

For a few moments there was a deadlock, and Tom felt the need of an interpreter. Eventually he persuaded Mr. Greatorex to give way, and managed to make the Moor understand that if he valued his life he must at once bring out the Firangi whom he had recently introduced to his house. Finding himself shut off by the gate of his own kasbah from the support of his men, the Moor recognized that he had no choice but to comply, and at a command from him one of his servants brought Sir Mark Ingleton and Oliphant from the upper floor into the patio, looking none the worse for their brief incarceration.

"_Delighted_ to see you," said Mr. Greatorex, stepping forward and wringing the diplomatist's hand; Oliphant he studiously ignored.

"Mr. Greatorex, I presume," returned Sir Mark. "I hope to make your better acquaintance, sir. Meanwhile, if I may be allowed--"

His quick eye had taken in the situation at a glance.

"Peace be with thee!" he said in Arabic, turning with a bland smile to the scowling Moor, "You perceive, O Salaam, that my friends also, being alarmed at my absence, have availed themselves of your generous hospitality. They are distressed at the unceremonious manner of their entry, but you will a.s.suredly deign to pardon it, for have you not professed yourself my devoted servant? You will be the first to forgive an intrusion due solely to the too great zeal of my friends."

The Moor, chagrined and bewildered, had no option but to acquiesce in this polite fiction, though it is to be feared his reply lacked something of the diplomatist's ease and suavity.

"But we are a large company," Sir Mark went on, "and should be loth to trespa.s.s on your hospitality. You will be relieved, I am sure, if we betake ourselves to the vessel that awaits us off your coast. You will, of course, honour us by giving us your company so far. Indeed, if you will do us the favour to accompany us on board our vessel, we shall endeavour to return in some slight measure the gracious hospitality that has been vouchsafed to myself and-my son. If you add to your favours by a.s.sisting us in the march-by showing us the easiest road and defending us from the perils that may beset us, such as are known to you, O Salaam-you may be a.s.sured that we shall show our grat.i.tude in very tangible form. There are, as you know, even in Morocco, evil counsellors, men of violence, some who would even dare to lift their hands against the Sultan himself. If there be any such in this village, which truly I am loth to believe, I advise you, as brother advises brother, to exhort them to mildness of demeanour. These friends of mine who now enjoy your hospitality are men of war; they have arms, you perceive, in the use of which they are well skilled; and since, in our progress to the sh.o.r.e, you will of course occupy the place of honour at my right hand, in all likelihood you would suffer hurt if there are among your followers any men of Belial whose hearts incline towards bloodshed; that would be a great grief to us. And now, O Salaam, as the night draws towards dawn, it will be well if you perform your morning ablutions and devotions and prepare to lead us forth. Bismillah!"

Sir Mark, as he laughingly informed Mr. Greatorex afterwards, had purposely made his address somewhat lengthy, so as to give Salaam plenty of time to regain his self-possession and to weigh the pros and cons.

The upshot was that, shortly after dawn, the whole party, with Salaam son of Absalaam in their midst, set off towards the coast, the airship being carried on the shoulders of a troop of the villagers who had been promised liberal bakshish in return for their services.

On arriving at the sh.o.r.e, Captain Bodgers signalled to his men on the yacht to send a boat, and with it a fresh supply of fuel for the airship, which had been deposited just above high-water mark. While this was being done, Mr. Greatorex emptied his pockets of small coin, to redeem the promise to the carriers, and Sir Mark kept up an even flow of amicable talk, apparently quite oblivious of the throng of Arabs who had observed the proceedings from their encampment on the cliff, and by and by came down to the sh.o.r.e and stood around, listening with looks of amazement to this fluent Nazarene who discoursed so pleasantly of things intimate to them.

The men soon arrived with a large tin of the fuel-paste. It was placed in the car; Tom made an inspection of the machinery to a.s.sure himself that it had suffered no hurt while in the charge of Salaam; then Oliphant joined him. A few moments later, with a mighty whirring sound, the airship rose gallantly into the air, to the great wonderment of the Moors. While they were intently watching the manuvres of the airship, filling the air with their cries of "Mashallah!" Sir Mark and the rest of the party embarked and pulled out into the bay, two of the men sitting in the stern of the boat with their faces to the sh.o.r.e and their rifles held conspicuously ready. Salaam indulged in a burst of fury at the manner in which he had been outwitted. His followers gathered around him and held excited consultation, some being apparently inclined to fire on the departing boat, others to pursue the airship. But they had made up their minds to neither course by the time the party reached the yacht; and when Captain Bodgers trained on them the two bra.s.s guns she carried, they hurriedly broke up and disappeared over the cliffs.

"You were just in time, Mr. Greatorex," said Sir Mark Ingleton as they sat together in the boat. "A messenger came in from the sheikh yesterday afternoon, and I shrewdly suspect that arrangements had been made to transfer us to our old quarters in the kasbah. I say 'our old quarters,'

forgetting that Mr. Oliphant--"

"Oliphant!" interrupted Mr. Greatorex. "_There_ now! What do you think of _this_, Sir Mark?"

And he proceeded to delight his guest with a vigorous indictment of M'Cracken, and Byles, and Byles' sick mother, and Lord Langside for having sent an English gentleman on a mission to such an abominable country, and for having such an outrageously impudent son.

CHAPTER XIV-THE TROGLODYTES

Meanwhile, how had things been faring with Herr Hildebrand Schwab, the unlucky representative of the Schlagintwert Company of Dusseldorf and the partner of Sir Mark's captivity?

When Abdul pointed out the cave in which it was advisable that they should take shelter, and the means of access to it, Schwab groaned deeply, and declared that nothing on earth should induce a German subject of his weight to attempt so perilous a climb. But on reflection he came to look upon it as the lesser of two evils, and with much travailing of spirit and discomfiture of body he allowed himself to be a.s.sisted up the incline so long as progress on foot was possible, and then to be hoisted at the end of the rope. Abdul's strength alone would not have sufficed to haul so great a ma.s.s into safety; but Salathiel ben Ezra, who was by this time thoroughly weary of solitude, and had come to the end of his stock of provisions, lent willing help, with a view, as it proved, of turning the situation to account.

He used every means of persuasion and cajolery which his ingenuity could devise to persuade Abdul to release him. One of his propositions was that they should convey the German to the sheikh of Ain Afroo and claim a sufficient reward. Abdul ridiculed the idea. Both he and the Jew would get short shrift from the sheikh now that the more valuable of his captives was s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp. Salathiel then proposed that they should try to gain the nearest town where they might find Europeans, and tell a moving story of the sufferings and perils they had endured in rescuing the German from the hands of his captors. But to this, as to his other suggestions, Abdul turned a deaf ear.

They were a strangely a.s.sorted trio. Schwab only half trusted the Moor; the Moor despised Schwab; both disliked the Jew. It was not long before Schwab declared that he was hungry, and ill.u.s.trated the privations he had already suffered by exhibiting the unwonted gap between his waistcoat and his person: "And I have ze straps of my vaistcoat drawn _so_ tight!" he added. Salathiel's scanty stock of provisions having been exhausted, Abdul descended to forage, and returned with a supply of dates and olives, and the tin filled with water at the spring.

"Ach! My pipe! It is in ze room vere first I vas laid up. Mein Gott! And ze list of Schlagintwert; ze last edition, revise and enlarge. Ze Moors zey vill now order vizout me, and I lose colossal sum in commission!"

All this was Greek to Abdul, but a little more comprehensible to the Jew, with whom, however, Schwab refused to discuss business. He preferred to ply Abdul diligently with questions about the airship: where it came from; how it was driven; what was the composition of the fuel.

"Already is it partly known to me," he said. "It contain large quant.i.ty Photographic Sensitizer Preparation Number Six. But zat is not all. I know it! Vy? Because my Jarman intellex tell me so. But vizout doubt I discover it; zen zere shall be business for Schlagintwert. You do not know vat ze ozer zink is?"

Abdul shook his head.

"Zen you vas never made for business. Vun cannot learn it; it is born.

So vas I born!"

He discoursed on business and other things, despising his audience for their want of appreciation; then fell to bemoaning his fate. Thus the hours pa.s.sed away.

At last the monotony of the situation was broken. Abdul, like a good Mohammedan, was engaged in his devotions when the Jew, at the mouth of the cave, caught sight of a party of Moors far below, and signalled to them before he could be prevented. Springing up, Abdul was on the point of killing him with his knife when Schwab hastily interposed.