Yussuf the Guide Part 30

Mr Preston looked down the valley in the direction by which they had come that morning.

Mr Burne took out his box, partook of a large pinch of snuff, and blew his nose violently.

Lawrence walked to the spring, stooped down, and began drinking, dipping up a little water at a time in the hollow of his hand.

Then there was a few moments' silence, and the professor spoke.

"It is very vexatious, just when we were so hungry, but it is plain enough. Something has startled the horses. Your Ali Baba, Lawrence, has been biting them, and they have all gone off back, and Hamed has followed to catch them. There, let's have a draught of spring water and trudge back."

"Humph! yes," said Mr Burne hopefully. "We may meet them coming back before long."

They each drank and rose refreshed.

"Come, Yussuf," said the professor. "This way."

"No, effendi," he exclaimed sharply; "not that way, but this."

"What do you mean?" cried Mr Preston, for the guide pointed up the ravine instead of down.

"The horses have not been frightened, but have been stolen--carried off."

"Nonsense, man!" cried Mr Burne.

"See!" said Yussuf, pointing to the soil moistened by the stream that ran from the source, "the horses have gone along this little valley by the side of the stream--here are their hoof-marks--and come out again higher up beyond this ridge of the mountain. Yes: I know. The valleys join again there beyond where we were to-day, and I ought to have known it," he cried, stamping his foot.

"Known? Known what, man?" cried Mr Burne angrily.

"That those men, who I said were travellers, were the robbers, who have seized our horses, and carried everything off into the hills."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A SKIRMISH.

"This is a pretty state of affairs," cried Mr Burne, opening and shutting his snuff-box to make it snap. "Now, what's to be done?"

"Tramp to the nearest village, I suppose, and buy more," replied the professor coolly, "We must expect reverses. This is one."

"Hang your reverses, man! I don't expect and I will not have them, if I can help it--serves us right for not watching over our baggage."

"Well, Yussuf, I suppose you are right," said the professor.

"Yes, effendi. What is to be done?"

"What I say."

"Yes; what you say," replied the Turk frowning; "and he is so young. We are only three."

"What are you thinking, Yussuf?"

"That it makes my blood boil, effendi, to be robbed; and I feel that we ought to follow and punish the dogs. They are cowards, and would fly.

A robber always shrinks from the man who faces him boldly."

"And you would follow them, Yussuf?"

"If your excellency would," he said eagerly.

The grave quiet professor's face flushed, his eyes brightened, and for a few moments he felt as if his youthful days had come back, when he was one of the leaders in his college in athletics, and had more than once been in a town-and-gown row. All this before he had settled down into the heavy serious absent-minded student. There was now a curious tingling in his nerves, and he felt ready to agree to anything that would result in the punishment of the cowardly thieves who had left them in such a predicament; but just then his eyes fell upon Lawrence's slight delicate figure, and from that they ranged to the face of Mr Burne, and he was the grave professor again.

"Why, Preston," said the old lawyer, "you looked as if you meant fighting."

"But I do not," he replied. "Discretion is the better part of valour, they say." Then, turning to Yussuf--"What is the nearest place to where we are now?"

Yussuf's face changed. There was a look of disappointment in it for a few moments, but he turned grave and calm as usual, as he said:

"There is a village right up the valley, excellency. It is partly in the way taken by the robbers, but they will be far distant by now. They are riding and we are afoot."

"But is it far?"

"Half the distance that it would be were we to return to the place we left this morning."

"Forward, then. Come, Lawrence, you must walk as far as you can, and then I will stay with you, and we will send the others forward for help."

"I do not feel so tired now," said the lad. "I am ready."

Yussuf took the lead again and they set off, walking steadily on straight past the cliff-dwellings, and the ruins by the cave, till they reached the spot in the beautifully-wooded vale where, from far above, they had seen the hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.s, little thinking at the time that they were bearing off their strong helps to a journey through the mountains, and all the food.

Here the beaten track curved off to the left, and the traces left by the horses were plain enough to see, for there was a little patch of marshy ground made by a little spring here, and this they had pa.s.sed, Yussuf eagerly scanning them, and making out that somewhere about twelve horses had crossed here, and there were also the footprints of five or six men.

"If we go this way we may overtake the scoundrels," said the old lawyer, "but it will not do. Yussuf, I am a man of peace, and I should prove to be a very poor creature in another fight. I had quite enough to last me the rest of my life on board that boat. Here, let's rest a few hours."

"No, excellency; we must go on, even if it is slowly. This part of the valley is marshy, and there are fevers caught here. I have been along here twice, and there is a narrow track over that shoulder of the mountain that we can easily follow afoot, though we could not take horses. It is far shorter, too. Can the young effendi walk so far?"

Lawrence declared that he could, for the mountain air gave him strength.

So they left the beaten track, to continue along a narrow water-course for a couple of miles, and then rapidly ascend the side of one of the vast ma.s.ses of cliff, the path being literally a shelf in places not more than a foot wide, with the mountain on their left rising up like a wall, and on their right the rock sank right down to the stream, which gurgled among the ma.s.ses of stone which had fallen from above, a couple of hundred feet below them and quite out of sight.

"'Pon my word, Yussuf, this is a pretty sort of a place!" panted Mr Burne. "Hang it, man! It is dangerous."

"There is no danger, effendi, if you do not think of danger."

"But I do think of danger, sir. Why, bless my heart, sir, there isn't room for a man to turn round and comfortably blow his nose."

"There is plenty of room for the feet, effendi," replied Yussuf; "the path is level, and if you will think of the beautiful rocks, and hills, and listen to the birds singing below there, where the stream is foaming, and the bushes grow amongst the rocks, there is no danger."

"But I can't think about the beauty of all these things, Yussuf, my man, and I can only think I am going to turn giddy, and that my feet are about to slip."

"Why should you, effendi?" replied the Turk gravely. "Is it not given to man to be calm and confident, and to walk bravely on, in such places as this? He can train himself to go through what is dangerous to the timid without risk. Look at the young effendi!" he added in a whisper; "he sees no danger upon the path."