In the Mahdi's Grasp Part 5

"No, no; don't do that," cried the doctor, smiling. "Sam would be disgusted."

"Oh, I can't stop to think about Sam's feelings now," cried Frank hurriedly.

"But you must keep cool. Look here, Frank, you are eighteen, and pretty well a man grown."

"What has that to do with it?" said the lad impatiently.

"Only this," said the doctor gravely; "we want manly action now, and you are as impatient as a boy of twelve."

At that moment the professor entered the room, hooked stick in hand, and with his hat on, closely followed by the doctor's man, who stood with one hand held out and a puzzled look on his face, staring at the visitor, whose dress looked shabby and aspect wild, the want of what fas.h.i.+onable young men term "well grooming"--to wit, shaving, hair-cutting, and shampooing--making him appear ten years older than his real age.

"Good morning, dear boys," he said, shaking hands warmly, and without taking off his hat. "Well, what is it?"

He turned sharply upon Sam as he spoke.

"Your hat, sir," said the man hesitatingly.

"Well, what about it? It's mine, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir; of course, sir. I thought you'd like me to take it and hang it up."

"Then you thought wrong," said the professor, and he so thoroughly stared Sam out of countenance, that the man shrank from the fierce frown and backed out of the room.

"Just as if a man can't do as he likes with his own hat," said the professor, with his face relaxing, as he crossed to one of the easy chairs, wheeled it forward, sat down, and then slipped off his hat, thrust his hand inside, whisked something out, and placed hat and stick under the table, before, with a good deal of flourish, he drew a very dingy-looking old scarlet fez over his starting black hair, with the big blue silk ta.s.sels hanging down behind, and settled himself comfortably by drawing up first one and then the other leg across and beneath him, _a la turque_.

"There," he said, with a pleasant smile. "This chair isn't so comfortable as the sand of the desert, but I must make it do. Now I'm ready for business. What's the first thing to be done?"

"To make arrangements for your start at once," said Frank sharply. "You will sail for Egypt, and make your preparations for going up the country, and I shall go with you."

"Oh, you've settled that, have you?" said the professor, turning upon the speaker, and pulling the fez a little more tightly on, for his stiff hair had a disposition to thrust it off. "You two have been busy then, eh, Bob?"

"Certainly not," said the doctor; "not a word has been said of this before."

"That's right," said the professor. "Are you aware of what it will cost, Frank?"

"No. A good deal, no doubt; but I have all that money to come when I am of age, and there is Harry's. There ought to be no difficulty about the executors advancing what is required."

"Bob and your humble servant being the said executors," said the professor. "Of course not; but I did not mean money, Frank, I meant life. It would cost yours."

"Well, I am ready to spend it," said the youth warmly, "so long as I can save my brother's."

"Hah!" sighed the doctor.

"That's very nicely spoken, Frank," said the professor, leaning forward to pat the young fellow on the arm, "but it's all sentiment."

"Sentiment?"

"Yes, and we want hard, matter-of-fact stuff. Now look at me."

"Well, I am looking at you," said Frank, half angrily.

"What do I look like?"

"Do you want the truth?"

"Of course, my boy."

"Well, you look like a Turk hard up in London, who has bought a second-hand suit of English clothes that don't fit him."

The doctor threw himself back and roared with laughter, while the professor joined silently in the mirth and then sat wiping his eyes, not in the least offended.

"Well done, Frank!" he said. "You've hit the bull's-eye, boy. That's exactly how I do look; and if I went to Cairo and put on a haik and burnoose, and a few rolls of muslin round this fez, speaking Arabic as I do, and a couple of the Soudan dialects, I could go anywhere with a camel unquestioned. While as for you, my dear boy, you couldn't go a mile. You'd be a Christian dog that every man would consider it his duty to kill."

"I must risk that," said Frank stubbornly.

"Must you?" said the professor. "What do you say, Bob?"

"I say it would be madness," replied the doctor emphatically.

"Stick--stark--staring madness," said the professor. "I, who have been out there for years, and who can be quite at home with the people, should have hard work to get through by the skin of my teeth."

"And you would not get through, Frank," said the doctor decisively.

"This business must be carried out wisely and well."

"What would you do, then," said Frank impatiently.

"Make application to the Foreign Office at once. Diplomacy must be set to work, and failing that, force."

"Oh!" cried Frank, in a despairing tone; "why, it would take years to get that slow machine to work, and all that time wasted in correspondence and question and answer, while poor Hal is slaving away yonder in chains! Oh, Morris, what are you thinking about?"

"Acting in the slower and surer way," replied the doctor firmly. "This can only be done with coolness. We know that Hal is a prisoner out yonder, and we must apply to Government to get him free."

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the professor.

"Hah!" cried Frank. "You don't agree with this, Landon?"

"Of course not. Bob Morris is as clever a chap as any in London at cutting people to pieces and putting 'em together again; but over Egyptian matters he'd be like a baby. Mine is the plan."

"To get your head cut off," growled the doctor.

"Well, if I did," retorted the professor, "that would beat you. Clever as you are, old chap, you couldn't get that to grow again. Look here, Frank, you side with me. I'll go at once."

"And take me with you?"

"No, my boy, I--will--not," said the professor decisively. "Be sensible, and take what is really the best way. I am not bragging when I say that I am one of the most likely men living to carry this business through."

"Oh, we know that you are not bragging," said the doctor. "You mean right; so does Frank. And now let me say this. The first thing last night that I thought, was that you, Fred, must go, and that I would go with you."

"Impossible," said the professor shortly.