In the Mahdi's Grasp Part 6

"Yes, I thought it well over, and dearly as I long to go and help poor Hal, I am obliged to confess that it would be impossible."

"Hear, hear," said the professor; "just as impossible as for Frank to insist upon going with me to stick his head into the lion's mouth, get it bitten off, and spoil my plans as well. Once more, it is impossible for either of you two to go; so be sensible and help me to get off, and trust me like a brother to help and save our brother in distress."

"I will," said the doctor firmly. "Now, Frank."

"I won't," cried the youth.

"I ask you as a brother," said the doctor.

"Yes, as a little brother--as a boy whom you look upon as wanting in manliness to help at a time like this. Both of you cry _impossible_.

I'm much younger than either of you, but surely I've got some brains.

Always up to now, and it was the same when poor old Hal was with us, you three treated me as if I was your equal, and it made me feel older. But now, when there is quite a crisis in my life, and I want to prove to you that young as I am I can be manly and help to save our poor Hal from the clutches of these savage Arab fiends with their cruelty and slavery, you combine to fight against me, and it is impossible--impossible."

"Humph!" grunted the professor, shaking his head at the doctor, who shook his in turn.

"You talk too much, Frank, lad," said the latter, in an injured tone.

"Do be cool, and think a little. I'm sure you would see then that you are wrong. What we want in this is calm matter-of-fact planning."

"No, we don't," said Frank impatiently; "we want a good plan, of course, but we want plenty of pluck and good manly dash. Impossible, you both say, because each of you has his own pet plan, one of you for Government interference, the other for going alone in disguise, and consequently you combine against me for one of you to carry out his."

"Well, and if you cannot propose a better ought you not to give way to us?"

"No," said Frank, "because it would be horrible to settle down here at home, thinking of that poor fellow's sufferings. How do you think I could ever get on with any study? I should go out of my mind."

"But look here, Frank," said the doctor.

"I can't look there," said Frank. "I can't reason with you two. I want to act; I want to be up and doing, so as to feel that every day I am a little nearer getting poor Harry free."

"That's quite reasonable, Bob," said the professor, slowly and thoughtfully. "But I say, Franky, my boy, I don't want to be obstinate; I don't want to hinder you if you can suggest a better plan. We only say that so far your ideas are impossible. Come, now have you any other plan?"

"Yes," said the lad excitedly. "Brother Hal is sitting out there in chains, looking longingly year after year for the help that does not come, and eating his poor heart out with despair because those to whom he should look for help do not come."

"That's all true enough," said the doctor sadly.

"But the question is," said the professor, holding out one hand and apparently putting down every word he said with the other: "How--are-- we--to--help--the--poor--boy?"

"Let's all three go," said Frank hotly.

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the doctor.

"That's more and more impossible still," cried the professor.

"No, it isn't," cried Frank. "I have a plan in my head now that would answer if it were properly done. I haven't been out in Egypt like Landon here, but ever since poor Hal got his appointment I've read up the country till I'm regularly soaked with it."

"Can't be," said the professor, smiling grimly. "Moisture's too scarce when you're away from the Nile. You may be gritty with it."

"Never mind about that," said Frank. "I know one or two things about the people, and I know this--there is one man who is always welcome among them and their sufferers from fever and eye complaints and injured, and that is the doctor--the surgeon."

"Eh?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the professor sharply, looking up. "Yes, that's true enough, boy."

"Well," said Frank, pointing, "there he is--the Hakim--the learned physician and curer of all ills. Look at him now in that dressing-gown, with his big, long beard, and that handsome, calm appearance. Doesn't he look as if he could cure anything? Just suppose him sitting cross-legged in a tent now, with a big white turban on; what would he look like then?"

"An impostor!" cried the doctor angrily. "Frank, the good news has swollen your head up till it has cracked."

"That it hasn't," cried the professor sharply, "and you would not look like an impostor, sir. Well done, Franky. I say he'd look like what he is--a splendid specimen of a man, and as good a doctor and surgeon as I know of. Impostor, indeed! I should be ready to punch the head of any scoundrel who dared to say so. Bravo, my boy! The great Frankish physician--the learned Hakim travelling through the country to perform his cures."

"Yes," cried Frank; "and performing them too."

"To be sure," said the professor, growing excited. "The news of his cures would spread through the land, and the people would welcome him, and he could go anywhere. Here, I say, Bob, this plant's coming up."

"You're as bad as Frank," said the doctor angrily. "You both take my breath away. What! me go masquerading through the Soudan, dressed up as a mock doctor?"

"Mock doctor be hanged!" cried the professor; "where's the mockery? The people out there suffer by scores and thousands from eye complaints and other evils, and as to the number you meet with who have been chopped and speared and shot--why, the place teems with them. Couldn't you do them good?"

"Well, of course I could," said the doctor thoughtfully. "I should say that with antiseptic treatment one's cures would seem almost marvellous to the poor wretches."

"Of course they would. I doctored scores myself when I was out there,"

said the professor. "Now, look here; I mean to go out there, of course, and I shall take you with me, Bob."

"What!"

"No whatting. You've got to go; that's settled. You're the great Frankish Hakim, and I'm your interpreter. You can't speak a word of Arabic. There's no imposture in that, is there?"

"Oh, no; I can't speak a word of Arabic, but as to the doctoring--"

"Look here, Bob; you'd be doing these people good, wouldn't you?"

"Of course."

"Well, then, there's no imposture there. We'll go right up to Khartoum, together with our servants, and get the poor boy away. That's settled, so you had better lay in your stock of ointment-pots, bottles, plaisters, and pills."

"Well, I'm beginning to think I'm dreaming," said the doctor.

"But you are not," said the professor, and he turned to Frank, who was excitedly listening to all that was said. "Now then, my boy," he said, "we've settled that; but I can't see that by any possibility you could come with us."

"I can," said the lad eagerly. "You talked about having servants with you."

"Yes, blacks," said the professor. "It would not do to take white ones."

"Very well, then, I'll go as a black."

The doctor and the professor turned upon the speaker sharply, and fixed him with their eyes, as if doubtful about the state of his mind, gazing at him in silence, till he laughed merrily.

"I have not lost a slate or tile," he said. "I am quite what Morris calls _compos mentis_."

"No," said the doctor sharply; "I'll be hanged if you can be, Frank, my lad."

"And so say I," chimed in the professor. "How in the world can you go as a black?"