Chapter Twenty Nine.A Game at Marbles.It was a false alarm. The people who had collected about them were not brigands, and they only carried working tools, not weapons for attack.“Means what, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.“They have come to see how you dig out the buried treasure, effendi,” said the guide with a suspicion of a smile.“Treasure! what treasure?” cried the professor.“It is of no use to argue with them, your excellency; they of course know that, in place of there being only little villages here in the far back days, there were great cities, like Istamboul and Smyrna and Trieste, all over the country.”“Quite true; there were.”“And that these cities were occupied by great wealthy nations, whose houses and palaces and temples were destroyed by enemies, and they believe that all their golden ornaments and money lie buried beneath these stones.”“What nonsense!” cried Mr Burne impatiently. “If you dug down here you would find bones, not gold. It is an old cemetery, a place of tombs—eh, Preston?”“Quite right,” said the professor. “Tell them that we are only looking for old pieces of sculpture and inscriptions.”“I will tell them, effendi,” said Yussuf smiling; and he turned to the people who were gathered round, and repeated the professor’s words in their own tongue.The result was a derisive laugh, and one of the men, a great swarthy fellow, spoke at some length.“What does he say, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.“He asks the excellency if we think they are fools and children—”“Yes, decidedly so,” replied Mr Burne; “but hold hard, Yussuf; don’t tell them so.”“If it is likely they will believe that the Franks—”“No, no, not Franks, Yussuf,” said the professor laughing; “he said ‘giaours.’”“True, effendi; he did—If they will believe that the giaours would come from a far country, and travel here merely to read a few old writings upon some stones, and examine the idols that the old people carved.”“Well, I don’t wonder at it,” said Mr Burne with a sigh as he tickled his nose with a fresh pinch. “It does seem very silly. Tell them it is not they, but we: we are the fools.”“Don’t tell them anything of the kind, Yussuf,” said the professor. “It is not foolish to search for wisdom. Tell them the truth. We are not seeking for treasures, but to try and find something about the history of the people who built these cities.”Yussuf turned to the country people again and delivered himself of his message, after which several of the people spoke, and there was another laugh.“Well, what do they say now?”“They ask why you want to know all this, effendi,” replied Yussuf. “It is of no use to argue with these people. They have no knowledge themselves, and they cannot understand how Frankish gentlemen can find pleasure therein. I have travelled greatly with Englishmen, and it is so everywhere. I was with an effendi down in Egypt, where he had the sand dug away from the mouth of a buried temple, and the sheik and his people who wandered near, came and drove us away, saying that the English effendi sought for silver and gold. It was the same among the hills of Birs Nimroud, where they dig out the winged lions and flying bulls with the heads of men, and the stones are covered with writing. When we went to Petra, four English effendis and your servant, we were watched by the emir and his men; and it was so in Cyprus, when the effendi I was with—an American excellency—set men to work to dig out the carved stones and idols from a temple there—not beautiful, white marble stones, but coarse and yellow and crumbling. It is always a fight here in these lands against seeking for knowledge, effendi. It is a thing they cannot understand.”“What shall we do, then?”“What they do, effendi, half their time—nothing.”“But they will be a nuisance,” cried the professor.“Yes, effendi,” said the guide, with a shrug of the shoulders. “So are the flies, but we cannot drive them away. We must be content to go on just as if they were not here.”The professor saw the sense of the argument, and for the next four hours the party were busy on that hill-slope climbing amongst the stones of the ancient city—one which must have been an important place in its day, for everywhere lay the broken fragments of noble buildings which had been ornamented with colonnades and cornices of elaborate workmanship. Halls, temples, palaces, had occupied positions that must have made the city seem magnificent, as it rose up building upon building against the steep slope, with the little river gurgling swiftly at the foot.There were the remains, too, of an aqueduct, showing a few broken arches here and there, and plainly teaching that the water to supply the place had been mainly brought from some cold spring high up in the mountains.And all the time, go where they would, the travellers were followed by the little crowd which gaped and stared, and of which some member or another kept drawing Yussuf aside, and offering him a handsome present if he would confess the secret that he must have learned—how the Frankish infidels knew where treasure lay hid.They seemed disappointed that the professor contented himself by merely making drawings and copying fragments of inscriptions; but at last they all uttered a grunt of satisfaction, rubbed their hands, gathered closely round, and seated themselves upon the earth or upon stones.For the professor had stopped short at the end of what, as far as could be traced, seemed to be one end of a small temple whose columns and walls lay scattered as they had fallen.Here he deliberately took a small bright trowel from a sheath in his belt, where he carried it as if it had been a dagger, and, stooping down, began to dig.That was what they were waiting for. He had come at last upon the treasure spot, and though the trowel seemed to be a ridiculously small tool to work with, they felt perfectly satisfied that it was one of the wonderful engines invented by the giaours, and that it would soon clear away the stones and soil with which the treasure was covered.“What are you doing?” said the old lawyer, as Lawrence helped the professor by dragging out pieces of stone. “Going to find anything there?”“I cannot say,” replied the professor, who was digging away energetically, and dislodging ants, a centipede or two, and a great many other insects. “This is evidently where the altar must have stood, and most likely we shall find here either a bronze figure of the deity in whose honour the temple was erected, or its fragments in marble.”“Humph! I see,” cried the old lawyer, growing interested; “but I beg to remark that the evening is drawing near, and I don’t think it will be prudent to make a journey here in the dark.”“No,” said the professor; “it would be a pity. Mind, Lawrence, my lad; what have you there?”“Piece of stone,” said the lad, dragging out a rounded fragment.“Piece of stone! Yes, boy, but it is a portion of a broken statue—the folds of a robe.”“Humph!” muttered the old lawyer. “Might be anything. Not going to carry it away I suppose?”“That depends,” said the professor labouring away.“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Burne.“How is it that such a grand city as this should have been so completely destroyed, Mr Preston?” asked Lawrence.“It is impossible to say. It may have been by the ravages of fire. More likely by war. The nation here may have been very powerful, and a more powerful nation attacked them, and, perhaps after a long siege, the soldiery utterly destroyed it, while the ravages of a couple of thousand years, perhaps of three thousand, gave the finishing touches to the destruction, and—ah, here is another piece of the same statue.”He dragged out with great difficulty another fragment of marble which had plainly enough been carved to represent drapery, and he was scraping carefully from it some adhering fragments of earth, when Mr Burne suddenly leaped up from the block of stone upon which he had been perched, and began to shake his trousers and slap and bang his legs for a time, and then limped up and down rubbing his calf, and muttering angrily.“Whatisthe matter, Mr Burne?” cried Lawrence.“Matter, sir! I’ve been bitten by one of those horrible vipers. The brute must have crawled up my leg and—I say, Yussuf, am I a dead man?”“Certainly not, your excellency,” replied the guide gravely.“You are laughing at me, sir. You know what I mean. I am bitten by one of those horrible vipers, am I not?”The professor had leaped out of the little hole he had laboriously dug, and run to his companion’s side in an agony of fear.“Your excellency has been bitten by one of these,” said the guide quietly, and he pointed to some large ants which were running all over the stones.“Are—are you sure?” cried Mr Burne.“Sure, excellency? If it had been a viper you would have felt dangerous symptoms.”“Why, confound it, sir,” cried Mr Burne, rubbing his leg which he had laid bare, “that’s exactly what I do feel—dangerous symptoms.”“What? What do you feel?” cried the professor excitedly.“As if someone had bored a hole in my leg, and were squirting melted lead into all my veins—right up my leg, sir. It’s maddening! It’s horrible! It’s worse than—worse than—there, I was going to say gout, Lawrence, but I’ll say it’s worse than being caned. Now, Yussuf, what do you say to that, sir, eh?”“Ants, your excellency. They bite very sharply, and leave quite a poison in the wound.”“Quite a poison, sir!—poison’s nothing to it! Here, I say, what am I to do?”“If your excellency will allow me,” said Yussuf, “I will prick the bite with the point of my knife, and then rub in a little brandy.”“Yes, do, for goodness’ sake, man, before I go mad.”“Use this,” said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from his pocket.“What is it—more poison?” cried Mr Burne.“Ammonia,” said the professor quietly.“Humph!” ejaculated the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect’s nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper’s home.Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer’s great disgust, as he prepared himself for the operation.“Hang the scoundrels!” he cried; “anyone would think they had never seen an old man’s white leg before.”“I don’t suppose they ever have, Mr Burne,” said Lawrence.“Why, you are laughing at me, you dog! Hang it all, sir, it’s too bad. Never mind, it will be your turn next; and look here, Lawrence,” he cried with a malignant grin, “this is a real bite, not a sham one. I’m not pretending that I have been bitten by a snake.”“Why, Mr Burne—”“Well, I thought it was, but it is a real bite. Here, you, Yussuf, hold hard—what a deadly-looking implement!” he cried, as their guide bared his long keen knife. “Look here, sir, I know I’m a dog—a giaour, and that you are one of the faithful, and that it is a good deed on your part to injure me as an enemy, but, mind this, if you stick that knife thing into my leg too far, I’ll—I’ll—confound you, sir!—I’ll bring an action against you, and ruin you, as sure as my name’s Burne.”“Have no fear, effendi,” said Yussuf gravely, going down on one knee, while the people crowded round.“Cut gently, my dear fellow,” said Mr Burne; “it isn’t kabobs or tough chicken, it’s human leg. Hang it all! You great stupids, what are you staring at? Give a man room to breathe—wough! Oh, I say, Yussuf, that was a dig.”“Just enough to make it bleed, effendi. There, that will take out some of the poison, and now I’ll touch the place with some of this spirit.”“Wough!” ejaculated Mr Burne again, as the wound was touched with the stopper of the bottle. “I say, that’s sharp. Humph! it does not hurt quite so much now, only smarts. Thank ye, Yussuf. Why, you are quite a surgeon. Here, what are those fellows chattering about?”“They say the Franks are a wonderful people to carry cures about in little bottles like that.”“Humph! I wish they’d kill their snakes and insects, and not waste their time staring,” said the old gentleman, drawing up his stocking, after letting the ammonia dry in the sun. “Yes; I’m better now,” he added, drawing down his trouser leg. “Much obliged, Yussuf. Don’t you take any notice of what I say when I’m cross.”“I never do, excellency,” said Yussuf smiling gravely.“Oh, you don’t—don’t you?”“No, effendi, because I know that you are a thorough gentleman at heart.”“Humph!” said Mr Burne, as he limped to where the professor had resumed his digging. “Do you know, Lawrence, I begin to think sometimes that our calm, handsome grave Turkish friend there, is the better gentleman of the two.”
It was a false alarm. The people who had collected about them were not brigands, and they only carried working tools, not weapons for attack.
“Means what, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.
“They have come to see how you dig out the buried treasure, effendi,” said the guide with a suspicion of a smile.
“Treasure! what treasure?” cried the professor.
“It is of no use to argue with them, your excellency; they of course know that, in place of there being only little villages here in the far back days, there were great cities, like Istamboul and Smyrna and Trieste, all over the country.”
“Quite true; there were.”
“And that these cities were occupied by great wealthy nations, whose houses and palaces and temples were destroyed by enemies, and they believe that all their golden ornaments and money lie buried beneath these stones.”
“What nonsense!” cried Mr Burne impatiently. “If you dug down here you would find bones, not gold. It is an old cemetery, a place of tombs—eh, Preston?”
“Quite right,” said the professor. “Tell them that we are only looking for old pieces of sculpture and inscriptions.”
“I will tell them, effendi,” said Yussuf smiling; and he turned to the people who were gathered round, and repeated the professor’s words in their own tongue.
The result was a derisive laugh, and one of the men, a great swarthy fellow, spoke at some length.
“What does he say, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.
“He asks the excellency if we think they are fools and children—”
“Yes, decidedly so,” replied Mr Burne; “but hold hard, Yussuf; don’t tell them so.”
“If it is likely they will believe that the Franks—”
“No, no, not Franks, Yussuf,” said the professor laughing; “he said ‘giaours.’”
“True, effendi; he did—If they will believe that the giaours would come from a far country, and travel here merely to read a few old writings upon some stones, and examine the idols that the old people carved.”
“Well, I don’t wonder at it,” said Mr Burne with a sigh as he tickled his nose with a fresh pinch. “It does seem very silly. Tell them it is not they, but we: we are the fools.”
“Don’t tell them anything of the kind, Yussuf,” said the professor. “It is not foolish to search for wisdom. Tell them the truth. We are not seeking for treasures, but to try and find something about the history of the people who built these cities.”
Yussuf turned to the country people again and delivered himself of his message, after which several of the people spoke, and there was another laugh.
“Well, what do they say now?”
“They ask why you want to know all this, effendi,” replied Yussuf. “It is of no use to argue with these people. They have no knowledge themselves, and they cannot understand how Frankish gentlemen can find pleasure therein. I have travelled greatly with Englishmen, and it is so everywhere. I was with an effendi down in Egypt, where he had the sand dug away from the mouth of a buried temple, and the sheik and his people who wandered near, came and drove us away, saying that the English effendi sought for silver and gold. It was the same among the hills of Birs Nimroud, where they dig out the winged lions and flying bulls with the heads of men, and the stones are covered with writing. When we went to Petra, four English effendis and your servant, we were watched by the emir and his men; and it was so in Cyprus, when the effendi I was with—an American excellency—set men to work to dig out the carved stones and idols from a temple there—not beautiful, white marble stones, but coarse and yellow and crumbling. It is always a fight here in these lands against seeking for knowledge, effendi. It is a thing they cannot understand.”
“What shall we do, then?”
“What they do, effendi, half their time—nothing.”
“But they will be a nuisance,” cried the professor.
“Yes, effendi,” said the guide, with a shrug of the shoulders. “So are the flies, but we cannot drive them away. We must be content to go on just as if they were not here.”
The professor saw the sense of the argument, and for the next four hours the party were busy on that hill-slope climbing amongst the stones of the ancient city—one which must have been an important place in its day, for everywhere lay the broken fragments of noble buildings which had been ornamented with colonnades and cornices of elaborate workmanship. Halls, temples, palaces, had occupied positions that must have made the city seem magnificent, as it rose up building upon building against the steep slope, with the little river gurgling swiftly at the foot.
There were the remains, too, of an aqueduct, showing a few broken arches here and there, and plainly teaching that the water to supply the place had been mainly brought from some cold spring high up in the mountains.
And all the time, go where they would, the travellers were followed by the little crowd which gaped and stared, and of which some member or another kept drawing Yussuf aside, and offering him a handsome present if he would confess the secret that he must have learned—how the Frankish infidels knew where treasure lay hid.
They seemed disappointed that the professor contented himself by merely making drawings and copying fragments of inscriptions; but at last they all uttered a grunt of satisfaction, rubbed their hands, gathered closely round, and seated themselves upon the earth or upon stones.
For the professor had stopped short at the end of what, as far as could be traced, seemed to be one end of a small temple whose columns and walls lay scattered as they had fallen.
Here he deliberately took a small bright trowel from a sheath in his belt, where he carried it as if it had been a dagger, and, stooping down, began to dig.
That was what they were waiting for. He had come at last upon the treasure spot, and though the trowel seemed to be a ridiculously small tool to work with, they felt perfectly satisfied that it was one of the wonderful engines invented by the giaours, and that it would soon clear away the stones and soil with which the treasure was covered.
“What are you doing?” said the old lawyer, as Lawrence helped the professor by dragging out pieces of stone. “Going to find anything there?”
“I cannot say,” replied the professor, who was digging away energetically, and dislodging ants, a centipede or two, and a great many other insects. “This is evidently where the altar must have stood, and most likely we shall find here either a bronze figure of the deity in whose honour the temple was erected, or its fragments in marble.”
“Humph! I see,” cried the old lawyer, growing interested; “but I beg to remark that the evening is drawing near, and I don’t think it will be prudent to make a journey here in the dark.”
“No,” said the professor; “it would be a pity. Mind, Lawrence, my lad; what have you there?”
“Piece of stone,” said the lad, dragging out a rounded fragment.
“Piece of stone! Yes, boy, but it is a portion of a broken statue—the folds of a robe.”
“Humph!” muttered the old lawyer. “Might be anything. Not going to carry it away I suppose?”
“That depends,” said the professor labouring away.
“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Burne.
“How is it that such a grand city as this should have been so completely destroyed, Mr Preston?” asked Lawrence.
“It is impossible to say. It may have been by the ravages of fire. More likely by war. The nation here may have been very powerful, and a more powerful nation attacked them, and, perhaps after a long siege, the soldiery utterly destroyed it, while the ravages of a couple of thousand years, perhaps of three thousand, gave the finishing touches to the destruction, and—ah, here is another piece of the same statue.”
He dragged out with great difficulty another fragment of marble which had plainly enough been carved to represent drapery, and he was scraping carefully from it some adhering fragments of earth, when Mr Burne suddenly leaped up from the block of stone upon which he had been perched, and began to shake his trousers and slap and bang his legs for a time, and then limped up and down rubbing his calf, and muttering angrily.
“Whatisthe matter, Mr Burne?” cried Lawrence.
“Matter, sir! I’ve been bitten by one of those horrible vipers. The brute must have crawled up my leg and—I say, Yussuf, am I a dead man?”
“Certainly not, your excellency,” replied the guide gravely.
“You are laughing at me, sir. You know what I mean. I am bitten by one of those horrible vipers, am I not?”
The professor had leaped out of the little hole he had laboriously dug, and run to his companion’s side in an agony of fear.
“Your excellency has been bitten by one of these,” said the guide quietly, and he pointed to some large ants which were running all over the stones.
“Are—are you sure?” cried Mr Burne.
“Sure, excellency? If it had been a viper you would have felt dangerous symptoms.”
“Why, confound it, sir,” cried Mr Burne, rubbing his leg which he had laid bare, “that’s exactly what I do feel—dangerous symptoms.”
“What? What do you feel?” cried the professor excitedly.
“As if someone had bored a hole in my leg, and were squirting melted lead into all my veins—right up my leg, sir. It’s maddening! It’s horrible! It’s worse than—worse than—there, I was going to say gout, Lawrence, but I’ll say it’s worse than being caned. Now, Yussuf, what do you say to that, sir, eh?”
“Ants, your excellency. They bite very sharply, and leave quite a poison in the wound.”
“Quite a poison, sir!—poison’s nothing to it! Here, I say, what am I to do?”
“If your excellency will allow me,” said Yussuf, “I will prick the bite with the point of my knife, and then rub in a little brandy.”
“Yes, do, for goodness’ sake, man, before I go mad.”
“Use this,” said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from his pocket.
“What is it—more poison?” cried Mr Burne.
“Ammonia,” said the professor quietly.
“Humph!” ejaculated the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect’s nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper’s home.
Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer’s great disgust, as he prepared himself for the operation.
“Hang the scoundrels!” he cried; “anyone would think they had never seen an old man’s white leg before.”
“I don’t suppose they ever have, Mr Burne,” said Lawrence.
“Why, you are laughing at me, you dog! Hang it all, sir, it’s too bad. Never mind, it will be your turn next; and look here, Lawrence,” he cried with a malignant grin, “this is a real bite, not a sham one. I’m not pretending that I have been bitten by a snake.”
“Why, Mr Burne—”
“Well, I thought it was, but it is a real bite. Here, you, Yussuf, hold hard—what a deadly-looking implement!” he cried, as their guide bared his long keen knife. “Look here, sir, I know I’m a dog—a giaour, and that you are one of the faithful, and that it is a good deed on your part to injure me as an enemy, but, mind this, if you stick that knife thing into my leg too far, I’ll—I’ll—confound you, sir!—I’ll bring an action against you, and ruin you, as sure as my name’s Burne.”
“Have no fear, effendi,” said Yussuf gravely, going down on one knee, while the people crowded round.
“Cut gently, my dear fellow,” said Mr Burne; “it isn’t kabobs or tough chicken, it’s human leg. Hang it all! You great stupids, what are you staring at? Give a man room to breathe—wough! Oh, I say, Yussuf, that was a dig.”
“Just enough to make it bleed, effendi. There, that will take out some of the poison, and now I’ll touch the place with some of this spirit.”
“Wough!” ejaculated Mr Burne again, as the wound was touched with the stopper of the bottle. “I say, that’s sharp. Humph! it does not hurt quite so much now, only smarts. Thank ye, Yussuf. Why, you are quite a surgeon. Here, what are those fellows chattering about?”
“They say the Franks are a wonderful people to carry cures about in little bottles like that.”
“Humph! I wish they’d kill their snakes and insects, and not waste their time staring,” said the old gentleman, drawing up his stocking, after letting the ammonia dry in the sun. “Yes; I’m better now,” he added, drawing down his trouser leg. “Much obliged, Yussuf. Don’t you take any notice of what I say when I’m cross.”
“I never do, excellency,” said Yussuf smiling gravely.
“Oh, you don’t—don’t you?”
“No, effendi, because I know that you are a thorough gentleman at heart.”
“Humph!” said Mr Burne, as he limped to where the professor had resumed his digging. “Do you know, Lawrence, I begin to think sometimes that our calm, handsome grave Turkish friend there, is the better gentleman of the two.”
Chapter Thirty.A Terror of the Country.It was now evening, but instead of the air becoming cooler with the wind that blew from the mountains, a peculiar hot breath seemed to be exhaled from the earth. The stones which had been baking in the sun all day gave out the heat they had taken in, and a curious sombre stillness was over everything.“Are we going to have a storm, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne, as he looked round at the lurid brassy aspect of the heavens, and the wild reflections upon the mountains.“No, excellency, I think not; and the people here seem to think the same.”“Why? They don’t say anything.”“No, excellency, but if they felt a storm coming they would have long ago hurried back to their houses instead of sitting here so contentedly waiting to see the effendi dig out his treasure.”For the people had not budged an inch, but patiently watched every movement made by the travellers, crouching as it were, ready to spring forward, and see the first great find.But the professor made no great discovery. He was evidently right about the building having been a temple, and it seemed as if an altar must have stood there, bearing a figure of which he picked up several pieces beautifully sculptured, but nothing that could be restored by piecing together; and when, wearied out, he turned to examine some other parts of the old temple, the most interesting thing that he found was a piece of column, nearly buried, and remarkable for containing two of the rounds or drums secured together by means of molten lead poured through suitable holes cut in the stones.“There,” he said at last, “I have been so deeply interested in what I have seen here, that I owe you plenty of apologies, Burne, and you too, Lawrence.”“Humph!” grunted the old lawyer, “you owe me nothing. I would as soon stop here and look about at the mountains, as go on somewhere else. My word, though, what a shame it seems that these pigs of people should have such a glorious country to live in, while we have nothing better than poor old England, with its fogs and cold east winds.”“But this peace is not perfect,” said the professor. “And now, look here; we had better go back to our last night’s lodgings. We can get a good meal there and rest.”“The very thing I was going to propose,” said Mr Burne quickly. “Depend upon it that man will give us a pilaf for supper.”“And without Yussuf’s stick,” said the professor smiling. “But come along. Let’s look at the horses.”The horses were in good plight, for Yussuf and Hamed had watered them, and they had made a good meal off the grass and shoots which grew amongst the ruins.They were now busily finishing a few handfuls of barley which had been poured for them in an old ruined trough, close to some half dozen broken pillars and a piece of stone wall that had been beautifully built; and, as soon as the patient beasts had finished, they were bridled and led out to where the professor and his friends were standing looking wonderingly round at the peculiar glare over the landscape.“Just look at those people,” cried Lawrence suddenly; and the scene below them caught their eye. For, no sooner had the professor and his companions left the coast clear than these people made a rush for the hole, which they seemed to have looked upon as a veritable gold mine, and in and about this they were digging and tearing out the earth, quarrelling, pushing and lighting one with the other for the best places.“How absurd!” exclaimed the professor. “I did not think of that. I ought to have paid them, and made them with their tools do all the work, while I looked on and examined all they turned up.”“It would have been useless, effendi,” said Yussuf. “Unless you had brought an order to the pasha of the district, and these people had been forced to work, they would not have stirred. Ah!”Yussuf uttered a peculiar cry, and the men who were digging below them gave vent to a shrill howl, and leaped out of the pit they were digging to run shrieking back towards the village on the other slope.For all at once it seemed to Lawrence that he was back on shipboard, with the vessel rising beneath his feet and the first symptoms of sea-sickness coming on.Then close at hand, where the horses had so short a time before been feeding, the piece of well-built wall toppled over, and three of the broken columns fell with a crash, while a huge cloud of dust rose from the earth.The horses snorted and trembled, and again there came that sensation of the earth heaving up, just as if it were being made to undulate like the waves at sea.Lawrence threw himself down, while Yussuf clung to the horses’ bridles, as if to guard against a stampede, and the driver stood calmly in the attitude of prayer.Then again and again the whole of the mountain side shook and undulated, waving up and down till the sensation of sickness became intolerable, and all the while there was the dull roar of falling stones above, below, away to the left and right. Now some huge mass seemed to drop on to the earth with a dull thud, another fell upon other stones, and seemed to be broken to atoms, and again and again others seemed to slip from their foundations, and go rolling down like an avalanche, and once more all was still.“Is it an earthquake?” said Lawrence at last in a low awe-stricken tone.“Seems like a dozen earthquakes,” said the old lawyer. “My goodness me! What a place for a town!”And as they all stood there trembling and expecting the next shock, not knowing but the earth might open a vast cavity into which the whole mountain would plunge, a huge cloud of dust arose, shutting out everything that was half a dozen yards away, and the heated air grew more and more suffocating.It was plain enough to understand now why it was that in the course of time this beautiful city should have been destroyed. The first disaster might have been caused by war, but it was evident that this was a region where earth disturbance was a frequent occurrence, and as time rolled by, every shock would tear down more and more of the place.Very little was said, for though no great shock came now, there were every few minutes little vibrations beneath their feet, as if the earth was trembling from the effect of the violent efforts it had made.Now and then they held their breath as a stronger agitation came, and once this ended with what seemed to be a throb or a sound as if the earth had parted and then closed up again.Then came a lapse, during which the travellers sat in the midst of the thick mist of dust waiting, waiting for the next great throb, feeling that perhaps these were only the preliminaries to some awful catastrophe.No one spoke, and the silence was absolutely profound. They were surrounded by groves where the birds as a rule piped and sang loudly; but everything was hushed as if the thick dust-cloud had shut in all sound.And what a cloud of dust! The dust of a buried city, of a people who had lived when the earth was a couple of thousand years or more younger, when western Europe was the home of barbarians. The dust of buildings that had been erected by the most civilised peoples then dwelling in the world, and this now rising in the thick dense cloud which seemed as if it would never pass.An hour must have gone by, and they were conscious as they stood there in a group that the mist looked blacker, and by this they felt that the night must be coming on. For some time now there had not been the slightest quiver of the ground, and in place of the horses standing with their legs spread wide and heads low, staring wildly, and snorting with dread, they had gathered themselves together again, and were beginning to crop the herbage here and there, but blowing over it and letting it fall from their lips again as if in disgust.And no wonder, for every blade and leaf was covered with a fine impalpable powder, while, as the perspiration dried upon the exposed parts of the travellers, their skins seemed to be stiff and caked with the dust.“I think the earthquake is over, excellencies,” said Yussuf calmly. “I could not be sure, but the look of the sky this evening was strange.”“I had read of earthquakes out here,” said the professor, who was gaining confidence now; “but you do not often have such shocks as these?”“Oh, yes, effendi; it is not an unusual thing. Much more terrible than this; whole towns are sometimes swallowed up. Hundreds of lives are lost, and hundreds left homeless.”“Then you call this a slight earthquake?” said Mr Burne.“Certainly, excellency, here,” was the reply. “It may have been very terrible elsewhere. Terrible to us if we had been standing beside those stones which fell. It would have been awful enough if all these ruins had been, as they once were, grandly built houses and temples.”“And I was grumbling about poor dear old sooty, foggy England,” said Mr Burne. “Dear, dear, dear, what foolish things one says!”“Is not the dust settling down?” said the professor just then.“A little, your excellency; but it is so fine that unless we have a breeze it may be hours before it is gone.”“Then what do you propose to do?” asked Mr Burne.“What can I do, excellency, but try to keep you out of danger?”“Yes, but how?”“We must stay here.”“Stay here? when that village is so near at hand?”Yussuf paused for a few minutes and then said slowly, as if the question had just been asked:“How do we know that the village is near at hand?”“Ah!” ejaculated the professor, startled by the man’s tone.“It was not more than two of your English miles from here, excellency, when we left the place this morning, but with such a shock there may be only ruins from which the people who were spared have fled.”“How horrible!” exclaimed Lawrence.“Let us hope that I am wrong, effendi,” said Yussuf hastily. “I only speak.”“But we cannot stay here for the night,” said Mr Burne impatiently.“Excellency, we must stay here,” said the Turk firmly. “I am your guide, and where I know the land I will lead you. I knew this country this morning, but how can I know it now? Great chasms may lie between us and the village—deep rifts, into which in the dust and darkness we may walk. You know what vast gorges and valleys lie between the hills.”“Yes,” replied Mr Preston.“Some of these have been worn down by the torrents and streams from the mountains, others have been made in a moment by such shocks as these. I would gladly say, ‘come on; I will lead you back to the head-man’s house,’ but, excellencies, I do not dare.”“He is quite right, Burne,” said the professor gravely.“Oh, yes, confound him: he always is right,” cried Mr Burne. “I wish sometimes he were not. Fancy camping out here for the night in this horrible dust and with the air growing cold. It will be icy here by and by.”“Yes, excellency, it will be cold. We are high up, and the snow mountains are not far away.”“We must make the best of it, Lawrence, my boy,” said the professor cheerily. “Then I suppose the next thing is to select a camp. But, Yussuf, this is rather risky. What about the asps?”“And the ants,” cried Mr Burne with a groan. “I can’t sleep with such bed-fellows as these.”“And the djins and evil spirits,” cried Lawrence.“Ah, I don’t think they will hurt us much, my boy,” said the professor.“And there is one comfort,” added Mr Burne; “we have left the cemetery behind. I do protest against camping there.”“A cemetery of two thousand years ago,” said the professor quietly. “Ah, Burne, we need not make that an objection. But come, what is to be done?”Yussuf answered the question by calling Hamed to come and help unpack the horses, and all then set to work to prepare to pass the night in the midst of the ruins, and without much prospect of a fire being made.
It was now evening, but instead of the air becoming cooler with the wind that blew from the mountains, a peculiar hot breath seemed to be exhaled from the earth. The stones which had been baking in the sun all day gave out the heat they had taken in, and a curious sombre stillness was over everything.
“Are we going to have a storm, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne, as he looked round at the lurid brassy aspect of the heavens, and the wild reflections upon the mountains.
“No, excellency, I think not; and the people here seem to think the same.”
“Why? They don’t say anything.”
“No, excellency, but if they felt a storm coming they would have long ago hurried back to their houses instead of sitting here so contentedly waiting to see the effendi dig out his treasure.”
For the people had not budged an inch, but patiently watched every movement made by the travellers, crouching as it were, ready to spring forward, and see the first great find.
But the professor made no great discovery. He was evidently right about the building having been a temple, and it seemed as if an altar must have stood there, bearing a figure of which he picked up several pieces beautifully sculptured, but nothing that could be restored by piecing together; and when, wearied out, he turned to examine some other parts of the old temple, the most interesting thing that he found was a piece of column, nearly buried, and remarkable for containing two of the rounds or drums secured together by means of molten lead poured through suitable holes cut in the stones.
“There,” he said at last, “I have been so deeply interested in what I have seen here, that I owe you plenty of apologies, Burne, and you too, Lawrence.”
“Humph!” grunted the old lawyer, “you owe me nothing. I would as soon stop here and look about at the mountains, as go on somewhere else. My word, though, what a shame it seems that these pigs of people should have such a glorious country to live in, while we have nothing better than poor old England, with its fogs and cold east winds.”
“But this peace is not perfect,” said the professor. “And now, look here; we had better go back to our last night’s lodgings. We can get a good meal there and rest.”
“The very thing I was going to propose,” said Mr Burne quickly. “Depend upon it that man will give us a pilaf for supper.”
“And without Yussuf’s stick,” said the professor smiling. “But come along. Let’s look at the horses.”
The horses were in good plight, for Yussuf and Hamed had watered them, and they had made a good meal off the grass and shoots which grew amongst the ruins.
They were now busily finishing a few handfuls of barley which had been poured for them in an old ruined trough, close to some half dozen broken pillars and a piece of stone wall that had been beautifully built; and, as soon as the patient beasts had finished, they were bridled and led out to where the professor and his friends were standing looking wonderingly round at the peculiar glare over the landscape.
“Just look at those people,” cried Lawrence suddenly; and the scene below them caught their eye. For, no sooner had the professor and his companions left the coast clear than these people made a rush for the hole, which they seemed to have looked upon as a veritable gold mine, and in and about this they were digging and tearing out the earth, quarrelling, pushing and lighting one with the other for the best places.
“How absurd!” exclaimed the professor. “I did not think of that. I ought to have paid them, and made them with their tools do all the work, while I looked on and examined all they turned up.”
“It would have been useless, effendi,” said Yussuf. “Unless you had brought an order to the pasha of the district, and these people had been forced to work, they would not have stirred. Ah!”
Yussuf uttered a peculiar cry, and the men who were digging below them gave vent to a shrill howl, and leaped out of the pit they were digging to run shrieking back towards the village on the other slope.
For all at once it seemed to Lawrence that he was back on shipboard, with the vessel rising beneath his feet and the first symptoms of sea-sickness coming on.
Then close at hand, where the horses had so short a time before been feeding, the piece of well-built wall toppled over, and three of the broken columns fell with a crash, while a huge cloud of dust rose from the earth.
The horses snorted and trembled, and again there came that sensation of the earth heaving up, just as if it were being made to undulate like the waves at sea.
Lawrence threw himself down, while Yussuf clung to the horses’ bridles, as if to guard against a stampede, and the driver stood calmly in the attitude of prayer.
Then again and again the whole of the mountain side shook and undulated, waving up and down till the sensation of sickness became intolerable, and all the while there was the dull roar of falling stones above, below, away to the left and right. Now some huge mass seemed to drop on to the earth with a dull thud, another fell upon other stones, and seemed to be broken to atoms, and again and again others seemed to slip from their foundations, and go rolling down like an avalanche, and once more all was still.
“Is it an earthquake?” said Lawrence at last in a low awe-stricken tone.
“Seems like a dozen earthquakes,” said the old lawyer. “My goodness me! What a place for a town!”
And as they all stood there trembling and expecting the next shock, not knowing but the earth might open a vast cavity into which the whole mountain would plunge, a huge cloud of dust arose, shutting out everything that was half a dozen yards away, and the heated air grew more and more suffocating.
It was plain enough to understand now why it was that in the course of time this beautiful city should have been destroyed. The first disaster might have been caused by war, but it was evident that this was a region where earth disturbance was a frequent occurrence, and as time rolled by, every shock would tear down more and more of the place.
Very little was said, for though no great shock came now, there were every few minutes little vibrations beneath their feet, as if the earth was trembling from the effect of the violent efforts it had made.
Now and then they held their breath as a stronger agitation came, and once this ended with what seemed to be a throb or a sound as if the earth had parted and then closed up again.
Then came a lapse, during which the travellers sat in the midst of the thick mist of dust waiting, waiting for the next great throb, feeling that perhaps these were only the preliminaries to some awful catastrophe.
No one spoke, and the silence was absolutely profound. They were surrounded by groves where the birds as a rule piped and sang loudly; but everything was hushed as if the thick dust-cloud had shut in all sound.
And what a cloud of dust! The dust of a buried city, of a people who had lived when the earth was a couple of thousand years or more younger, when western Europe was the home of barbarians. The dust of buildings that had been erected by the most civilised peoples then dwelling in the world, and this now rising in the thick dense cloud which seemed as if it would never pass.
An hour must have gone by, and they were conscious as they stood there in a group that the mist looked blacker, and by this they felt that the night must be coming on. For some time now there had not been the slightest quiver of the ground, and in place of the horses standing with their legs spread wide and heads low, staring wildly, and snorting with dread, they had gathered themselves together again, and were beginning to crop the herbage here and there, but blowing over it and letting it fall from their lips again as if in disgust.
And no wonder, for every blade and leaf was covered with a fine impalpable powder, while, as the perspiration dried upon the exposed parts of the travellers, their skins seemed to be stiff and caked with the dust.
“I think the earthquake is over, excellencies,” said Yussuf calmly. “I could not be sure, but the look of the sky this evening was strange.”
“I had read of earthquakes out here,” said the professor, who was gaining confidence now; “but you do not often have such shocks as these?”
“Oh, yes, effendi; it is not an unusual thing. Much more terrible than this; whole towns are sometimes swallowed up. Hundreds of lives are lost, and hundreds left homeless.”
“Then you call this a slight earthquake?” said Mr Burne.
“Certainly, excellency, here,” was the reply. “It may have been very terrible elsewhere. Terrible to us if we had been standing beside those stones which fell. It would have been awful enough if all these ruins had been, as they once were, grandly built houses and temples.”
“And I was grumbling about poor dear old sooty, foggy England,” said Mr Burne. “Dear, dear, dear, what foolish things one says!”
“Is not the dust settling down?” said the professor just then.
“A little, your excellency; but it is so fine that unless we have a breeze it may be hours before it is gone.”
“Then what do you propose to do?” asked Mr Burne.
“What can I do, excellency, but try to keep you out of danger?”
“Yes, but how?”
“We must stay here.”
“Stay here? when that village is so near at hand?”
Yussuf paused for a few minutes and then said slowly, as if the question had just been asked:
“How do we know that the village is near at hand?”
“Ah!” ejaculated the professor, startled by the man’s tone.
“It was not more than two of your English miles from here, excellency, when we left the place this morning, but with such a shock there may be only ruins from which the people who were spared have fled.”
“How horrible!” exclaimed Lawrence.
“Let us hope that I am wrong, effendi,” said Yussuf hastily. “I only speak.”
“But we cannot stay here for the night,” said Mr Burne impatiently.
“Excellency, we must stay here,” said the Turk firmly. “I am your guide, and where I know the land I will lead you. I knew this country this morning, but how can I know it now? Great chasms may lie between us and the village—deep rifts, into which in the dust and darkness we may walk. You know what vast gorges and valleys lie between the hills.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Preston.
“Some of these have been worn down by the torrents and streams from the mountains, others have been made in a moment by such shocks as these. I would gladly say, ‘come on; I will lead you back to the head-man’s house,’ but, excellencies, I do not dare.”
“He is quite right, Burne,” said the professor gravely.
“Oh, yes, confound him: he always is right,” cried Mr Burne. “I wish sometimes he were not. Fancy camping out here for the night in this horrible dust and with the air growing cold. It will be icy here by and by.”
“Yes, excellency, it will be cold. We are high up, and the snow mountains are not far away.”
“We must make the best of it, Lawrence, my boy,” said the professor cheerily. “Then I suppose the next thing is to select a camp. But, Yussuf, this is rather risky. What about the asps?”
“And the ants,” cried Mr Burne with a groan. “I can’t sleep with such bed-fellows as these.”
“And the djins and evil spirits,” cried Lawrence.
“Ah, I don’t think they will hurt us much, my boy,” said the professor.
“And there is one comfort,” added Mr Burne; “we have left the cemetery behind. I do protest against camping there.”
“A cemetery of two thousand years ago,” said the professor quietly. “Ah, Burne, we need not make that an objection. But come, what is to be done?”
Yussuf answered the question by calling Hamed to come and help unpack the horses, and all then set to work to prepare to pass the night in the midst of the ruins, and without much prospect of a fire being made.
Chapter Thirty One.Ali Baba’s Feat.The night came on colder and colder, and though Yussuf and Hamed worked hard at cutting bushes and branches of trees, the green wood covered with leaves obstinately refused to burn, and the result was a thick smoke, which hung about and spread amongst the dust, making the position of the travellers worse than before. Yussuf searched as far as he could, but he could find no pines, neither were there any bushes of the laurel family, or the result would have been different.All this while they were suffering from a nervous trepidation that made even a heavy footfall startling, every one being in expectation of a renewal of the earthquake shocks.Rugs and overcoats were taken from the baggage and, giving up the fire as a bad job, the little party were huddled together for the sake of warmth, when all at once a breeze sprang up, and in less than half an hour the mist of dust had been swept away, and the dark sky was overhead studded with countless stars.It was even colder than before, the wind that came down from the mountains being extremely searching, and it seemed a wonder that there could be so much difference between day and night. But in spite of the cold the little party felt cheered and relieved by the disappearance of the thick mist of dust. The bright sky above them seemed to be a sign of the danger, having passed away, and suggestive of the morning breaking bright and clear to give them hope and the power of seeing any dangers that were near.But they were not to wait till morning, for soon after the clearing away of the mist, shouts were heard in the distance, to which they responded, and the communication was kept up till a party of men appeared, who proved to be no belated set of wanderers like themselves, but about twenty of the village people under the command of the head-man, come in search of them, and all ready to utter a wild cheer when they were found.The leader explained to Yussuf that the earthquake shocks had all been on this side of the little river, the village having completely escaped. About a couple of hours after the shocks the party of people who had been digging for treasure returned to the village, and upon the head-man learning that the travellers had been left up there he had organised a party to come in search.There was no mistaking the cordiality of the head-man or his joy at having found them, and after helping to repack the horses he led the way back confidently enough, and in the walk explained that the mischief done was very slight. No gaps had opened, as far as he knew, but at all events the road from the old ruins to the village was safe.“Your cudgel seems to have been a regular genii’s wand, Yussuf,” said Mr Burne softly. “You would not find it have so good an effect upon Englishmen.”“It and your payments, effendi, have taught the man that we are people of importance, and not to be trifled with,” replied Yussuf smiling; and Mr Burne nodded and took snuff.In an hour they were safely back at the head-man’s house, where hot coffee and then a good meal prepared all for their night’s rest amidst the warm rugs which were spread for them; and feeling that no watch was necessary here, all were soon in a deep sleep, Lawrence being too tired even to think of the danger to which they had been exposed.Directly after breakfast next morning the head-man came to them with a very serious look upon his countenance.The people of the village were angry, he said to Yussuf, and were uttering threats against the strangers, for it was due to them that the earthquake had taken place. Every one knew that the old ruins were the homes of djins and evil spirits. The strangers had been interfering with those ruins, and the djins and evil spirits had resented it.“But,” said Yussuf, “your people did more than their excellencies.”“Yes, perhaps so,” said the head-man; “but they are fools and pigs. Let the English effendis go, and not touch the ruins again.”Yussuf explained, and the professor made a gesture full of annoyance.“Ask him, Yussuf, if he believes this nonsense.”“Not when I am with you, excellencies,” he said smiling; “but when I am with my people, I do. If I did not think as they do I could not live with them. I am head-man, but if they turn against me they are the masters, and I am obliged to do as they wish.”There was nothing for it but to go, and they left the village with all its interesting surroundings as soon as the horses were packed, the people uttering more than one menacing growl till they were out of hearing.“So vexatious!” exclaimed the professor. “I feel as if we have done wrong in giving up. The firman ought to have been sufficient. We shall never find such a place again—so rich in antiquities. I have a good mind to turn back.”“No, no, effendi,” said Yussuf, “it would only mean trouble. I can take you to fifty places as full of old remains. Trust to me and I will show you the way.”They journeyed on for days, finding good, bad, and indifferent lodgings. Sometimes they were received by the people with civility, at others with suspicion, for Yussuf was taking them farther and farther into the mountains, where the peasants were ignorant and superstitious to a degree; but, save where they crossed some plain, they were everywhere impressed by the grandeur of the country, and the utter ruin and neglect which prevailed. Roads, cities, land, all seemed to have been allowed to go to decay; and, to make the journey the longer and more arduous, over and over again, where they came to a bridge, it was to find that it had been broken down for years, and this would often mean a journey along the rugged banks perhaps for miles before they found a place where it was wise to try and ford the swollen stream.There was always something, though, to interest the professor—a watch-tower in ruins at the corner of some defile, the remains of a castle, an aqueduct, a town with nothing visible but a few scattered stones, or a cemetery with the remains of marble tombs.Day after day fresh ruins to inspect, with the guide proving his value more and more, and relieving the party a great deal from the pertinacious curiosity of the scattered people, who would not believe that the travellers were visiting the country from a desire for knowledge.It must be for the buried treasures of the old people, they told Yussuf again and again; and they laughed at him derisively as he repeated his assurances.“Don’t tell them any more,” Lawrence used to say in a pet; “let the stupids waste their time.”Sometimes this constant examination of old marbles and this digging out of columns or slabs grew wearisome to the lad, but not often, for there was too much exciting incident in their travels through gorge and gully—along shelves where the horses could hardly find foothold, but slipped and scrambled, with terrible precipices beneath, such as at first made the travellers giddy, but at last became so common, and their horses gave them so much confidence, that they ceased to be alarmed.It was a wonderful country, such as they had not dreamed could exist so near Europe, while everywhere, as the investigations went on, they were impressed with the feeling that, unsafe as it was now, in the past it must have been far worse, for on all hands there were the remains of strongholds, perched upon the top of precipitous heights with the most giddy and perilous of approaches, where, once shut in, a handful of sturdy Greeks or stout Romans could have set an army at defiance. This was the more easy from the fact that ammunition was plentiful in the shape of rocks and stones, which the defenders could have sent crashing down upon their foes.It was one evening when the difficulties of the day’s journey had been unusually great that they were on their way toward a village beyond which, high up in the mountains, Yussuf spoke of a ruined city that he had only visited once, some twenty years before. He had reserved it as one of the choicest bits for his employers, and whenever Lawrence had been enraptured over some fine view or unusually grand remains Yussuf had smiled and said, “Wait.”Their progress that day had been interrupted by a storm, which forced them to take shelter for a couple of hours, during which the hail had fallen in great lumps as big as walnuts, and when this was over it lay on the ridges in white beds and crunched beneath the feet of their horses.Their way lay along one of the defiles where the road had been made to follow the edge of the stream, keeping to its windings; but as they descended a slope, and came near the little river, Yussuf drew rein.“It is impossible, excellencies,” he said; “the path is covered by the torrent, and the water is rising fast.”“But is there no other way—a mile or two round?” said the professor.Yussuf shook his head as he pointed to the mountains that rose on every side.“It is only here and there that there is a pass,” he said. “There is no other way for three days’ journey. We must go back to the place where we sheltered and wait till the river flows back to its bed.”“How long?” asked Mr Burne; “an hour or two?”“Perhaps longer, effendi,” said Yussuf. “Mind how you turn round; there is very little room.”They had become so accustomed to ride along shelves worn and cut in the mountain sides that they had paid little heed to this one as they descended, their attention having been taken by the hail that whitened the ledges; but now, as they were turning to ascend the steep slope cut diagonally along the precipitous side of the defile, the dangerous nature of the way became evident.But no one spoke for fear of calling the attention of his companions to the risky nature of the ride back; so, giving their horses the rein, the docile beasts planted their feet together, and turned as if upon a pivot before beginning to ascend.So close was the wall of rock in places that the baggage brushed the side, and threatened to thrust off the horses and send them headlong down the slope, that began by being a hundred feet, and gradually increased till it was five, then ten, and then at least fifteen hundred feet above the narrow rift, where the stream rushed foaming along, sending up a dull echoing roar that seemed to quiver in the air.How it happened no one knew. They had plodded on, reaching the highest part, with Hamed and the baggage-horses in front, for there had been no room to pass them. First Yussuf, then the professor, Mr Burne and Lawrence on Ali Baba, of course counting from the rear. There was a good deal of hail upon the path, but melting so fast in the hot sun that it was forgotten, and all were riding slowly on, when the second baggage horse must have caught its load against the rock, with the result that it nearly fell over the side. The clever beast managed to save itself, and all would have been well had it not startled Ali Baba, who made a plunge, stepped upon a heap of the hail, and slipped, the left fore-hoof gliding off the ledge.The brave little animal made a desperate effort to recover itself, but it had lost its balance, and in its agony it made a bound, which took it ten feet forward, and along the rapid slope, where it seemed to stand for a moment, and then, to the horror of all, it began to slip and stumble rapidly down the steep side of the ravine towards a part that was nearly perpendicular, and where horse and rider must be hurled down to immediate death.Everyone remained motionless as if changed to stone, while the clattering of the little horse’s hoofs went on, and great fragments went rattling off beneath it to increase their pace and go plunging down into the abyss as if to show the way for the horse to follow to destruction.It was all a matter of moments, with the gallant little beast making bound after bound downward, as it felt that it could not retain its position, while Lawrence sat well back in his saddle, gripping it tightly with his knees, and holding the loosened rein.Another bound, and another, but no foothold for the horse, and then, after one of its daring leaps, which were more those of a mountain sheep or goat than of a horse, Ali Baba alighted at the very edge of the perpendicular portion of the valley side, and those above saw him totter for a moment, and then leap right off into space.
The night came on colder and colder, and though Yussuf and Hamed worked hard at cutting bushes and branches of trees, the green wood covered with leaves obstinately refused to burn, and the result was a thick smoke, which hung about and spread amongst the dust, making the position of the travellers worse than before. Yussuf searched as far as he could, but he could find no pines, neither were there any bushes of the laurel family, or the result would have been different.
All this while they were suffering from a nervous trepidation that made even a heavy footfall startling, every one being in expectation of a renewal of the earthquake shocks.
Rugs and overcoats were taken from the baggage and, giving up the fire as a bad job, the little party were huddled together for the sake of warmth, when all at once a breeze sprang up, and in less than half an hour the mist of dust had been swept away, and the dark sky was overhead studded with countless stars.
It was even colder than before, the wind that came down from the mountains being extremely searching, and it seemed a wonder that there could be so much difference between day and night. But in spite of the cold the little party felt cheered and relieved by the disappearance of the thick mist of dust. The bright sky above them seemed to be a sign of the danger, having passed away, and suggestive of the morning breaking bright and clear to give them hope and the power of seeing any dangers that were near.
But they were not to wait till morning, for soon after the clearing away of the mist, shouts were heard in the distance, to which they responded, and the communication was kept up till a party of men appeared, who proved to be no belated set of wanderers like themselves, but about twenty of the village people under the command of the head-man, come in search of them, and all ready to utter a wild cheer when they were found.
The leader explained to Yussuf that the earthquake shocks had all been on this side of the little river, the village having completely escaped. About a couple of hours after the shocks the party of people who had been digging for treasure returned to the village, and upon the head-man learning that the travellers had been left up there he had organised a party to come in search.
There was no mistaking the cordiality of the head-man or his joy at having found them, and after helping to repack the horses he led the way back confidently enough, and in the walk explained that the mischief done was very slight. No gaps had opened, as far as he knew, but at all events the road from the old ruins to the village was safe.
“Your cudgel seems to have been a regular genii’s wand, Yussuf,” said Mr Burne softly. “You would not find it have so good an effect upon Englishmen.”
“It and your payments, effendi, have taught the man that we are people of importance, and not to be trifled with,” replied Yussuf smiling; and Mr Burne nodded and took snuff.
In an hour they were safely back at the head-man’s house, where hot coffee and then a good meal prepared all for their night’s rest amidst the warm rugs which were spread for them; and feeling that no watch was necessary here, all were soon in a deep sleep, Lawrence being too tired even to think of the danger to which they had been exposed.
Directly after breakfast next morning the head-man came to them with a very serious look upon his countenance.
The people of the village were angry, he said to Yussuf, and were uttering threats against the strangers, for it was due to them that the earthquake had taken place. Every one knew that the old ruins were the homes of djins and evil spirits. The strangers had been interfering with those ruins, and the djins and evil spirits had resented it.
“But,” said Yussuf, “your people did more than their excellencies.”
“Yes, perhaps so,” said the head-man; “but they are fools and pigs. Let the English effendis go, and not touch the ruins again.”
Yussuf explained, and the professor made a gesture full of annoyance.
“Ask him, Yussuf, if he believes this nonsense.”
“Not when I am with you, excellencies,” he said smiling; “but when I am with my people, I do. If I did not think as they do I could not live with them. I am head-man, but if they turn against me they are the masters, and I am obliged to do as they wish.”
There was nothing for it but to go, and they left the village with all its interesting surroundings as soon as the horses were packed, the people uttering more than one menacing growl till they were out of hearing.
“So vexatious!” exclaimed the professor. “I feel as if we have done wrong in giving up. The firman ought to have been sufficient. We shall never find such a place again—so rich in antiquities. I have a good mind to turn back.”
“No, no, effendi,” said Yussuf, “it would only mean trouble. I can take you to fifty places as full of old remains. Trust to me and I will show you the way.”
They journeyed on for days, finding good, bad, and indifferent lodgings. Sometimes they were received by the people with civility, at others with suspicion, for Yussuf was taking them farther and farther into the mountains, where the peasants were ignorant and superstitious to a degree; but, save where they crossed some plain, they were everywhere impressed by the grandeur of the country, and the utter ruin and neglect which prevailed. Roads, cities, land, all seemed to have been allowed to go to decay; and, to make the journey the longer and more arduous, over and over again, where they came to a bridge, it was to find that it had been broken down for years, and this would often mean a journey along the rugged banks perhaps for miles before they found a place where it was wise to try and ford the swollen stream.
There was always something, though, to interest the professor—a watch-tower in ruins at the corner of some defile, the remains of a castle, an aqueduct, a town with nothing visible but a few scattered stones, or a cemetery with the remains of marble tombs.
Day after day fresh ruins to inspect, with the guide proving his value more and more, and relieving the party a great deal from the pertinacious curiosity of the scattered people, who would not believe that the travellers were visiting the country from a desire for knowledge.
It must be for the buried treasures of the old people, they told Yussuf again and again; and they laughed at him derisively as he repeated his assurances.
“Don’t tell them any more,” Lawrence used to say in a pet; “let the stupids waste their time.”
Sometimes this constant examination of old marbles and this digging out of columns or slabs grew wearisome to the lad, but not often, for there was too much exciting incident in their travels through gorge and gully—along shelves where the horses could hardly find foothold, but slipped and scrambled, with terrible precipices beneath, such as at first made the travellers giddy, but at last became so common, and their horses gave them so much confidence, that they ceased to be alarmed.
It was a wonderful country, such as they had not dreamed could exist so near Europe, while everywhere, as the investigations went on, they were impressed with the feeling that, unsafe as it was now, in the past it must have been far worse, for on all hands there were the remains of strongholds, perched upon the top of precipitous heights with the most giddy and perilous of approaches, where, once shut in, a handful of sturdy Greeks or stout Romans could have set an army at defiance. This was the more easy from the fact that ammunition was plentiful in the shape of rocks and stones, which the defenders could have sent crashing down upon their foes.
It was one evening when the difficulties of the day’s journey had been unusually great that they were on their way toward a village beyond which, high up in the mountains, Yussuf spoke of a ruined city that he had only visited once, some twenty years before. He had reserved it as one of the choicest bits for his employers, and whenever Lawrence had been enraptured over some fine view or unusually grand remains Yussuf had smiled and said, “Wait.”
Their progress that day had been interrupted by a storm, which forced them to take shelter for a couple of hours, during which the hail had fallen in great lumps as big as walnuts, and when this was over it lay on the ridges in white beds and crunched beneath the feet of their horses.
Their way lay along one of the defiles where the road had been made to follow the edge of the stream, keeping to its windings; but as they descended a slope, and came near the little river, Yussuf drew rein.
“It is impossible, excellencies,” he said; “the path is covered by the torrent, and the water is rising fast.”
“But is there no other way—a mile or two round?” said the professor.
Yussuf shook his head as he pointed to the mountains that rose on every side.
“It is only here and there that there is a pass,” he said. “There is no other way for three days’ journey. We must go back to the place where we sheltered and wait till the river flows back to its bed.”
“How long?” asked Mr Burne; “an hour or two?”
“Perhaps longer, effendi,” said Yussuf. “Mind how you turn round; there is very little room.”
They had become so accustomed to ride along shelves worn and cut in the mountain sides that they had paid little heed to this one as they descended, their attention having been taken by the hail that whitened the ledges; but now, as they were turning to ascend the steep slope cut diagonally along the precipitous side of the defile, the dangerous nature of the way became evident.
But no one spoke for fear of calling the attention of his companions to the risky nature of the ride back; so, giving their horses the rein, the docile beasts planted their feet together, and turned as if upon a pivot before beginning to ascend.
So close was the wall of rock in places that the baggage brushed the side, and threatened to thrust off the horses and send them headlong down the slope, that began by being a hundred feet, and gradually increased till it was five, then ten, and then at least fifteen hundred feet above the narrow rift, where the stream rushed foaming along, sending up a dull echoing roar that seemed to quiver in the air.
How it happened no one knew. They had plodded on, reaching the highest part, with Hamed and the baggage-horses in front, for there had been no room to pass them. First Yussuf, then the professor, Mr Burne and Lawrence on Ali Baba, of course counting from the rear. There was a good deal of hail upon the path, but melting so fast in the hot sun that it was forgotten, and all were riding slowly on, when the second baggage horse must have caught its load against the rock, with the result that it nearly fell over the side. The clever beast managed to save itself, and all would have been well had it not startled Ali Baba, who made a plunge, stepped upon a heap of the hail, and slipped, the left fore-hoof gliding off the ledge.
The brave little animal made a desperate effort to recover itself, but it had lost its balance, and in its agony it made a bound, which took it ten feet forward, and along the rapid slope, where it seemed to stand for a moment, and then, to the horror of all, it began to slip and stumble rapidly down the steep side of the ravine towards a part that was nearly perpendicular, and where horse and rider must be hurled down to immediate death.
Everyone remained motionless as if changed to stone, while the clattering of the little horse’s hoofs went on, and great fragments went rattling off beneath it to increase their pace and go plunging down into the abyss as if to show the way for the horse to follow to destruction.
It was all a matter of moments, with the gallant little beast making bound after bound downward, as it felt that it could not retain its position, while Lawrence sat well back in his saddle, gripping it tightly with his knees, and holding the loosened rein.
Another bound, and another, but no foothold for the horse, and then, after one of its daring leaps, which were more those of a mountain sheep or goat than of a horse, Ali Baba alighted at the very edge of the perpendicular portion of the valley side, and those above saw him totter for a moment, and then leap right off into space.
Chapter Thirty Two.Another Serpent.The professor uttered a groan, and covered his eyes.But only for a moment. The next he was descending from his horse, and beginning to clamber down the side of the precipice, but a cry from Yussuf stopped him.“No, no, effendi. We must go back down to the side of the river and climb up. We cannot descend.”It was so plain that the professor said nothing; but, as if yielding to the command of a superior officer, clambered back to the pathway, and all stood gazing down to where the slope ended and the perpendicular wall began.There was nothing to see but the top of the wall of rock: nothing to hear but the hissing, roaring rush of the water far below.“Come,” said Yussuf, turning his horse, and taking the lead in the descent along the path they had just reascended, down which, scrambling and slipping over the thawing ice, they crept slowly, looking in the midst of the stupendous chasm little bigger than flies.The old lawyer trembled, while the professor’s cheeks looked sunken, his eyes hollow. No one spoke, and as they went on, the crunching of the half-melted hailstones and the click of the horses’ hoofs against the loosened stones sounded loudly in the clear air.It was a perilous descent, for the horses were constantly slipping; but at last the bottom of the defile was reached, and the steeds being left in charge of Hamed, Yussuf turned sharply to the right, closely followed by Mr Preston and Mr Burne, to climb along the steep stone-burdened slope, where the flooded mountain torrent was just beneath them and threatening to sweep them away.Yussuf turned from time to time to look at his companions, half expecting that they would not follow, for the way he took was extremely perilous, and he fully expected to see Mr Preston give up in despair. But, experienced as he was in the ways of Englishmen, he did not quite understand their nature, for not only was the professor toiling on over the mossy stones just behind him, but Mr Burne, with his face glistening in perspiration and a set look of determination in his features, was clambering up and sliding down with unwonted agility, but with a piteous look in his eyes which told how painfully he felt the position in which they were placed.No one spoke, every effort being needed for the toilsome task, as they clambered along, now down in narrow rifts, now dragging themselves painfully over the rugged masses of rock which lay as they had fallen from the side of the defile, a couple of thousand feet above them. The scene would have appeared magnificent at another time; the colours of the rocks, the tufts of verdant bushes, the gloriously-mossed stones, the patches of white hail, and the glancing, rushing, and gleaming torrent, which was here deep and dark, there one sheet of white effervescing foam. But the hearts of all were too full, and their imaginations were painting the spectacle upon which they soon expected to gaze, namely, the terribly mutilated body of poor Lawrence, battered by his fall out of recognition.One moment Mr Preston was asking himself how he could make arrangements for taking the remains of the poor lad home. At another he was thinking that it would be impossible, and that he must leave him sleeping in this far-off land. While, again, the course of his thoughts changed, and he found himself believing that poor Lawrence would have fallen and rolled on, and then, in company with the avalanche of loose stones set in motion by his horse’s hoof’s, have been plunged into the furious torrent, and been borne away never to be seen again.A curious dimness came over the professor’s eyes, as he paused for a moment or two upon the top of a rock, to gaze before him. But there was nothing visible, for the defile at the bottom curved and zigzagged so that they could not see thirty yards before them, and where it was most straight the abundant foliage of the trees growing out of the cliffs rendered seeing difficult.“It must have been somewhere here, effendi,” said Yussuf at last, pausing for the others to overtake him, and pointing upwards. “Let us separate now, and search about. You, Mr Burne, keep close down by the river; you, Mr Preston, go forward here; and I will climb up—it is more difficult—and search there. I will shout if I have anything to say.”The professor looked up to find that he was at the foot of a mass of rock, high up on whose side there seemed to be a ledge, and then another steep ascent, broken by shelves of rock and masses which seemed to be ready to crumble down upon their heads.Each man felt as if he ought to shout the lad’s name, and ask him to give some token of his whereabouts, but no one dared open his lips for the dread of the answer to the calls being only the echoes from the rocks above, while beneath there was the dull, hurrying roar of the torrent which rose and fell, seeming to fill the air with a curious hissing sound, and making the earth vibrate beneath their feet.They were separating, with the tension of pain upon their minds seeming more than they could bear, when, all at once, from far above, there was a cry which made them start and gaze upward.“Ahoy–y–oy!”There was nothing visible, and they remained perfectly silent—listening, and feeling that they must have been mistaken; but just then a stone came bounding down, to fall some fifty feet in front, right on to a mass of rock, and split into a score of fragments.Then again:“Ahoy! Where are you all?”“Lawrence, ahoy!” shouted the professor, with his hands to his mouth.“Ahoy!” came again from directly overhead. “Here. How am I to get down?”All started back as far as they could to gaze upward, and then remained silent, too much overcome by their emotion to speak, for there, perched up at least a thousand feet above them, stood Lawrence in an opening among the trees, right upon a shelf of rock. They could see his horse’s head beside him, and the feeling of awe and wonder at the escape had an effect upon the party below as if they had been stunned.“How—am—I—to—get—down?” shouted Lawrence again.Yussuf started out of his trance and answered:“Stay where you are. I will try and climb up.”“All right,” cried Lawrence from his eyrie.“Are you hurt, my boy?” cried Mr Preston; and his voice was repeated from the face of the rock on the other side.“No, not much,” came back faintly, for the boy’s voice was lost in the immensity of the place around.“We will come to you,” cried the professor, and he began to follow Yussuf, who was going forward to find the end of the mass of rock wall, and try to discover some way of reaching the shelf where the boy was standing with his horse.“Are you coming too, effendi?” said Yussuf at the end of a few minutes’ walking.“Yes,” said the professor. “You will wait here, will you not, Burne?”“Of course I shall—not,” said the old lawyer. “You don’t suppose that I am going to stand still and not make any effort to help the boy, do you, Preston? Hang it all, sir! he is as much interest to me as to you.”It was evident that Mr Burne was suffering from exhaustion, but he would not give in, and for the next two hours he clambered on after his companions, till it seemed hopeless to attempt farther progress along the defile in that direction, and they were about to go back in the other, to try and find a way up there, when Yussuf, who was ahead, suddenly turned a corner and uttered a cry of delight which brought his companions to his side.There was nothing very attractive to see when they reached him, only a rushing little torrent at the bottom of a rift hurrying to join the stream below; but it was full of moment to Yussuf, for it led upward, and it was a break in the great wall of rock.Yussuf explained this clearly, and, plunging down, he was in a few minutes holding out his hand to his companions, and pointing out that the path was easier a few yards on.So it proved, for the stream grew less, and they were able to climb up its bed with ease, finding, too, that it led in the direction they wanted to take, as well as upward, till, at the end of an hour, they were able to turn off along a steep slope with a wall of rock above them and another below.The obstacles they met with were plentiful enough, but not great; and at last, when they felt that they were fully a thousand feet above the torrent, and somewhere near the spot on which they had hailed Lawrence, Yussuf stopped, but no one was to be seen.“That must be the shelf below us yonder, effendi,” said the guide. “I seem to know it because of the big tree across the valley. Yes; that must be the shelf.”He led the way to try and descend to it, but that proved impossible, though it was only some fifty feet below.Retracing their steps they were still defeated, but, upon going forward once more, Yussuf found what was quite a crack in the rocks, some huge earthquake split which proved to be passable, in spite of the bushes and stones with which it was choked, and after a struggle they found themselves upon an extensive ledge of the mountain, but no Lawrence.“The wrong place, Yussuf,” said the professor, as Mr Burne seated himself, panting, upon a block of stone, and wiped his face.“No, effendi; but I am sure it was here,” said the Turk quietly. “Hush! what is that?”The sound came from beyond a mass of rock, which projected from the shelf over the edge of the precipice, the perpendicular rock seeming to fall from here sheer to the torrent, that looked small and silvery now from where they stood.“It is a horse feeding,” said Yussuf smiling. “They are over yonder.”The next minute they were by the projecting rock which cut the shelf in two.Yussuf went close to the edge, rested his hand upon the stone, and peered over.“Only a bird could get round there,” he said, shaking his head, and going to the slope above the ledge. “We must climb over.”Mr Burne looked up at the place where they were expected to climb with a lugubrious expression of countenance; but he jumped up directly, quite willing to make the attempt, and followed his companions.The climb proved less difficult than it seemed, and on reaching the top, some fifty feet above where they had previously stood, there below them stood Ali Baba, cropping the tender shoots of a large bush, and as soon as he caught sight of them he set up a loud neigh.There was no sign of Lawrence, though, until they had descended to the shelf on that side, when they found him lying upon the short growth fast asleep, evidently tired out with waiting.“My dear boy!” was on the professor’s lips; and he was about to start forward, but Yussuf caught him roughly by the shoulder, and held him back.“Hist! Look!” he whispered.Both the professor and Mr Burne stood chilled to the heart, for they could see the head of an ugly grey coarsely scaled viper raised above its coil, and gazing at them threateningly, after having been evidently alarmed by the noise which they had made.The little serpent had settled itself upon the lad’s bare throat, and a reckless movement upon the part of the spectators, a hasty waking on the sleeper’s part might end in a venomous bite from the awakened beast.“What shall we do, Yussuf?” whispered, the professor in a hoarse whisper. “I dare not fire.”“Be silent, effendi, and leave it to me,” was whispered back; and, while the two Englishmen looked on with their hearts beating anxiously, the Turk slowly advanced, taking the attention of the serpent more and more.As he approached, the venomous little creature crept from the boy’s neck on to his chest, and there paused, waving its head to and fro, and menacingly thrusting out its forked tongue.The danger to be apprehended was a movement upon the part of Lawrence, who appeared to be sleeping soundly, but who might at any moment awaken. Yussuf, however, was ready to meet the emergency, for he slowly continued to advance with his staff thrown back and held ready to strike, while, as he came nearer, the serpent seemed to accept the challenge, and crawled slowly forward, till it was upon a level with the lad’s hips.That was near enough for Yussuf, who noted how Lawrence’s hands were well out of danger, being beneath his head.He hesitated no longer, but advanced quickly, his companions watching his movements with the most intense interest, till the serpent raised itself higher, threw back its head, and seemed about to throw itself upon its advancing enemy.The rest was done in a flash, for there was a loudwhizzin the air as Yussuf’s staff swept over Lawrence, striking the serpent, rapid as was its action, low down in the body, and the virulent little creature, broken and helpless, was driven over the edge of the precipice to fall far away among the bushes below.“Hallo! what’s that?” cried Lawrence, starting up. “Oh, you’ve got here, then.”“Yes; we are here, my lad,” cried the professor, catching one hand, as the old lawyer took the other. “Are you much hurt?”“Only stiff and shaken. Ali made such a tremendous leap—I don’t know how far it was; and then he came down like an india-rubber ball, and bounded again and again till he could find good foothold, and then we slipped slowly till we could stop here, and it seemed as if we could go no farther.”“What an escape!” muttered Mr Burne, looking up.“Oh, it wasn’t there,” said Lawrence patting his little horse’s neck. “It must have been quite a quarter of a mile from here. But how did you come?”Yussuf explained, and then Mr Preston looked aghast at the rock they had climbed over.“Why, we shall have to leave the pony,” he said.“Oh, no, effendi,” replied Yussuf; “leave him to me. He can climb like a goat.”And so it proved, for the brave little beast, as soon as it was led to the task by the rein passed over its head, climbed after Yussuf, and in fact showed itself the better mountaineer of the two, while, after the rock was surmounted, and a descent made upon the other side, it followed its master in the arduous walk, slipping and gliding down the torrent-bed when they reached it, till at last they reached the greater stream, which to their delight had fallen to its regular summer volume, the effects of the storm having passed away, and the sandy bed being nearly bare.Theirs proved quite an easy task now, in spite of weariness; and as evening fell, they reached Hamed, camped by the roadside, with the horses grazing on the bushes and herbage, all being ready to salute Ali Baba with a friendly neigh.They had a long journey before them still; but there was only one thing to be done now—unpack the provisions, light a fire, make coffee, and try to restore some of their vigour exhausted by so many hours of toil.
The professor uttered a groan, and covered his eyes.
But only for a moment. The next he was descending from his horse, and beginning to clamber down the side of the precipice, but a cry from Yussuf stopped him.
“No, no, effendi. We must go back down to the side of the river and climb up. We cannot descend.”
It was so plain that the professor said nothing; but, as if yielding to the command of a superior officer, clambered back to the pathway, and all stood gazing down to where the slope ended and the perpendicular wall began.
There was nothing to see but the top of the wall of rock: nothing to hear but the hissing, roaring rush of the water far below.
“Come,” said Yussuf, turning his horse, and taking the lead in the descent along the path they had just reascended, down which, scrambling and slipping over the thawing ice, they crept slowly, looking in the midst of the stupendous chasm little bigger than flies.
The old lawyer trembled, while the professor’s cheeks looked sunken, his eyes hollow. No one spoke, and as they went on, the crunching of the half-melted hailstones and the click of the horses’ hoofs against the loosened stones sounded loudly in the clear air.
It was a perilous descent, for the horses were constantly slipping; but at last the bottom of the defile was reached, and the steeds being left in charge of Hamed, Yussuf turned sharply to the right, closely followed by Mr Preston and Mr Burne, to climb along the steep stone-burdened slope, where the flooded mountain torrent was just beneath them and threatening to sweep them away.
Yussuf turned from time to time to look at his companions, half expecting that they would not follow, for the way he took was extremely perilous, and he fully expected to see Mr Preston give up in despair. But, experienced as he was in the ways of Englishmen, he did not quite understand their nature, for not only was the professor toiling on over the mossy stones just behind him, but Mr Burne, with his face glistening in perspiration and a set look of determination in his features, was clambering up and sliding down with unwonted agility, but with a piteous look in his eyes which told how painfully he felt the position in which they were placed.
No one spoke, every effort being needed for the toilsome task, as they clambered along, now down in narrow rifts, now dragging themselves painfully over the rugged masses of rock which lay as they had fallen from the side of the defile, a couple of thousand feet above them. The scene would have appeared magnificent at another time; the colours of the rocks, the tufts of verdant bushes, the gloriously-mossed stones, the patches of white hail, and the glancing, rushing, and gleaming torrent, which was here deep and dark, there one sheet of white effervescing foam. But the hearts of all were too full, and their imaginations were painting the spectacle upon which they soon expected to gaze, namely, the terribly mutilated body of poor Lawrence, battered by his fall out of recognition.
One moment Mr Preston was asking himself how he could make arrangements for taking the remains of the poor lad home. At another he was thinking that it would be impossible, and that he must leave him sleeping in this far-off land. While, again, the course of his thoughts changed, and he found himself believing that poor Lawrence would have fallen and rolled on, and then, in company with the avalanche of loose stones set in motion by his horse’s hoof’s, have been plunged into the furious torrent, and been borne away never to be seen again.
A curious dimness came over the professor’s eyes, as he paused for a moment or two upon the top of a rock, to gaze before him. But there was nothing visible, for the defile at the bottom curved and zigzagged so that they could not see thirty yards before them, and where it was most straight the abundant foliage of the trees growing out of the cliffs rendered seeing difficult.
“It must have been somewhere here, effendi,” said Yussuf at last, pausing for the others to overtake him, and pointing upwards. “Let us separate now, and search about. You, Mr Burne, keep close down by the river; you, Mr Preston, go forward here; and I will climb up—it is more difficult—and search there. I will shout if I have anything to say.”
The professor looked up to find that he was at the foot of a mass of rock, high up on whose side there seemed to be a ledge, and then another steep ascent, broken by shelves of rock and masses which seemed to be ready to crumble down upon their heads.
Each man felt as if he ought to shout the lad’s name, and ask him to give some token of his whereabouts, but no one dared open his lips for the dread of the answer to the calls being only the echoes from the rocks above, while beneath there was the dull, hurrying roar of the torrent which rose and fell, seeming to fill the air with a curious hissing sound, and making the earth vibrate beneath their feet.
They were separating, with the tension of pain upon their minds seeming more than they could bear, when, all at once, from far above, there was a cry which made them start and gaze upward.
“Ahoy–y–oy!”
There was nothing visible, and they remained perfectly silent—listening, and feeling that they must have been mistaken; but just then a stone came bounding down, to fall some fifty feet in front, right on to a mass of rock, and split into a score of fragments.
Then again:
“Ahoy! Where are you all?”
“Lawrence, ahoy!” shouted the professor, with his hands to his mouth.
“Ahoy!” came again from directly overhead. “Here. How am I to get down?”
All started back as far as they could to gaze upward, and then remained silent, too much overcome by their emotion to speak, for there, perched up at least a thousand feet above them, stood Lawrence in an opening among the trees, right upon a shelf of rock. They could see his horse’s head beside him, and the feeling of awe and wonder at the escape had an effect upon the party below as if they had been stunned.
“How—am—I—to—get—down?” shouted Lawrence again.
Yussuf started out of his trance and answered:
“Stay where you are. I will try and climb up.”
“All right,” cried Lawrence from his eyrie.
“Are you hurt, my boy?” cried Mr Preston; and his voice was repeated from the face of the rock on the other side.
“No, not much,” came back faintly, for the boy’s voice was lost in the immensity of the place around.
“We will come to you,” cried the professor, and he began to follow Yussuf, who was going forward to find the end of the mass of rock wall, and try to discover some way of reaching the shelf where the boy was standing with his horse.
“Are you coming too, effendi?” said Yussuf at the end of a few minutes’ walking.
“Yes,” said the professor. “You will wait here, will you not, Burne?”
“Of course I shall—not,” said the old lawyer. “You don’t suppose that I am going to stand still and not make any effort to help the boy, do you, Preston? Hang it all, sir! he is as much interest to me as to you.”
It was evident that Mr Burne was suffering from exhaustion, but he would not give in, and for the next two hours he clambered on after his companions, till it seemed hopeless to attempt farther progress along the defile in that direction, and they were about to go back in the other, to try and find a way up there, when Yussuf, who was ahead, suddenly turned a corner and uttered a cry of delight which brought his companions to his side.
There was nothing very attractive to see when they reached him, only a rushing little torrent at the bottom of a rift hurrying to join the stream below; but it was full of moment to Yussuf, for it led upward, and it was a break in the great wall of rock.
Yussuf explained this clearly, and, plunging down, he was in a few minutes holding out his hand to his companions, and pointing out that the path was easier a few yards on.
So it proved, for the stream grew less, and they were able to climb up its bed with ease, finding, too, that it led in the direction they wanted to take, as well as upward, till, at the end of an hour, they were able to turn off along a steep slope with a wall of rock above them and another below.
The obstacles they met with were plentiful enough, but not great; and at last, when they felt that they were fully a thousand feet above the torrent, and somewhere near the spot on which they had hailed Lawrence, Yussuf stopped, but no one was to be seen.
“That must be the shelf below us yonder, effendi,” said the guide. “I seem to know it because of the big tree across the valley. Yes; that must be the shelf.”
He led the way to try and descend to it, but that proved impossible, though it was only some fifty feet below.
Retracing their steps they were still defeated, but, upon going forward once more, Yussuf found what was quite a crack in the rocks, some huge earthquake split which proved to be passable, in spite of the bushes and stones with which it was choked, and after a struggle they found themselves upon an extensive ledge of the mountain, but no Lawrence.
“The wrong place, Yussuf,” said the professor, as Mr Burne seated himself, panting, upon a block of stone, and wiped his face.
“No, effendi; but I am sure it was here,” said the Turk quietly. “Hush! what is that?”
The sound came from beyond a mass of rock, which projected from the shelf over the edge of the precipice, the perpendicular rock seeming to fall from here sheer to the torrent, that looked small and silvery now from where they stood.
“It is a horse feeding,” said Yussuf smiling. “They are over yonder.”
The next minute they were by the projecting rock which cut the shelf in two.
Yussuf went close to the edge, rested his hand upon the stone, and peered over.
“Only a bird could get round there,” he said, shaking his head, and going to the slope above the ledge. “We must climb over.”
Mr Burne looked up at the place where they were expected to climb with a lugubrious expression of countenance; but he jumped up directly, quite willing to make the attempt, and followed his companions.
The climb proved less difficult than it seemed, and on reaching the top, some fifty feet above where they had previously stood, there below them stood Ali Baba, cropping the tender shoots of a large bush, and as soon as he caught sight of them he set up a loud neigh.
There was no sign of Lawrence, though, until they had descended to the shelf on that side, when they found him lying upon the short growth fast asleep, evidently tired out with waiting.
“My dear boy!” was on the professor’s lips; and he was about to start forward, but Yussuf caught him roughly by the shoulder, and held him back.
“Hist! Look!” he whispered.
Both the professor and Mr Burne stood chilled to the heart, for they could see the head of an ugly grey coarsely scaled viper raised above its coil, and gazing at them threateningly, after having been evidently alarmed by the noise which they had made.
The little serpent had settled itself upon the lad’s bare throat, and a reckless movement upon the part of the spectators, a hasty waking on the sleeper’s part might end in a venomous bite from the awakened beast.
“What shall we do, Yussuf?” whispered, the professor in a hoarse whisper. “I dare not fire.”
“Be silent, effendi, and leave it to me,” was whispered back; and, while the two Englishmen looked on with their hearts beating anxiously, the Turk slowly advanced, taking the attention of the serpent more and more.
As he approached, the venomous little creature crept from the boy’s neck on to his chest, and there paused, waving its head to and fro, and menacingly thrusting out its forked tongue.
The danger to be apprehended was a movement upon the part of Lawrence, who appeared to be sleeping soundly, but who might at any moment awaken. Yussuf, however, was ready to meet the emergency, for he slowly continued to advance with his staff thrown back and held ready to strike, while, as he came nearer, the serpent seemed to accept the challenge, and crawled slowly forward, till it was upon a level with the lad’s hips.
That was near enough for Yussuf, who noted how Lawrence’s hands were well out of danger, being beneath his head.
He hesitated no longer, but advanced quickly, his companions watching his movements with the most intense interest, till the serpent raised itself higher, threw back its head, and seemed about to throw itself upon its advancing enemy.
The rest was done in a flash, for there was a loudwhizzin the air as Yussuf’s staff swept over Lawrence, striking the serpent, rapid as was its action, low down in the body, and the virulent little creature, broken and helpless, was driven over the edge of the precipice to fall far away among the bushes below.
“Hallo! what’s that?” cried Lawrence, starting up. “Oh, you’ve got here, then.”
“Yes; we are here, my lad,” cried the professor, catching one hand, as the old lawyer took the other. “Are you much hurt?”
“Only stiff and shaken. Ali made such a tremendous leap—I don’t know how far it was; and then he came down like an india-rubber ball, and bounded again and again till he could find good foothold, and then we slipped slowly till we could stop here, and it seemed as if we could go no farther.”
“What an escape!” muttered Mr Burne, looking up.
“Oh, it wasn’t there,” said Lawrence patting his little horse’s neck. “It must have been quite a quarter of a mile from here. But how did you come?”
Yussuf explained, and then Mr Preston looked aghast at the rock they had climbed over.
“Why, we shall have to leave the pony,” he said.
“Oh, no, effendi,” replied Yussuf; “leave him to me. He can climb like a goat.”
And so it proved, for the brave little beast, as soon as it was led to the task by the rein passed over its head, climbed after Yussuf, and in fact showed itself the better mountaineer of the two, while, after the rock was surmounted, and a descent made upon the other side, it followed its master in the arduous walk, slipping and gliding down the torrent-bed when they reached it, till at last they reached the greater stream, which to their delight had fallen to its regular summer volume, the effects of the storm having passed away, and the sandy bed being nearly bare.
Theirs proved quite an easy task now, in spite of weariness; and as evening fell, they reached Hamed, camped by the roadside, with the horses grazing on the bushes and herbage, all being ready to salute Ali Baba with a friendly neigh.
They had a long journey before them still; but there was only one thing to be done now—unpack the provisions, light a fire, make coffee, and try to restore some of their vigour exhausted by so many hours of toil.