Читать книгу Don Sturdy on the Desert of Mystery - Stratemeyer Edward - Страница 5

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Captain Sturdy gave a start and a sudden exclamation.

“What’s that you said?” he asked, eyeing Teddy keenly. “Find what?”

“The Cave of Emeralds,” repeated Teddy, in some surprise at the captain’s quickened interest. “You know, the cave that’s in the Hoggar Mountains and has a lot of treasure hidden in it. That’s what father was looking for when he was captured.”

“What made him think he could find it?” asked the captain, the spirit of adventure that Don knew so well coming into his eyes.

“He had a map,” answered Teddy. “He got it in some way from an old Bedouin chief. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve often seen him bending over it and studying it for hours at a time. I know he felt sure he was going to find the cave on this trip.”

For a few moments the captain stood silent, evidently thinking deeply. Then he roused himself, for he noticed how quickly the darkness was coming on.

“We’ve got to get back to town,” he said, picking up his rifle and leading the way. “Come, Don. Come along, Teddy. By the way, can’t you come with us to the hotel? I’m going to take charge of you now, if you are willing, until we can find your father.”

“Oh, are you going to look for him?” cried Teddy, delight coming into his eyes.

“Are you really, Uncle Frank?” exclaimed Don, with an excitement almost equal to that of Teddy himself.

“Of course I am,” replied the captain emphatically. “Do you suppose that I, an American, can let another American remain in the power of a lot of rascally bandits if it’s in any way possible to rescue him? Why, I’d be ashamed to look at myself in the glass. I’m going to move heaven and earth to find him. I’ll try to get the French authorities here to do something. I’ll make efforts to get our own country interested in his behalf. And, by ginger, if it’s necessary, I’ll go and hunt for him myself!” he ended explosively.

“Oh, if you do, I’ll never forget it as long as I live!” declared Teddy.

“That will be splendid, Uncle Frank!” cried Don, the admiration he had always felt for his uncle now verging on adoration.

Don had been profoundly moved by Teddy’s story. He would have felt deep sympathy for him in any event, but he was especially affected because it brought to his mind his own great loss. It was even greater than that of his newly found friend. Teddy had not been conscious of his mother’s death, and his present grief concerned only his father. But Don, at one blow, had lost, as far as he knew to the contrary, father, mother and sister. And the tragedy of that probable loss had come to him with redoubled force, as he had listened to Teddy’s narrative. His heart was torn with pain and grief.

He was aroused from the bitter contemplation of his loss by the captain’s voice.

“You haven’t answered my question, Teddy. Are you coming along with us to the hotel now? Or will you come over later?”

“I think,” said Teddy, with a little hesitation, “that I’d better not come just now, though I’d love to. But Alam and his wife will be worried about me if I don’t get back there pretty soon. They’ve been awfully good to me, and I don’t want to do anything that will make them feel bad.”

“Right you are, my boy,” agreed the captain heartily. “I think all the more of you for thinking of your old friends and not forgetting them for the new. Where does this Alam live?”

“In the native quarter, about half a mile from the hotel,” answered Teddy.

“Well,” said the captain, “suppose you go home to supper. A little later come over to the hotel and bring Alam with you. I’m curious to see the man who has been so kind to you. Then, too, I want to thank him in the name of all Americans for what he has done for an American boy.”

“I’ll tell him,” promised Teddy. “I think very likely he’ll come. But I’ll be there anyway.”

By this time they had reached the outskirts of the town, and here they parted, Teddy going through one of the narrow streets that turned off toward the native quarter, while Don and his uncle pursued their way to the hotel. They found Professor Bruce waiting for them, not a little uneasy because of their prolonged absence.

“What on earth kept you so long?” he asked. “A little while longer, and I’d have organized a party to look for you.”

“Sorry to have worried you, Amos,” returned the captain. “A rather unusual thing occurred and delayed us. But let’s go in to dinner now, and while we’re eating we’ll tell you all about it.”

Don was so excited that he paid very little attention to the meal. He was even content to let Captain Sturdy tell the story and he listened to his uncles discussing the event in which he had played so large a part. The professor showed keen interest in the captain’s narrative, and when he had heard the whole story sat silent for some time toying absently with his spoon while his coffee remained untasted.

“Well, what do you think of it, Amos?” asked Captain Sturdy.

The professor roused himself from his abstraction.

“I think you did right in promising the poor lad to help rescue his father,” he said. “I’m with you heart and soul in that, although it lets us in for a pretty big contract. And of course we’ll take the boy under our guardianship until we find his father or restore him to his friends or relatives in America. Poor little chap! He’s had a hard row to hoe.”

“What do you think about this Cave of Emeralds?” asked the captain.

“It’s a mighty romantic story,” was the reply. “It sounds to me something like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Still, there may be something in it. From the boy’s story, it seems that his father had something practical to go upon, or he would never have undertaken such a hazardous expedition; and I’ve seen so many wonderful things in these Eastern lands that I seldom say that anything’s impossible on first hearing.”

“The whole thing will stand a lot of hard thinking,” returned the captain. “But I think we can make it fit in fairly well with the purpose for which we came to the Sahara. Our plans, you know, comprised a trip to the Hoggar Plateau, in the heart of the desert, and it’s somewhere in that vicinity that Teddy’s father was captured. We’ll be able to hunt for him without turning much aside from our original plans. It’s somewhere in that Hoggar district, probably, that the Cave of Emeralds lies, if it exists at all. It was toward that the party was heading when the raid occurred.

“I don’t know when anything has taken a stronger hold on me than that matter of the emeralds,” went on the captain. “Precious stones have always had a fascination for me just for their beauty, the liquid light that sparkles in them. It’s a delight just to handle them.”

“To say nothing of the glittering gold coin for which they may be exchanged,” remarked the professor, with a smile.

“Oh, that’s not to be scorned either,” admitted the captain, laughing. “Think of it, Amos! It would make us rich for life. We would be our own masters, do what we please, go where we please. You could devote yourself to science just for its own sake. I could roam anywhere I chose all over the surface of the globe. And Don here—”

“I could travel everywhere looking for my father and mother and sister!” broke in Don a little unsteadily, expressing the wish that was ever uppermost in his heart.

“And that would be the worthiest object of all,” said the professor gently.

There was silence for a moment as their thoughts went out after the missing ones, inexpressibly dear to them all.

“Well,” said the professor, rousing himself, “it seems worth an effort. It’s a well known fact that in ancient times emeralds were comparatively abundant in this region, and some are still found here. The story may have a foundation of fact. But it will be no light task. The Sahara itself is almost as large as all Europe, and the Hoggar Plateau is a terrible district, full of chasms, precipices, and peopled by robbers.”

“Yet the Cave of Emeralds is probably in that very region,” remarked the captain.

“It’s in that direction, too, that the Cemetery of Elephants is to be found, if what I heard this afternoon is true,” returned the professor. “You remember that when I left you, I told you I was going to hunt up a native who seemed to know something about it?”

“Yes, I remember,” replied the captain. “But you didn’t seem very sanguine about getting any genuine information.”

“Well, I found him, and I was agreeably disappointed,” was the reply. “He’s really one of the most intelligent natives I’ve had the luck to come across. Steeped in superstition, of course, like all of them, but outside of that he was very keen and well informed. Seems to know the desert like a book. Sort of camel breaker by profession; master of camels, is the title he goes by.”

“Do you remember his name?” asked Don eagerly.

“He told me what it was, but I don’t know that I can recall it,” replied the professor. “Some outlandish name—Salaam or something like that.”

“Was it Alam Bokaru?” asked Don, his eyes shining with excitement.

“That sounds like it,” replied the professor, a little surprised. “Why?”

“Because that’s probably the man who saved Teddy from the bandits,” answered Don. “That was the name Teddy mentioned, and he said that he was a master of camels.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed the professor with interest. “Well, if he’s the man, Teddy couldn’t have fallen into better hands. He struck me as an upright, self-respecting man—much superior to the usual run of natives with whom I have come in contact.”

“I hope he comes with Teddy to-night,” said Don.

“So do I,” returned the professor. “I want not only to thank him for what he has done for an American boy, but also to get some more information from him. This is not the land of hustle and push, and it takes time to learn anything from the natives.”

“Perhaps Alam knows something about the Cave of Emeralds,” put in Don.

“Quite possible,” assented the captain, rising from the table, while the others followed his example. “We’d better go up to our sitting room now and wait for him—that is, if Teddy brings him along with him.”

“Couldn’t we wait for him on the veranda, or, better yet, on the roof?” suggested Don. “It would be ever so much cooler.”

“I know it would,” returned the captain, with a smile. “But when we get to talking about hidden treasure, it’ll be safer to be within four walls.”

“You know the old saying that ‘even the walls have ears’,” put in the professor dryly.

“Yes,” laughed the captain. “But, at any rate, they don’t have tongues, and they can’t tell what they hear.”

They went up to their suite, the captain having left word with the clerk that he expected visitors and that they were to be sent directly up to him when they came. It was not long before a tap came on the door, and Don sprang to open it.

“Come right in, Teddy,” he said, when he saw his new comrade standing there a little abashed. “Bring your friend with you,” he added, as he saw a tall figure in native garb standing beside him.

The two visitors entered the room, and the captain and professor rose to greet them.

“So you’ve come, Teddy,” said the captain, taking him by the hand. “This is Don’s other uncle, Professor Bruce, whom we’ve told all about you.”

The professor greeted Teddy with a friendliness and sympathy that put the latter immediately at ease.

“And this,” continued the captain, with a friendly nod toward the Arab, into whose eyes had come a look of pleased recognition as they fell on the professor, “is, I suppose, the man to whom you owe your life.”

“Yes,” said Teddy gratefully, “the man who has been like a second father to me—Alam Bokaru, master of camels.”

They exchanged salutations, the Arab bowing in a stately manner, which, while it expressed a touch of deference, had in it no taint of servility.

He was a tall, spare man with a pair of flashing, black eyes, an aquiline nose and a regularity of feature that betrayed Arab blood without any admixture. There was about him a certain dignity that commanded respect. Courage and self-reliance were plainly manifest in face and manner. He conveyed the impression of one who could be a steadfast friend and a dangerous enemy.

He refused a chair, but seated himself upon some pillows that the captain pulled off the lounge.

His English was imperfect, and though he could understand much that was said to him in that language, he spoke it with hesitation. This was no bar to conversation, however, for the professor spoke Arabic almost like a native, and the captain knew enough of it for ordinary purposes. So that it was in that language that most of the talk was conducted.

After the Americans had thanked him warmly in the name of their countrymen for what he had done for Teddy, the professor launched into the matters that he and the captain had talked over at table.

During the animated conversation that followed, the captain listened intently, catching its import only in part, while Don and Teddy chatted together in a corner of the room.

“Don,” asked Teddy, “did your uncle, Captain Sturdy, mean that I should come here to the hotel to stay with you?”

“He certainly did, Teddy.”

“Gee, how nice that would be after staying in Alam’s house! But, Don, they’ve been awfully good to me, and I saw at supper time that Alam’s wife would think it impolite if I left so suddenly—she’d call me a barbarian,” and the boy chuckled. “I guess I’d better go back to-night and take a longer time to say ‘thank you’ and ‘good-bye.’”

“All right. You know best about that. I’ll tell Uncle Frank and Uncle Amos.”

At last a pause came in the talk between Professor Bruce and Alam, and the captain broke in with a question.

“How about it, Amos?” he asked.

“Well,” said the professor, with a wry smile, “he says that we may find the Cemetery of Elephants. He says we may find Teddy’s father. He says we may find the Cave of Emeralds. But there’s one thing he’s sure we’ll find.”

“What’s that?” asked the captain eagerly.

“Death!”