ON THE TRAIL
Only hours now separated Don from his mother, provided that she was
still in Alexandria. But he had been thwarted so many times in the
search for his dear ones, the cup of happy expectation had been so
often dashed to the ground just as he was lifting it to his lips, that
he scarcely dared to hope that this time his longing would be realized.
What might have happened since he had embarked at New York? Perhaps she
was ill. Possibly she had been called away from the city by some clew
as to the whereabouts of her husband. As to the possibility that he
might find both of his parents reunited--Don scarcely dared hope for
that.
He packed up all his belongings so that everything would be in
readiness, and then paced the deck in a fever of impatience.
The steamer seemed to be only creeping along. Yet it was plowing
through the water at a rapid speed that only slowed down when they
neared the older of the two harbors of the famous Mediterranean city.
Captain Sturdy and Professor Bruce were almost as agitated as Don
himself, though they managed to maintain more of a curb on their
emotions. Teddy, too, was wrought up because of his keen sympathy with
his friend.
Phalos bade them all a cordial good-bye just before they landed.
“Though it is really _au revoir_ instead of good-bye,” he said, with a
genial smile, “for I am going to hold you strictly to your promise to
come to see me in Cairo as soon as you reach there, and, if possible,
make my house your headquarters. I shall never forget,” he added,
turning to Don and Teddy, “what you did for me in saving my--property
and quite probably my life. You may count upon me for all I can do in
helping you to find Mr. Sturdy.”
They thanked him, and promised that they would surely see him in Cairo.
They landed amid clamor and hubbub, the cries of porters and pleadings
of beggars that are inseparable from all the seaports of the East. To
these they paid no attention, but hailed a taxicab and drove through
the large handsome streets of the European quarter to the hotel from
which Mrs. Sturdy had dispatched her cablegram.
“Is a Mrs. Richard Sturdy among your guests?” asked the captain, as the
party went up to the desk.
Don’s heart was in his throat as he listened for the answer.
“Yes,” was the reply. “Do you wish to see her?” and he reached for the
desk telephone.
“No need of announcing us,” broke in Don. “These gentlemen are her
brothers and I am her son. We will go right up, if you please.”
The clerk summoned a bellboy, who rose languidly and came toward them.
“Hurry, hurry!” urged Don, slipping a coin into his hand. “See how
quickly you can lead us there.”
There was a noticeable quickening of step on the part of the attendant
as he moved toward the elevator.
“I guess I’ll stay down here till you send for me,” said Teddy
hesitatingly.
“No, you won’t!” exclaimed Don, reaching out and pulling him in with
him.
They ascended to the second floor, and hurried down the hall to a door
at which their guide pointed.
Don was in the van, and with a trembling hand knocked on the door. It
opened almost instantly, and a sweet-faced, slender woman, still young,
though there were lines of care on her forehead, stood before them.
“Mother! Mother!” cried Don, and threw himself in her arms.
“Don! My precious boy! Oh, my dear boy!” cried Mrs. Sturdy, sobbing
with happiness as she folded Don close to her heart.
She hugged and kissed him and patted his hair, standing him off at
times to look into his face and then drawing him again to her as though
she would never let him go.
Don’s arms were about her. Tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he tried
incoherently to tell how much he loved her and had missed her and how
delighted he was that at last he had found her.
Now it was the turn of the captain and the professor, who had stood
aside for a moment while mother and son were tasting the first bliss
of reunion. Their eyes too were moist, as they embraced the sister and
sister-in-law who was unspeakably dear to them and for whom they had
searched over so large a part of the world.
It was a long time before the members of the happy excited group had
gained some measure of control over themselves. Then Don seated his
mother in a chair, on the arm of which he sat, holding her hand as
though he felt he must keep close grip on her, lest she should vanish
and he awake to find it all a dream.
The others drew up their chairs, and it was then for the first time
that Don noticed that Teddy was not with them.
“Where’s Teddy?” he asked, as he looked around the room.
“Outside in the hall, I imagine,” replied the professor. “He probably
feels shy about coming into what is so strictly a family party.”
“Who’s Teddy?” asked Mrs. Sturdy, with a smile.
“A friend of mine who came along with us,” explained Don. “We met him
when we were in the Sahara, and it was his father who first gave us
news of the sinking of the _Mercury_. He hasn’t any mother. He’s a
splendid fellow, Mother. You’ll love him.”
“Of course, I shall, if he’s a friend of yours,” said Mrs. Sturdy. “And
I’ll be a mother to him, as far as I can, if he will let me.”
“May I bring him in?” asked Don eagerly.
“Surely.”
Don dashed out of the door, found Teddy leaning against the wall of the
corridor, grabbed him and dragged him in.
“Here he is, Mother,” he sang out, releasing his captive. “This is
Teddy Allison, the best pal a fellow ever had.”
Whatever shyness Teddy might have felt was banished at once by the
warmth with which Mrs. Sturdy drew him to her and gave him a hug,
putting him at ease at once.
There was a host of questions from Mrs. Sturdy regarding Ruth, who, the
captain in his cablegram had assured her, was safe with them at home.
When these queries had been satisfactorily answered, she in turn told
them of the adventures of herself and her husband after they had been
rescued from the _Mercury_.
Tears came into her eyes as, in response to their first eager
queries, she told them that nothing had developed as to her husband’s
whereabouts since she had sent her cablegram.
“I’ve searched everywhere,” she said. “I’ve written and telegraphed
to all parts of Egypt. At first I was crippled for lack of funds,
but after I received the money you sent I employed private detective
agencies as well. But all of it has resulted in nothing. It is as
though he has vanished off the face of the earth.”
At this point she broke down.
“Oh, if you knew how I have suffered!” she said. “If you only knew!”
Don hugged her and tried to comfort her, and the professor patted her
hand consolingly.
“Never mind, Alice,” he said. “We’re with you now, and we’ll search the
whole length and breadth of Egypt.”
“We’ll find him,” asserted the captain, the very bigness of him adding
power to the conviction in his tone. “You’ve had an awful burden to
bear, you poor girl, but now, as far as you can, you must shift it to
our shoulders.”
She looked at them gratefully through her tears.
“It would not be so bad,” she resumed, “if he went by his right name
or if he even knew his name. Then it might be easy to trace him. But
all we have to go by is a description of him, and that might so easily
apply to many others that you can’t place much reliance on it.
“It’s all been like a hideous nightmare since the _Mercury_ went down,”
she resumed. “Richard’s head was hurt by a block that struck him in the
confusion of getting off into the boat. The wound healed, however, and
for the first few days he seemed to be all right. It was only after we
had been landed at Bahia in Brazil and had started on our trip overland
to Martin Clifton’s house, from which we expected to sail for the
United States in the private yacht he offered to place at our disposal,
that I began to notice something queer about him. His mind seemed to be
dwelling more and more on Egypt. You know he spent a good deal of time
exploring there before the war.”
“Yes, I know,” said the professor, and the captain nodded in assent.
“He kept talking about the Valley of the Kings in Egypt,” went on Mrs.
Sturdy. “At first I’d try to change the subject and get him to talk of
other things. But he always came back to the one thing that engrossed
his mind. Then he would talk half to himself about figures and
measurements. He had a tape measure and would go about the rooms in Mr.
Clifton’s house and get their length and breadth and height. Then he
would put them down on a piece of paper and after studying them would
mutter. ‘That isn’t it. Must try further.’”
“Just the very thing you found scribbled on those bits of paper among
his memoranda, Uncle Amos!” ejaculated Don. “He was looking for some
special thing, something of which he already had the measurements.”
“I’m sure it was a tomb of some kind he had in mind,” said Don’s
mother. “Again and again he would break out with something about the
Tombs of Gold--”
“The Tombs of Gold!” exclaimed Don, with a start. “Why, that is what
those fellows were trying to get information about from that old
Egyptian!”
“The old Egyptian?” repeated Mrs. Sturdy inquiringly.
“A man we met on the boat coming here,” explained Don. “A man named
Phalos. I’ll tell you all about him later. But go on, mother.”
“All I could think of was of getting back home as soon as possible, so
that Richard could get the medical care that he needed,” his mother
continued. “But we were delayed in starting, and all the time he kept
getting worse. Oh, it was terrible to see such a splendid intellect
losing itself in delusion,” she sobbed. “Again and again I felt that I
would go crazy myself.”
“Poor, dear mother!” said Don, putting his arms around her neck.
“One night,” resumed Mrs. Sturdy, when she could speak coherently,
“there was a terrific storm. The thunder and lightning seemed to affect
him strongly and bring things to a climax. He and Ruth and I were
seated in our room when he suddenly started up, shouting, ‘I must go
to Egypt,’ and rushed out into the darkness. I rushed out after him
calling to him to stop and come back. The thunder may have drowned my
voice, but at any rate he didn’t heed me and kept on.”
Tears came into Don’s eyes as he pictured his gently nurtured mother
running in a frenzy of anxiety and grief after his distraught father in
the rain and darkness.
“No one was abroad in that terrible storm,” went on Mrs. Sturdy. “There
was nobody I could get to help me. Richard kept on till he got to the
river side. There was a vessel moored to the wharf and he jumped on
board. I saw him stumble and disappear. I leaped after him and stumbled
into an open hatchway. That was all I knew for a long time afterward.”
Don hugged her convulsively, too overcome to trust himself to speak,
while the professor and the captain were not ashamed of the tears that
came into their eyes.
“When I came to myself,” resumed Don’s mother, “I was in total
darkness. My head was dizzy, and it was some time before I realized
what had happened. Then it all came back to me. I could tell from the
pitching and the swaying that the vessel was in motion. I felt about
me and found your father near by. He was unconscious. After a while he
came to himself in part, though he was still dazed.
“Then I found a pole and hammered at the hatch until they heard me and
the cover was taken off. They brought us up on deck. I found that we
were on a vessel bound for the Mediterranean. There was no wireless on
board, so that I could not communicate with any one on shore. But the
captain and everybody on board were very kind to us when I had told
my story. There was enough money in Richard’s pockets to pay for our
passage and leave a modest amount when we should reach shore. It was a
long voyage and a most trying one. The worst of it was that Richard no
longer recognized me. He declared that he had never seen me before. He
had the delusion that he was King Ingot of the Bars of Gold.”
“Poor father! Poor mother!” murmured Don, his heart wrung by the
narration.
“But why didn’t you cable us the instant you got to shore?” asked the
captain.
“I should have done so, of course,” was the reply. “But I kept hoping
that Richard would recover, and for his sake I wanted to keep the
matter secret from everybody who knew him, even from you. I knew it
would be a mortifying memory for him all through his life to have it
known that he had been insane. Any man would feel that way, and Richard
is very sensitive. If he had recovered, I would never have divulged the
secret, and I would have put Ruth, too, under a pledge of silence.”
“I understand, and it does you credit,” said the captain.
“Finally,” went on Mrs. Sturdy, “we reached this city, and I got
Richard on shore and under the care of a physician. But nothing could
be done, the doctor said, except to keep him as quiet and composed as
possible and depend upon the healing hand of Time to set his poor mind
aright. Physically, he was in good condition, for the sea voyage had
been beneficial.
“But instead of getting better mentally, he steadily grew more
irrational. The very fact that he was now in Egypt, the atmosphere, the
language, the heat, the sights, the sounds, emphasized his delusion.
Night and day he kept dwelling on the Valley of the Kings. He would
declare that he was the king of the Valley of the Kings, and that
he must go and look after his kingdom. And one day he eluded me and
disappeared. No one had seen him go. No one knew where he had gone.
It was then that I cabled to you. And now you are here, and, oh, how
thankful I am!”
Once more she broke into a storm of weeping, for the strain of the
narration and the picture it had brought up before her were too much
for her overtaxed strength.
The others soothed and comforted her to the extent of their power.
“You’ve been just wonderful,” declared Don, as he hugged her to him.
“A perfect heroine,” asserted her brother. “Not one woman in a thousand
could have stood up under such a strain.”
“I’m mighty proud of you, Alice,” said the captain, his voice husky
with emotion. “But now all the work and responsibility are going to
be taken off your overburdened shoulders. It’s up to us now. You must
just rest and relax, or you, too, will break down completely. And,
please God, we’ll bring Richard back to you, and with care and the
greatest skill that we can command, it won’t be long before he’s his
old splendid self again. Then this terrible thing will be nothing more
to you than a dreadful dream.”
Under their thoughtful ministrations and the delight and reassurance
that their presence gave her, Mrs. Sturdy gradually recovered her
composure. They refused to let her talk any longer just then about her
husband’s disappearance, and chatted with her about Hillville and Ruth
and the other members of the household, Don bringing a smile from her
at Jennie’s remark about her mistress being all alone in “the land of
the Pigamids and the Spinach.”
After a while the captain and the professor, taking Teddy along with
them, went out to attend to the pressing matters in hand. Don stayed
with his mother to tell her of his adventures in the Sahara and Brazil
and the thousand other things that she was eager to know about.
The experience that Don’s uncles had acquired in their travels about
the world stood them in good stead in the present situation. Professor
Bruce knew the language almost as well as he did his own, and both were
tactful and at the same time masterful in dealing with the native races
of the East.
Before night fell they had learned by inquiries in the native quarters
that a man corresponding to Richard Sturdy’s description had secured
a small party to go with him on an exploring expedition. There had
been no explicit mention of the Valley of the Kings, but the party had
started south in that direction.
Had they noticed anything peculiar about the man? the professor asked.
“Well, Allah seems to have set a mark on him,” his informant replied.
“His eyes were bright and he said that he was a king. But, after all,
many kings visit Egypt. And then, all foreigners are queer. He promised
to pay his men well and to double or treble their pay if he was
successful in finding what he was going for. So there were plenty that
were willing to go.”
This was much, but it was not enough, and the two American men, still
accompanied by Teddy, prosecuted their researches untiringly until they
found the wife of one of the party who had accompanied the bright-eyed
man, and she had heard her husband say that he was going to the Valley
of the Kings.
“So far, so good!” exclaimed Captain Sturdy, as, tired but exultant,
they made their way to the European quarter.
“We at least have a goal to aim for,” declared the professor.