With the greatest confidence in the strange Arab girl, Madcap
Max followed her, without asking any question until she suddenly
extinguished the torch.
“Why did you do that?” he inquired.
The girl did not answer in words, but dextrously placed her hand over
his mouth and held it there so tightly that Max could scarcely breathe.
He struggled to release himself, but she was strong, and to add to her
power, she whispered:
“Get free and I’ll kill thee!”
However disagreeable it might be it was better to have a pretty girl’s
hand over his mouth than to be killed, and therefore Max made no
further resistance.
A slight noise, like the dropping of water on rocks, attracted his
attention.
“Do you hear that?” asked his guide.
“Yes; what is it?”
“Hush! Speak in whisper only. Thine enemies seek thee.”
“And if they find?”
“Will kill. I will save, if----”
“What?”
“Thou hast courage. Come, then, hold to my dress and follow. The least
noise may seal thy fate and mine.”
“Who art thou, mysterious one? What is thy name?”
“Name, as thou wouldst say, I have several; to thee I am Girzilla. Let
that be my name.”
“I will call thee Gazelle.”
“No, no, no. Girzilla, or nothing at all. Come.”
Whoever the girl with the strange name might be, she evidently knew her
way, for never once did her foot slip, although Max found his ankles
turning every minute, and had he not a firm hold on Girzilla’s dress,
which, though of gauzy linen, seemed as strong as a hempen cord, he
would have fallen frequently.
“Sit down!”
The words were uttered very abruptly, and were in the nature of a
command.
Max did as ordered, and sat in silence--a silence so great that he
could hear the beating of his heart, and fancied that he could also
distinguish the pulsations of his guide’s organ of life at the same
time. The silence was almost unbearable, and Max grew fidgety and
restless.
“I have got into some queer streets before this, but I confess this is
the strangest,” he mused.
“To save thee, thou must go through the place of the dead.”
The voice was that of Girzilla, but it sounded so sepulchral that
Madcap Max felt a cold shiver pass over him.
“Hast thou courage?” she asked.
“I--h-have,” he stammered, his teeth chattering with nervous fear of
the unknown.
“Come!”
Once more the journey was resumed, and Girzilla walked slower than
before.
Suddenly Max got such a rap on the head that it made him groan with
pain.
“Stoop. Better still, crawl,” said the girl, almost contemptuously.
Max felt humiliated, but he was in a quandary.
He could not go back, for he did not know the way, and he dare not go
forward alone, for he was afraid.
Girzilla seemed to read his thoughts, for she laughed softly and
murmured:
“Poor boy! He will have to trust his Girzilla; she will save him.”
Stooping until his head was only a few inches higher than his knees, he
followed as well as he could.
Very soon the way became easier to travel, and a glimmer of light
showed that the sun had risen again, and found some crevice through
which it sent its heavenly rays.
Gradually the light increased, and the road became better.
The sand was so hot, however, that Max felt the shoes on his feet
drying up, and even baking.
He resolved to remove them, and the hot sand blistered his tender feet.
High up above him was an opening, through which the light and heat came.
“If one of thy enemies shouldst see thee, a little stone from
there”--and Girzilla pointed upward--“would make thee fit for a mummy.”
Again the spinal marrow in Max’s back seemed turned to ice, and he was
almost afraid to glance upward.
“Where are we?”
“Under the temple of great Isis.”
“Under?”
“Yes, Isis had the temple high above where thou dost stand.”
“Lead on; I would know more of these mysterious passages, but I am
hungry and cold.”
“Just now thou wert hot.”
“Yes, I am chilled and yet feverish.”
“Come, my gentle boy, and Girzilla will take thee where thou canst
rest.”
A few yards and a sudden turn, and the narrow passageway gave place to
a large plateau, on which huge bowlders were scattered promiscuously.
Scattered--apparently too large for human hands to move, and yet they
bore evidence of having been transported thither.
They were of red granite, while the native rocks were of a different
stone.
Max, tired and weary, sat down on one of the granite blocks, but he
quickly left his seat.
He leaped away as though he had been stung by a viper.
Girzilla laughed at him, which of course added to his annoyance.
The stone was as hot as an oven bottom, and poor Max felt he would be
baked or fried if he stayed there a minute.
Girzilla moved round one of the great bowlders and began scratching
away the sand.
“Come and help,” she called out to Max, who was sulking since she had
laughed at him.
“The way we must go is under this stone.”
“Under that stone!” repeated Max.
“Yes; there is only a small hole, but we must go through it.”
The girl was right.
The hole was so small that she could only just squeeze herself through,
while the madcap declared he would not descend.
“Very well, then, you must save yourself.”
The prospect was not pleasing, and Max managed to follow the girl,
though in doing so he tore his clothes and scratched his face.
But once down, he was amply repaid.
The cave, or hole, led to a large room, the atmosphere of which was
charmingly cool.
Girzilla had lighted her torch, and seated herself on an open
sarcophagus.
She was a happy-go-lucky kind of creature, fearing nothing, and having
no superstitious dread of sitting on the stone coffin, wherein was
dust, which had once been molded in human form.
“I have food here.”
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Yes; art thou not hungry?”
“I am. But the place is a tomb.”
“Hush! Better men than thou lived here.”
“Have been buried here, you mean?”
“Years and years ago a brave man fled from those who would kill him,
and sought refuge here.”
“Tell me of him.”
“He fought--oh, my, didn’t he fight? He cut right and left with his
scimiter, and when he got tired he spurred his horse and made a run for
liberty.”
“Did you know him?”
“Stupid! do I look so old, then?” and Girzilla looked coquettishly at
Madcap.
“I don’t know how long it is ago; how should I?”
“Don’t get naughty again. The man was a soldier, a Mameluke----”
“What! Was it Emin Bey?”
“That was how he was called.”
“Tell me all about him. Where did he go? Had he any sons? Tell me, I am
all impatience.”
“I see you are; but you must eat.”
This houri of the caves--a strange child of the desert--pushed aside
the lid of another sarcophagus and took therefrom a piece of confection
known as Turkish delight.
She offered it to Max, but he turned away.
Girzilla bit off a large piece and sat chewing it with all the ardor
with which a Kentucky girl chews gum.
“Good!” she said, as she helped herself to another bite.
Approaching close to Max she held the confection close to his mouth,
and he was tempted to take a small piece.
It was so appetizing that he asked for more.
When the gum candy was all eaten Girzilla found some bread--cakes baked
in the sun, not in an oven--and some fruit, but what kind it was Max
did not know.
He ate heartily and felt refreshed.
But he was thirsty.
Girzilla knew that, and produced a bottle of the most delicious sherbet
he had ever tasted.
When the repast was finished Girzilla told Max that he must stay there
until she came for him.
“Am I to be here alone?”
“Certainly. I must go and provide a means of escape for thee.”
“Tell me first why you have done all this for me.”
“I have my reasons.”
“And will you not tell me?”
“I heard thee speak to him who is not----”
“You mean my father?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When thou didst tell him that thou wouldst like to eat salt with the
sons of Emin Bey.”
“And are you interested?”
“I have Mameluke blood in my veins. Find the descendant of Emin and he
will restore Egypt to its greatness--I have said it, and the prophet
hath spoken.”
“And will you help me?”
“If I can. I--had--another--reason----”
Girzilla hesitated, paused between her words, looked confused, and
really blushed.
“And that was----” asked Max.
“Why should I not tell thee? I will save thee, even though I lose thee.
I will prevent thy enemies taking thee, even if thou spurned me ever
after. Oh! how shall I say it? Thou art the handsomest man I ever saw,
and--I--love--thee.”
Before Max could recover from his astonishment she had fled.
Her secret had been revealed, and, modest maiden as she was, she felt
she could not meet the eyes of the youth to whom she had confessed her
love.