"Good morning, Frank, my lad," said Doctor Morris, shaking hands upon
the young man entering his study. "Ready for business?"
"Ready, yes," was the reply, made with feverish haste. "Am I late?"
"Late? No," said the doctor, glancing at the clock on the study
mantelpiece. "Half an hour before the time."
"Oh, nonsense; that thing's wrong. Ever so much slow."
"Don't you insult my clock, my boy," said the doctor. "It keeps as good
time as any one in London. It's you who are too fast. Keep cool, my
lad, keep cool."
"Who can keep cool at a time like this?" said Frank impatiently.
"You, if you try. Surgeons have to. Important work requires cool
heads."
"I'll try," said Frank briefly.
"Fred Landon was right last night in putting matters off till this
morning, so that we could all have a good night's rest."
Frank looked quickly up at his brother's old school-fellow with
something like envy, as he sat there softly stroking the great, dark
brown beard, which flowed pretty well all over the breast of the heavy
blue dressing-gown, tied with thick silk cords about his waist, and
thought what a fine-looking specimen of humanity he was; while the
doctor at the same time scanned the rather thin, anxious face before him
and mused to himself--
"Poor Frank! the boy looks pulled down and careworn, and this has
completely upset him. I must take him in hand a bit. He has been
working too hard, too, over his chemistry."
Just then their eyes met, and Frank coloured a little, as if
self-conscious.
"I was afraid Landon would be here first," he said hurriedly, "and that
you would both be waiting for me."
"You ought to have known him better," said the doctor, laughing. "Fred
Landon never is first at any meeting. I always allow him an hour's
latitude."
"Oh, surely he will not be late this morning?" cried Frank anxiously.
"I hope not; but he may be. Of course he meant to be punctual, and I
have no doubt he got up and breakfasted extra early; but anything takes
off his attention--a book, a drawing, a note about Egypt--and he forgets
everything else. You should have called in the Temple this morning and
brought him on."
"Of course! I didn't think of that. Here, I'll go and fetch him at
once."
"No, no; give him time. Perhaps he will have been thinking so seriously
about poor Harry, that for once he will be punctual."
"Here he is!" cried Frank excitedly, as a thundering knock was heard at
the front door, and he sprang up in his anxiety to go and open to their
friend himself.
"No, no; don't do that," cried the doctor, smiling. "Sam would be
disgusted."
"Oh, I can't stop to think about Sam's feelings now," cried Frank
hurriedly.
"But you must keep cool. Look here, Frank, you are eighteen, and pretty
well a man grown."
"What has that to do with it?" said the lad impatiently.
"Only this," said the doctor gravely; "we want manly action now, and you
are as impatient as a boy of twelve."
At that moment the professor entered the room, hooked stick in hand, and
with his hat on, closely followed by the doctor's man, who stood with
one hand held out and a puzzled look on his face, staring at the
visitor, whose dress looked shabby and aspect wild, the want of what
fashionable young men term "well grooming"--to wit, shaving,
hair-cutting, and shampooing--making him appear ten years older than his
real age.
"Good morning, dear boys," he said, shaking hands warmly, and without
taking off his hat. "Well, what is it?"
He turned sharply upon Sam as he spoke.
"Your hat, sir," said the man hesitatingly.
"Well, what about it? It's mine, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir; of course, sir. I thought you'd like me to take it and hang
it up."
"Then you thought wrong," said the professor, and he so thoroughly
stared Sam out of countenance, that the man shrank from the fierce frown
and backed out of the room.
"Just as if a man can't do as he likes with his own hat," said the
professor, with his face relaxing, as he crossed to one of the easy
chairs, wheeled it forward, sat down, and then slipped off his hat,
thrust his hand inside, whisked something out, and placed hat and stick
under the table, before, with a good deal of flourish, he drew a very
dingy-looking old scarlet fez over his starting black hair, with the big
blue silk tassels hanging down behind, and settled himself comfortably
by drawing up first one and then the other leg across and beneath him,
_a la turque_.
"There," he said, with a pleasant smile. "This chair isn't so
comfortable as the sand of the desert, but I must make it do. Now I'm
ready for business. What's the first thing to be done?"
"To make arrangements for your start at once," said Frank sharply. "You
will sail for Egypt, and make your preparations for going up the
country, and I shall go with you."
"Oh, you've settled that, have you?" said the professor, turning upon
the speaker, and pulling the fez a little more tightly on, for his stiff
hair had a disposition to thrust it off. "You two have been busy then,
eh, Bob?"
"Certainly not," said the doctor; "not a word has been said of this
before."
"That's right," said the professor. "Are you aware of what it will
cost, Frank?"
"No. A good deal, no doubt; but I have all that money to come when I am
of age, and there is Harry's. There ought to be no difficulty about the
executors advancing what is required."
"Bob and your humble servant being the said executors," said the
professor. "Of course not; but I did not mean money, Frank, I meant
life. It would cost yours."
"Well, I am ready to spend it," said the youth warmly, "so long as I can
save my brother's."
"Hah!" sighed the doctor.
"That's very nicely spoken, Frank," said the professor, leaning forward
to pat the young fellow on the arm, "but it's all sentiment."
"Sentiment?"
"Yes, and we want hard, matter-of-fact stuff. Now look at me."
"Well, I am looking at you," said Frank, half angrily.
"What do I look like?"
"Do you want the truth?"
"Of course, my boy."
"Well, you look like a Turk hard up in London, who has bought a
second-hand suit of English clothes that don't fit him."
The doctor threw himself back and roared with laughter, while the
professor joined silently in the mirth and then sat wiping his eyes, not
in the least offended.
"Well done, Frank!" he said. "You've hit the bull's-eye, boy. That's
exactly how I do look; and if I went to Cairo and put on a haik and
burnoose, and a few rolls of muslin round this fez, speaking Arabic as I
do, and a couple of the Soudan dialects, I could go anywhere with a
camel unquestioned. While as for you, my dear boy, you couldn't go a
mile. You'd be a Christian dog that every man would consider it his
duty to kill."
"I must risk that," said Frank stubbornly.
"Must you?" said the professor. "What do you say, Bob?"
"I say it would be madness," replied the doctor emphatically.
"Stick--stark--staring madness," said the professor. "I, who have been
out there for years, and who can be quite at home with the people,
should have hard work to get through by the skin of my teeth."
"And you would not get through, Frank," said the doctor decisively.
"This business must be carried out wisely and well."
"What would you do, then," said Frank impatiently.
"Make application to the Foreign Office at once. Diplomacy must be set
to work, and failing that, force."
"Oh!" cried Frank, in a despairing tone; "why, it would take years to
get that slow machine to work, and all that time wasted in
correspondence and question and answer, while poor Hal is slaving away
yonder in chains! Oh, Morris, what are you thinking about?"
"Acting in the slower and surer way," replied the doctor firmly. "This
can only be done with coolness. We know that Hal is a prisoner out
yonder, and we must apply to Government to get him free."
"Humph!" ejaculated the professor.
"Hah!" cried Frank. "You don't agree with this, Landon?"
"Of course not. Bob Morris is as clever a chap as any in London at
cutting people to pieces and putting 'em together again; but over
Egyptian matters he'd be like a baby. Mine is the plan."
"To get your head cut off," growled the doctor.
"Well, if I did," retorted the professor, "that would beat you. Clever
as you are, old chap, you couldn't get that to grow again. Look here,
Frank, you side with me. I'll go at once."
"And take me with you?"
"No, my boy, I--will--not," said the professor decisively. "Be
sensible, and take what is really the best way. I am not bragging when
I say that I am one of the most likely men living to carry this business
through."
"Oh, we know that you are not bragging," said the doctor. "You mean
right; so does Frank. And now let me say this. The first thing last
night that I thought, was that you, Fred, must go, and that I would go
with you."
"Impossible," said the professor shortly.
"Yes, I thought it well over, and dearly as I long to go and help poor
Hal, I am obliged to confess that it would be impossible."
"Hear, hear," said the professor; "just as impossible as for Frank to
insist upon going with me to stick his head into the lion's mouth, get
it bitten off, and spoil my plans as well. Once more, it is impossible
for either of you two to go; so be sensible and help me to get off, and
trust me like a brother to help and save our brother in distress."
"I will," said the doctor firmly. "Now, Frank."
"I won't," cried the youth.
"I ask you as a brother," said the doctor.
"Yes, as a little brother--as a boy whom you look upon as wanting in
manliness to help at a time like this. Both of you cry _impossible_.
I'm much younger than either of you, but surely I've got some brains.
Always up to now, and it was the same when poor old Hal was with us, you
three treated me as if I was your equal, and it made me feel older. But
now, when there is quite a crisis in my life, and I want to prove to you
that young as I am I can be manly and help to save our poor Hal from the
clutches of these savage Arab fiends with their cruelty and slavery, you
combine to fight against me, and it is impossible--impossible."
"Humph!" grunted the professor, shaking his head at the doctor, who
shook his in turn.
"You talk too much, Frank, lad," said the latter, in an injured tone.
"Do be cool, and think a little. I'm sure you would see then that you
are wrong. What we want in this is calm matter-of-fact planning."
"No, we don't," said Frank impatiently; "we want a good plan, of course,
but we want plenty of pluck and good manly dash. Impossible, you both
say, because each of you has his own pet plan, one of you for Government
interference, the other for going alone in disguise, and consequently
you combine against me for one of you to carry out his."
"Well, and if you cannot propose a better ought you not to give way to
us?"
"No," said Frank, "because it would be horrible to settle down here at
home, thinking of that poor fellow's sufferings. How do you think I
could ever get on with any study? I should go out of my mind."
"But look here, Frank," said the doctor.
"I can't look there," said Frank. "I can't reason with you two. I want
to act; I want to be up and doing, so as to feel that every day I am a
little nearer getting poor Harry free."
"That's quite reasonable, Bob," said the professor, slowly and
thoughtfully. "But I say, Franky, my boy, I don't want to be obstinate;
I don't want to hinder you if you can suggest a better plan. We only
say that so far your ideas are impossible. Come, now have you any other
plan?"
"Yes," said the lad excitedly. "Brother Hal is sitting out there in
chains, looking longingly year after year for the help that does not
come, and eating his poor heart out with despair because those to whom
he should look for help do not come."
"That's all true enough," said the doctor sadly.
"But the question is," said the professor, holding out one hand and
apparently putting down every word he said with the other: "How--are--
we--to--help--the--poor--boy?"
"Let's all three go," said Frank hotly.
"Oh!" ejaculated the doctor.
"That's more and more impossible still," cried the professor.
"No, it isn't," cried Frank. "I have a plan in my head now that would
answer if it were properly done. I haven't been out in Egypt like
Landon here, but ever since poor Hal got his appointment I've read up
the country till I'm regularly soaked with it."
"Can't be," said the professor, smiling grimly. "Moisture's too scarce
when you're away from the Nile. You may be gritty with it."
"Never mind about that," said Frank. "I know one or two things about
the people, and I know this--there is one man who is always welcome
among them and their sufferers from fever and eye complaints and
injured, and that is the doctor--the surgeon."
"Eh?" ejaculated the professor sharply, looking up. "Yes, that's true
enough, boy."
"Well," said Frank, pointing, "there he is--the Hakim--the learned
physician and curer of all ills. Look at him now in that dressing-gown,
with his big, long beard, and that handsome, calm appearance. Doesn't
he look as if he could cure anything? Just suppose him sitting
cross-legged in a tent now, with a big white turban on; what would he
look like then?"
"An impostor!" cried the doctor angrily. "Frank, the good news has
swollen your head up till it has cracked."
"That it hasn't," cried the professor sharply, "and you would not look
like an impostor, sir. Well done, Franky. I say he'd look like what he
is--a splendid specimen of a man, and as good a doctor and surgeon as I
know of. Impostor, indeed! I should be ready to punch the head of any
scoundrel who dared to say so. Bravo, my boy! The great Frankish
physician--the learned Hakim travelling through the country to perform
his cures."
"Yes," cried Frank; "and performing them too."
"To be sure," said the professor, growing excited. "The news of his
cures would spread through the land, and the people would welcome him,
and he could go anywhere. Here, I say, Bob, this plant's coming up."
"You're as bad as Frank," said the doctor angrily. "You both take my
breath away. What! me go masquerading through the Soudan, dressed up as
a mock doctor?"
"Mock doctor be hanged!" cried the professor; "where's the mockery? The
people out there suffer by scores and thousands from eye complaints and
other evils, and as to the number you meet with who have been chopped
and speared and shot--why, the place teems with them. Couldn't you do
them good?"
"Well, of course I could," said the doctor thoughtfully. "I should say
that with antiseptic treatment one's cures would seem almost marvellous
to the poor wretches."
"Of course they would. I doctored scores myself when I was out there,"
said the professor. "Now, look here; I mean to go out there, of course,
and I shall take you with me, Bob."
"What!"
"No whatting. You've got to go; that's settled. You're the great
Frankish Hakim, and I'm your interpreter. You can't speak a word of
Arabic. There's no imposture in that, is there?"
"Oh, no; I can't speak a word of Arabic, but as to the doctoring--"
"Look here, Bob; you'd be doing these people good, wouldn't you?"
"Of course."
"Well, then, there's no imposture there. We'll go right up to Khartoum,
together with our servants, and get the poor boy away. That's settled,
so you had better lay in your stock of ointment-pots, bottles,
plaisters, and pills."
"Well, I'm beginning to think I'm dreaming," said the doctor.
"But you are not," said the professor, and he turned to Frank, who was
excitedly listening to all that was said. "Now then, my boy," he said,
"we've settled that; but I can't see that by any possibility you could
come with us."
"I can," said the lad eagerly. "You talked about having servants with
you."
"Yes, blacks," said the professor. "It would not do to take white
ones."
"Very well, then, I'll go as a black."
The doctor and the professor turned upon the speaker sharply, and fixed
him with their eyes, as if doubtful about the state of his mind, gazing
at him in silence, till he laughed merrily.
"I have not lost a slate or tile," he said. "I am quite what Morris
calls _compos mentis_."
"No," said the doctor sharply; "I'll be hanged if you can be, Frank, my
lad."
"And so say I," chimed in the professor. "How in the world can you go
as a black?"
"Bah!" cried Frank.
"What does _Baa_! mean?" said the professor. "Black sheep?"
"Nonsense! Ask Morris if it would not be as easy as easy to tinge one's
skin to any depth, from a soft brown to black."
"Won't do," said the professor. "You'd dye your face, neck, and arms,
and some time or other you'd be caught bathing."
"Not much chance for bathing out there when we were away from the Nile,
eh?"
"Well, having a sand-bath; and then they'd see that the rest of your
skin was white."
"Oh, no, they wouldn't," cried Frank. "I should do as that amateur did
who wanted to play Othello properly--black myself all over."
The professor took off his fez, laid it upon his knees, and with both
hands gave his shaggy hair a vicious rub, which, however, did not
disorder it in the least, seeing that it was as rough as could be
before.
"Yes," said the doctor; "he has an answer for all objections, Fred, old
fellow."
"Yes, yes, yes," cried the professor, putting on his fez again, and
making a vicious dab at the tassel, which was tickling his neck, but
subsided quietly between his shoulders after it had done swinging. "He
has something to say to everything. Too much talk. It wouldn't do.
The Baggara are as keen as their swords: they'd see through it
directly."
"Then I'd dye it blacker," said Frank.
"Oh, the colour would be right enough, boy," cried the professor, "but
that's what would let the cat out of the bag."
"What do you mean?"
"That tongue of yours, my lad. Your speech would betray you directly."
"Oh, no, it would not," said Frank. "Mutes are common enough in the
East, are they not?"
"Oh, yes, but--"
"Well, I would not talk."
"Pooh!" cried the professor contemptuously. "You wouldn't talk? Why,
you've got a tongue as long as a girl's. You not talk? Why, you'd be
sure to burst out with something in plain English just when our lives
were depending upon your silence."
"_Urrr_!" growled the young fellow angrily. "Give me credit for a
little more common-sense. Do you think, with the success of our
expedition and poor Hal's life and happiness at stake, I couldn't make a
vow to preserve silence for so many months, and keep it?"
"I do think so," said the professor, clapping one hand down upon the
other. "You would find it impossible. What do you say, Bob?"
"Humph!" grunted the doctor.
"Come, there's no need for you to hold your tongue," cried the professor
petulantly. "Say something."
"Very well, I'll say something," replied the doctor: "I don't know."
"Yes, you do. You know it's impossible."
"No," said the doctor thoughtfully; "I know it would be very hard, but
seeing what a stubborn, determined fellow Frank is, I should not be
surprised if he succeeded."
"Hurrah!" cried Frank. "There, Landon."
"Bob ought to know better," cried the professor. "It's impossible--
that's impossible--the whole business is impossible. Can't be done."
"Well, I don't know," said the doctor, taking both hands to his beard
and stroking and spreading it out over his breast, where it lay in crisp
curls, glistening with many lights and giving him a very noble and
venerable aspect. "I'm beginning to like that idea of going as a
learned physician."
"Oh, yes, that's right enough," said the professor. "There's no
imposition there. The Arabs would have nothing to find out, and their
suspicions would be allayed at once. Then, too, you could humbug them
grandly with a few of your modern doctors' tools--one of those
double-barrelled stethoscopes, for instance; or a clinical thermometer."
"To be sure," cried Frank. "Modern Magic--good medicine for the
unbelieving savages. An electric battery, too; and look here, both of
you: the Rontgen rays."
"Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor, and making his beard wag with enjoyment.
"Yes, that would startle them. White man's magic. Fancy, Fred, old
chap, a wounded man with a bullet in him, and I at work with my black
slave, Frank, here, to help me, in a dark tent, while I made the poor
wretch transparent to find out where the bullet lay."
"Yes, or broken spear-head," said the professor eagerly. "I say, Bob,
there'd be no gammon over that: the savage beggars would believe that
they had a real live magician come amongst them then."
"Yes, ha, ha! wouldn't they? I say, old fellow, I'm beginning to think
it ought to be worked."
"Worked, yes," cried Frank excitedly. "I could take a few odds and ends
from my laboratory, too, so as to show them some beautiful experiments--
fire burning under water, throwing potassium on the river to make it
blaze; use some phosphorescent oil; and startle them with Lycopodium
dust in the air; or a little fulminating mercury or silver."
"H'm, yes, you might," said the professor thoughtfully. "You could both
of you astonish them pretty well, and all that would keep up your
character."
"But of course it's all impossible, isn't it?" said Frank, smiling.
"H'm! I don't quite know," said the professor slowly.
"Look here," said the doctor rising, to seat himself upon one end of the
hearthrug, where he began trying to drag his legs across into a
comfortable sitting position, but failed dismally; "I'm afraid I should
never manage this part of the business. My joints have grown too
stiff."
"Oh, nonsense," said the professor sharply; "it only wants a little
practice. Look here."
He plumped himself down upon the other end of the hearthrug quite in the
native manner, and seemed perfectly at his ease, while Frank sat
watching them both with his eyes twinkling in his delight.
"You can't do it in those tight trousers. You want good loose, baggy
breeches, knickerbockery sort of things. Oh, you'd soon do it.--That's
better."
"Yes," said the doctor dubiously; "that's a little better; but these
trousers are, as you say, too tight. I tell you what I'd do, Frank," he
continued, perfectly seriously, "I'd have my head shaved clean, and keep
it so."
"Bravo!" cried the professor excitedly. "Splendid! Your bald head over
that grand beard and a very large white turban of the finest Eastern
muslin, twisted up as I could twist it for you, would give just the
finishing touches. Just spread the skirts of that dressing-gown a
little."
Frank sprang to the task, and in arranging the folds uncovered one of
the yellow Morocco slippers the doctor happened to be wearing.
"That's good," cried the professor excitedly. "Fetch those sofa
cushions, Frank, and put them so that he can rest his arm upon them.
Good! Now a pipe. Here, fish out my stick from under the table.
That's right," he continued, as Frank placed the stick upside down in
the doctor's hand, with the ferrule near his lips and the hook resting
on the floor, turned up like a bowl.
"Well, I am!" cried the professor, drawing his legs more under him, and
nodding at his old school-fellow seated opposite at the other end of the
hearthrug. "Franky, boy, he looks the very perfection of a Turkish
doctor now, while with the real things on and his head shaved, and the
turban--Oh, I haven't a doubt of it, he'd humbug the Mahdi himself if he
were alive. I haven't a bit of fear about him. Sit still, old man.--As
for myself, I should be all right; when I get out there I feel more of a
native than an Englishman. It's you who are the trouble, Franky, for I
confess I am coming round."
"I shall get myself up perfectly. You may depend upon that," said the
lad confidently, "and all through the voyage out Morris will coach me up
about bandaging and helping him in ambulance work, so that I may get to
be a bit clever as his assistant."
"Yes, yes, yes, that's all right," said the professor impatiently.
"It's not that which bothers me. Look at Bob. I can see him in his
part exactly. Nothing could be better; but I can't see you at all."
"Why? Set your imagination to work."
"I am, my dear boy; I am. It's working till my brain's beginning to
throb; but I can't see you, as I say."
"But why not?"
"No shape; no form. You're too skinny. A young nigger ought to be
plump, and shine like butter."
"Well, I'll oil myself," said Frank, laughing as much at himself as at
the doctor seated _a la Turque_ so solemnly upon the hearthrug.
"But your hair, Frank, my boy. It's brown and streaky. It ought to
curl up more tightly than Bob's beard."
"I'll put it in paper every night, and dye it at the same time as I do
my skin."
"H'm! Well, perhaps we might work it that way. If we can't, we must
shave your head too."
"Barkis is willin'," said the young man readily. "As to the sitting--
look here: won't this do?"
He seized the tongs from the fender, took a live coal from between the
bars, dropped down sitting upon his heels halfway between the pair, but
outside the hearthrug, and completed the Eastern picture in Wimpole
Street by resting upon his left hand and making believe to be holding
the live coal to the bowl of the Hakim's pipe.
"Bravo! Splendid!" cried the professor. "A _tableau vivant_, only
wanting in colour and clothes to be perfect in all its details, and
then--"
And then the group remained speechless in horror and disgust, for they
suddenly became aware of the fact that Sam had silently entered with a
letter upon a silver waiter, and had stopped short close to the door, to
stand staring in astonishment at the living picture spread before his
eyes. These seemed starting, while his brow was lined, the rest of his
face puckered, and his mouth opened, at the same time his muscles
relaxing so that the silver waiter dropped a little and the letter fell
upon the soft carpet with a light pat which in the silence sounded loud.