CHAPTER XVII—A POSITION OF PERIL
There was a great uproar in Damascus. Hafsa Pasha, an exiled Turk, once a prime favorite of the sultan, had been slain in a house within the city limits.
Rumors were flying thick. There were many wild stories passing from lip to lip. It was said that some foreigners had been concerned in the murder of the Pasha.
The Moslems were aroused, and they cried out for vengeance on the murderers. Some said that a young and beautiful girl was connected with the affair. It was said that she had tried to delude the Pasha and rob him, and that in the end her friends, aided by a number of Arabs, had slain him in the house to which the girl decoyed him.
These stories aroused the followers of “the true faith” to a high pitch of resentment against all “infidels” in the city at that time. Foreign visitors were warned against appearing on the streets, as they were almost certain to be insulted, roughly treated, and possibly slain.
The foreigners stopping at the German hotel were greatly alarmed. Many of them were planning to get out of the city as soon as possible. Some had heard the early mutterings of the storm and departed on the train for Beirut that day.
Professor Z. Gunn was in a state of great distress. He found Dick Merriwell and Brad Buckhart in earnest consultation in their room and seized each by an arm, exclaiming:
“This is what it has come to! You can see! We’re still in the sultan’s domain. There will be an uprising. These fanatical Mohammedans will massacre every Christian and foreigner they can find in the place! I feel it coming. The streets of Damascus will flow with blood before night!”
“You’re excited, professor,” said Dick.
“Excited!” squawked the old man, nearly losing his false teeth and clapping his hand over his mouth to keep them from popping out. “Ugh! Oogah-um! Cluck! Who wouldn’t be excited? There is something to get excited over. We’re almost certain to be murdered!”
“I hardly think,” said Merriwell, “that the Turks will carry it that far. We are citizens of the United States, with passports in our pockets, and the sultan would have trouble on his hands with Yankee Doodle Land if his subjects were to murder us.”
“You bet your boots!” put in Buckhart.
“But the sultan isn’t here to stop it,” spluttered Zenas. “The Turks are infuriated over the death of Hafsa Pasha. They are urging on all Moslemites in the city. None of them are counting on the consequences. They’ll do the killing first and consider the consequences afterward.”
“No one has been killed yet,” said Dick. “The authorities are doing their best to hold the fanatics in check.”
“By promising to apprehend and bring to justice the murderers of Hafsa Pasha. Mind, they say murderers. That means every one who was present when the man was killed. I was right here last night when Brad and Budthorne went away with those Arabs. I’m not the only one who knows about that. You were present, Richard, when Hafsa Pasha’s enemy slew him. Brad was there, Budthorne was there. You’re all concerned. You’re every one wanted as participants in the crime.”
“It was vengeance,” said Dick. “Ras al Had, the old sheik, slew Hafsa Pasha, and Hafsa Pasha years ago sold Ras al Had’s brother into slavery. The sheik found his brother dying in the desert, and he swore to have vengeance on the treacherous Pasha when the time came. Last night he carried out his oath and then fled from the city.”
“That won’t clear you, boys,” asserted Professor Gunn. “You were concerned in breaking into the house where the Pasha was killed.”
“Sure we were,” nodded Brad Buckhart.
“I didn’t have to break in,” said Dick, with a twinkle in his dark eyes.
“Oh, Richard,” said the professor, “that was a scandalous thing! Hafsa Pasha was fooled into paying a large sum for you.”
Buckhart grinned.
“He was going to add you to his harem, pard. Oh, say! that was the richest thing ever! The boys will die of laughter back at school when I tell them about it.”
“Hem! haw! Haw! hem!” coughed the professor. “It looks just now as if you’ll never get back to Fardale to tell anything. Drat it, boys, you don’t seem to comprehend the terrible peril we’re in!”
“We comprehend it, all right,” asserted Dick; “but we can’t see any sense in getting ratty over it. Hafsa Pasha got exactly what was coming to him.”
“You bet he did!” nodded the Texan.
“The right or wrong of it makes no difference to these fanatics,” said Zenas. “They won’t stop to ask who was right and who was wrong. They’ll just go ahead and chop up the foreigners. This hotel is watched. The people in it have been warned against leaving it. A few got away on the train, but the rest of the people in the place are panic-stricken. They realize the danger. The trouble with you two reckless young rascals is that you do not realize the peril. Somebody is going to confess that two persons left this hotel in the night. They’ll trace the two. It will be found out that you were present when the Pasha was killed, and your lives will not be worth a penny. Oh, it’s a—— Hark! What’s that?”
From the street outside came a peculiar, blood-chilling sound. It was like the low snarling of many voices, and it grew louder and louder until it became a sullen, muttering roar.
The three rushed to the window and looked out. What they saw caused the old professor to turn pale and faint.
A great mob had gathered in front of the hotel, all Turks or people of the Moslem faith, and others were coming rapidly from many directions.
The crowd was armed with clubs, sticks, stones, and so forth. A few flourished swords or other deadly weapons.
They are crying out in their indignation against the foreigners. A crooked, befezzed Turk was their leader. At sight of him Dick Merriwell uttered an exclamation.
“See that man?” he cried—“the one who is urging the mob on?”
“I sure see the varmint,” nodded Buckhart.
“Well, he’s the old wretch who bribed Ras al Had’s black men to betray Nadia and myself.”
“That dog, eh?” growled the Texan, taking something from his pocket. “Well, I reckon I can just about shoot a couple of holes through his big ears at this distance.”
Professor Gunn uttered a squawk of terror and clutched the wrist of the grim-faced boy from the Panhandle country.
“You’re crazy, Bradley!” he gasped. “You’re mad!”
“I admit the accusation,” said Buckhart. “I am mad—a heap mad.”
“If you were to fire at that man it would precipitate the destruction of this hotel and the murder of every inmate!”
“The professor is right, Brad,” said Dick quietly. “Put up your gun.”
“I’d certain like to——”
“Never mind that. Put up the weapon and bide your time. You may be compelled to use it in self-defense before this day is over. Hear those creatures!”
The mob was howling:
“Death to the foreigners!”
“Kill the infidels!”
“Burn their hotel!”
“Destroy them! Destroy them!”
“Death to the unbelievers!”
Wildly waving his arms, the crooked old Turk shrilly yelled:
“They have defiled our city and our temples! They have basely murdered one of the true faith!”
“Ah-yah!” snarled the mob.
Then some one hurled a stone. There was a crash of glass in the lower part of the hotel. A volley of stones followed, smashing glass and raining against the building in a shower.
“It begins to look pretty bad,” confessed Dick.
Dunbar Budthorne, followed by Nadia, came hurrying into the room. Budthorne was agitated and his sister was very pale.
“What is happening?” asked Dunbar.
“Take a look out of this window and you will see,” answered Dick.
Nadia pressed forward to look, but drew back, shuddering.
Brad sought to reassure her.
“It’s only a lot of crazy fools,” he said. “Don’t be frightened, Nadia.”
“But they are mad! They mean to destroy the hotel and murder us all!”
“I don’t reckon the governor will permit that.”
“Can we do nothing?” asked Budthorne. “Can’t we apply to the American consul?”
“We tried that yesterday when Nadia disappeared,” reminded Dick, “and the American consul was out of the city.”
“Then there is the British consul. Surely he will act if we call on him.”
“I doubt if he has the power,” said Professor Gunn. “We are in a terrible predicament. I fear the horror of 1860 is about to be repeated.”
“What happened in 1860?” asked Dunbar.
“Six thousand unarmed and unoffending Christians and foreigners were massacred in Damascus, and nearly twice as many more outside the city, in Syria.”
“Oh, dreadful!” gasped Nadia, growing faint and being assisted to a chair by Buckhart. “What if it happens again? Oh, I believe it is going to happen!”
At this juncture a fiercer outburst of noise rose from the street, and again Dick Merriwell looked out of the window, the others pressing close behind him.
It seemed that some one from the hotel had ventured to step outside to address the crowd. Instantly his words were drowned by howls, and shrieks, and curses, while a shower of missiles drove him back to shelter.
Then some one espied the little group in the upper window and called attention to it. Instantly the crowd began shouting insults at our friends and shaking their fists at them.
“Take Nadia back from the window, Brad,” advised Dick, in a low tone. “Keep her mind distracted as much as possible from this.”
Again Buckhart conducted the girl to a chair.
“Better all get back,” said Professor Gunn. “We’re just adding to their fury by standing in the window and watching them.”
They moved back a little, but the mob continued to rage and snarl, like a pack of infuriated wild animals.
“Was no one punished for the other massacre?” asked Dick.
“The powers of Europe finally interfered,” answered the professor. “The Turkish government was compelled to punish some one, so Ahmad Pasha, the governor, lost his head. That was about the extent of the punishing.”
“Well the present governor ought to remember Ahmad Pasha. If he isn’t careful he may lose his head.”
The whole hotel was in a state of great excitement, as Dick learned by stepping outside the room, and listening. Women were weeping and wailing, while white-faced men hurried hither and thither, up and down, without seeming able to decide on anything. He heard two men talking, and one was telling the other that already the mob had murdered a man in the open street.
“It’s pretty serious,” Dick decided. “Once let a mob like that get a taste of blood, and there is no telling where the affair will end. I fear this will be a bloody day for Damascus. If they begin killing, the odds are against any one of us escaping with his life.”
One of the men below was speaking again.
“They say this thing started over the unwarranted murder of an exiled Pasha.”
“That’s the report, and I was told a few minutes ago that the mob declares the murderers of the Pasha are in this very hotel. That is why it has been singled out as the first point of attack.”
“I’ve heard more than that,” declared the first speaker. “I understand that the real cause of all this trouble is an American girl, stopping here. She must be an adventuress, for they say she got gay with the Pasha who was murdered, and decoyed him to the place where he was assassinated. I’ve seen the girl, too.”
“You have?”
“Yes. She’s here in company with her brother. Has been here several days. Day before yesterday two boys and an old man joined them.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed that party. And they say this girl caused all the trouble?”
“Yes. Some of the rest of the party were concerned in the murder of the Pasha. The crowd outside is demanding that this girl and her friends be given up. If the proprietor will surrender them it is possible the rest of us may escape with our lives.”
“Then we had better unite in urging him to give that party up. It’s a case of self-preservation, and——”
“I favor it myself.”
Dick had slipped quietly down the stairs, and now he suddenly confronted the two men. His face was pale, but his dark eyes flashed.
“I have a few words to say to you,” he said, his voice low but clear and steady. “I don’t know where you hail from, but I do know that you are two of the most contemptible cowards it has ever been my bad fortune to chance upon. No one but cowards would think of surrendering an innocent and helpless girl into the hands of a maddened and murderous mob, like the one outside this hotel.”
Having expressed himself in this manner, the fearless American lad stood squarely facing them both.
There was a hush.
Outside the mob was heard muttering sullenly.
The two men gazed at Dick in surprise. One was a tall man, the other decidedly below medium height.
“Why—why——” gasped the short man, and then choked, as if unable to find further words.
The tall man shook himself together.
“Look here, you insolent young puppy,” he exclaimed, “how dare you come here and use such language to us?”
“Yes,” put in the short man, with an attempt at bluster, “how dare you?”
“I do not think there is much to fear from two men who would deliberately talk of surrendering an innocent girl into the hands of a murderous mob,” retorted Merriwell.
“Innocent girl!” sneered the tall man.
“Yes, innocent! Be careful, sir! I’m only a boy, but I know the girl, and another insulting slur from your lips will be resented in a manner you will not like.”
Both men were astonished.
“Why, I believe he would tackle us both!” muttered the short man.
“You know the girl, do you?” said the tall one, overlooking Dick’s threat, as if he did not consider it worth noticing further. “And you claim she is innocent?”
“I happen to know.”
“Didn’t she decoy the Pasha to the house where he was murdered?”
Dick’s lips curled.
“Instead of that, sir, she was seized while walking on the street, her escort assaulted and knocked down, and the ruffians imprisoned her in a house. Where were you yesterday that you heard nothing of this?”
“We made a trip into the country outside the city,” explained the little man.
“It happens that I was the one accompanying her when she was seized and carried off,” added Dick. “By chance this girl, who is perfectly innocent of wrongdoing, fell beneath the notice of Hafsa Pasha, a bad man, who resolved to add her to his harem. He was baffled, and he deserved the fate he met. However, none of our party had anything to do with that. He was killed by an old enemy, whom he had bitterly wronged. These are the facts, gentlemen. Now, in order to save your fine necks you talk about turning her over to that snarling pack of wolves at the door! I am ashamed of you both!”
In spite of his youth he made them feel ashamed of themselves.
“Oh, well, oh, well,” said the little man apologetically; “we didn’t understand, you know. If we had——”
“But I don’t fancy being talked to in this manner by a mere boy,” growled the other.
“I didn’t expect you would fancy it,” said Dick, with continued boldness. “Lots of people do not fancy being told the plain truth. Often it cuts to the quick. If you wish to do what you can to save yourselves, be prepared to fight for your lives if the mob breaks in here, but do not talk of surrendering a girl to be murdered by that pack of maddened beasts. On the contrary, you should be ready to defend her with your last drop of blood.”
Having scorched them in this manner, Dick turned and remounted the stairs.
The tall man made a move as if to stop him, but checked himself.
Barely had Dick disappeared when a figure advanced quickly from the shadows at the rear of the hall and spoke in a low tone to the two men.
“I beg your pardon,” said a soft voice, with a pronounced accent that seemed to proclaim him either a Spaniard or an Italian. “I happened to overhear a part of your conversation with that boy. I know him.”
The stranger was slim and dark, with a slight mustache, which curled upward at the ends. He had coal-black eyes, which were very restless and very piercing. His hands were small and slim, almost womanish.
The two men looked at him in some surprise. As they did not speak at once he went on hurriedly:
“It seems that I arrived in Damascus just in time to get into this unfortunate trap, from which not one of us may escape with our lives. I am just here. I would I were elsewhere. I know that boy—know him most exceedingly well. He is a thorough rascal. He was compelled to leave England in a hurry to escape imprisonment for robbery. He is a card sharp, although, on account of his years, he does not, to strangers, seem to be such. That is why he deceives the great number of people with such perfect ease. In Italy he was concerned with a very dangerous and desperate band of criminals, and from that country he hurried with much haste to avoid punishment. Since then he has been wandering about in various lands, accompanied by another boy and an old man, who are his accomplices. They tell that the old man is the tutor and guardian of the boys, but this I do assure you is a fabrication.”
“Well!” gasped the little man, in astonishment.
“Well!” exclaimed the tall man, bewildered.
“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, “I assure you that I know perfectly well the complete truth of all I have said. They are traveling under false names, having somehow secured the passports of the parties they pretend to be. The only thing of truth that I heard fall from that boy’s lips as I listened was his statement that the girl is innocent. She, however, with her brother, who is not strong and may be easily influenced, has fallen into the clutches of these three rascals. Without doubt they sought to use the girl as a tool to trap the Pasha who was murdered. I doubt not that they led the Pasha to believe there would be no trouble in case he seized the girl and made her an inmate of his harem. I believe it probable that they secured a large sum of money from the Pasha—and then they murdered him.
“Now, gentlemen, if, instead of giving up the girl to the mob, you will get together, seize the real culprits, tell the maddened people the truth, and surrender them, you will be doing your duty, and nothing more.”
The listeners gasped again.
“Most amazing!” said the little man.
“Quite so,” agreed the tall man.
“Who are you?” questioned the first.
“Your name,” demanded the second.
The stranger made a graceful gesture.
“My name matters little to you. I will not speak it at present. Those rascals are wholly unaware that I am here. I do not care to have them discover it just now. Listen! The mob clamors again. The doors will be beaten down soon, and then nothing can save us. If you know these people here, lose no time in informing them of the real cause of this riot. Tell them that the guilty ones are sheltered beneath this roof. Propose to them that the three scoundrels be surrendered, for it is better that three such common wretches should be slain than that a whole hotel full of innocent people should die.”
“Quite right!” exclaimed the small man.
“Perfectly right,” agreed the tall man.