By the time the serpents began to appear and disappear about the boy’s person the professor realized that Frank was attempting to overawe the Arab by a display of legerdemain.
“It is folly,” muttered the professor. “We shall be murdered just the same.”
“Wal, I dunno abaout that,” drawled Ephraim Gallup. “By gum! I kainder cal’late Frank knows what he’s doin’ of.”
The boy from Vermont was beginning to believe Frank could accomplish almost anything he undertook, no matter how difficult it might be.
For nearly half an hour the boy and the old sheik sat face to face on the ground, talking earnestly. The robber chief was seen to make excited gestures, as if much aroused by something Frank had told him.
The sheik’s followers witnessed this interview with unbounded astonishment. They could not understand what it meant.
Finally the old sheik and the boy arose, and Ain-el-Khair made a gesture that caused his fighting men to leap upon their horses and come tearing down at the two about whom they gathered, paying not the slightest attention to the professor and Ephraim.
The chief made a brief speech in Arabic, and his words were greeted with loud yells from his followers.
Then the band parted, and Frank walked back to his anxious friends.
“For Heaven’s sake! what does all this mean?” fluttered the agitated professor. “Explain it at once.”