“Eoie!” they cried, and increased their speed amazingly.
“I’m—I’m not trying for—any—record!” panted the lad.
Much the Arabs cared what he said.
“Eoie!” they cried, and their lithe brown legs flashed upwards.
Perry set his teeth and said no more until they reached the top.
The ascent took less than twenty minutes and when at last the Arabs let go his arms and the boy had a chance to breathe, he felt quite satisfied that his guides had earned every cent of their twenty piastres. The top was a platform about thirty feet square, caused by the loss of the old apex of the pyramid. The view was magnificent, and Perry, looking down, four hundred and fifty feet below and a quarter of a mile away, saw, looking not much bigger than an ant, the old artist in contemplation before the Sphinx.
The descent was even more sensational. Perry counted himself in good training and had a nervy head. In spite of that, a dozen times he was sure the Arabs would lose their footing and roll on down, smashing from ledge to ledge. Realizing that they had an athletic patron, and eager to get down again in the hope of finding other customers, the Arabs took that fearful stairway in a series of leaps that would not have disgraced a delirious chamois, but they delivered Perry safe and sound at the bottom, out of breath, wild with excitement, and unfeignedly glad to get back to solid earth once more. Yet, as he turned back for one last look at the Great Pyramid of Cheops, before entering the hotel, Perry knew that he would like to climb it again next day.
“Uncle George,” said the lad at dinner, after telling of his pyramid climb, “I met a queer old artist to-day, on the road. I liked him heaps,” and he proceeded to tell of his meeting and of the way in which the artist had settled down to meditation on a boulder in front of the Great Sphinx.
“That must have been Quinward, Mad Quinward, they call him here,” said Wyr, who was to accompany the expedition. “I’m surprised that you liked him. He’s usually jolly wrathy when people disturb him.”
“He was as nice as pie to me,” said Perry. “Why do you call him ‘Mad Quinward’? He didn’t seem the littlest bit mad to me. I did think him queer, but heaps of worth-while folks are that.”