The professor uttered a groan and glanced in a horrified way at his old friend, who sat now on a rug, looking perfectly calm in what seemed to be an emergency.
“There is nothing to mind,” he said. “The young man is superstitious and ignorant, but his father is wise and our friend. Let us hope that the chief is not dead; but gun-shot wounds are more to be dreaded than a gash from a knife or spear. Be perfectly calm, both of you; there is nothing to mind.”
“Of course not,” said the professor, recovering himself now. “I was startled for the moment by that false alarm. No, there is nothing to mind, even if the other chiefs are sceptical. You have knowledge enough to win their respect.”
Further conversation was put an end to by the coming of the Emir himself, with his son, who entered, hot and covered with dust, to say a few words to the Sheikh, who bowed humbly to hear them.
“The Emir bids me ask you to come and save his friend, O Hakim, but he fears that it is too late.”
The doctor rose at once, signed to his followers, and then motioned to the Emir to lead on.
He drew back, however, and said a few words to his son, who led off at once, while the father walked quite humbly behind the great man to whom he owed his life.
Frank glanced wonderingly round as the little procession passed out into a kind of hall whose floor was covered with Eastern rugs, and in which were grouped about some fifty armed men, who showed plenty of grim signs of having been in a serious fray. Then onward through a couple of rooms handsomely draped with curtains which gave them the appearance of tents, and into a much larger apartment, upon a broad divan in which, dimly shown by a couple of brass lamps, lay the insensible figure of a stalwart Baggara, the blackest they had yet seen, his glistening skin showing strangely in contrast with the white folds turned back from his broad chest, and hideously stained with blood.
As the party entered several women held their head-cloths to their faces and stole silently out, leaving none there but three grim-looking Mullahs, who had evidently been playing the parts of surgeons to the injured Emir, and who scowled angrily at the little party that now entered the room. Standing silently afterwards with their hands upon their breasts they gazed through their half-closed eyes as if contemptuously waiting to hear what this infidel Hakim would say.
It was a crucial position for the doctor, but he played his part with the greatest dignity, while the Emir stood near as if in perfect confidence as to his friend’s powers, and the son glanced at Frank with a malicious look in his dark eyes, which he turned directly half-mockingly at the Mullahs.