“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.”