Chapter Thirty Three.
So Near—So Far.
“Frank, my dear boy!” cried the Hakim, when, alone with his friends, the young man made his announcement.
He could say no more, but sat holding Frank’s hand, his lip trembling, and moved as neither of them had seen him before. For in all things he had been the calm, stern doctor, self-contained, and prepared for all emergencies. But now they heard him whisper to himself two or three times, as if uttering words of thankfulness.
As for the professor, he sat listening to the end, and then leaped up.
“Fancy? Imagination? Nonsense, boy, nonsense; it was as real as anything could be.—What? It must be fancy, or you would have run to his side and spoken? It would have been fancy if you had. Madness! Folly! Bedlam-ish lunacy. Why, you would have spoiled everything. Poor old Hal—poor old Hal! Thank Heaven! At last—at last!”
He set off then walking up and down the tent-like room they were in, wiping the great drops of dew from his forehead openly as he passed his two friends; but the moment his back was to them the handkerchief glided to his eyes, where other salt drops kept on gathering, to be swept carefully away each time before he turned.
“But who is this chief, Emir, or whatever he is?” said the professor, stopping before the doctor and Frank suddenly. “I’ve never heard of him before.”
“I know nothing about him whatever, only what I have told you. He is some friend of the Emir’s son, and of course belongs to their party.”
“I suppose so,” said the professor excitedly. “Well, it all seems simple enough now, Robert, my son. You must set Ibrahim to work the first time the Emir comes in, and tell him we have discovered that this other Emir’s slave— Tut-tut-tut! reduced to camel driving! Poor old Hal! But better that than having his head cut off, eh? Let’s see; what was I saying? I remember: that this other Emir’s slave is a very dear old friend of ours, and that he must get him set free—or buy him—or let us buy him to come and help us. Oh dear! oh dear! Only fancy coming out to the Soudan to buy our old school-fellow! Then when we have got him we must make our plans and be off some dark night, and—I say, though,” he said piteously, after a pause, “that won’t do. Sounds childish, doesn’t it?”