“Oh!” ejaculated the doctor.
“That’s more and more impossible still,” cried the professor.
“No, it isn’t,” cried Frank. “I have a plan in my head now that would answer if it were properly done. I haven’t been out in Egypt like Landon here, but ever since poor Hal got his appointment I’ve read up the country till I’m regularly soaked with it.”
“Can’t be,” said the professor, smiling grimly. “Moisture’s too scarce when you’re away from the Nile. You may be gritty with it.”
“Never mind about that,” said Frank. “I know one or two things about the people, and I know this—there is one man who is always welcome among them and their sufferers from fever and eye complaints and injured, and that is the doctor—the surgeon.”
“Eh?” ejaculated the professor sharply, looking up. “Yes, that’s true enough, boy.”
“Well,” said Frank, pointing, “there he is—the Hakim—the learned physician and curer of all ills. Look at him now in that dressing-gown, with his big, long beard, and that handsome, calm appearance. Doesn’t he look as if he could cure anything? Just suppose him sitting cross-legged in a tent now, with a big white turban on; what would he look like then?”
“An impostor!” cried the doctor angrily. “Frank, the good news has swollen your head up till it has cracked.”
“That it hasn’t,” cried the professor sharply, “and you would not look like an impostor, sir. Well done, Franky. I say he’d look like what he is—a splendid specimen of a man, and as good a doctor and surgeon as I know of. Impostor, indeed! I should be ready to punch the head of any scoundrel who dared to say so. Bravo, my boy! The great Frankish physician—the learned Hakim travelling through the country to perform his cures.”
“Yes,” cried Frank; “and performing them too.”