“Yes; what you say,” replied the Turk frowning; “and he is so young. We are only three.”
“What are you thinking, Yussuf?”
“That it makes my blood boil, effendi, to be robbed; and I feel that we ought to follow and punish the dogs. They are cowards, and would fly. A robber always shrinks from the man who faces him boldly.”
“And you would follow them, Yussuf?”
“If your excellency would,” he said eagerly.
The grave quiet professor’s face flushed, his eyes brightened, and for a few moments he felt as if his youthful days had come back, when he was one of the leaders in his college in athletics, and had more than once been in a town-and-gown row. All this before he had settled down into the heavy serious absent-minded student. There was now a curious tingling in his nerves, and he felt ready to agree to anything that would result in the punishment of the cowardly thieves who had left them in such a predicament; but just then his eyes fell upon Lawrence’s slight delicate figure, and from that they ranged to the face of Mr Burne, and he was the grave professor again.
“Why, Preston,” said the old lawyer, “you looked as if you meant fighting.”
“But I do not,” he replied. “Discretion is the better part of valour, they say.” Then, turning to Yussuf—“What is the nearest place to where we are now?”
Yussuf’s face changed. There was a look of disappointment in it for a few moments, but he turned grave and calm as usual, as he said:
“There is a village right up the valley, excellency. It is partly in the way taken by the robbers, but they will be far distant by now. They are riding and we are afoot.”