“Of course not. His plan would be to find some other vessel to carry his plunder away from Egypt. He’s cunning as a weasel, that Perfessor, an’ vile as a skunk.”
I thought it a good time to relate to our friends the story of Van Dorn’s treachery to Lovelace Pasha, as told us by the Arab sheik; and they all agreed that Abdul Hashim’s version was likely to be true, and that the “red-beard” had been a scoundrel from the beginning of his connection with the affair, plotting to get the treasure away from both the explorer and the sheik, in case it was discovered. We were sorry Abdul Hashim had been killed, but his cold-blooded attempt to murder us had led to his own undoing, and he was now out of the running for good and all. The Arab might have possessed some manly instincts, and perhaps was a better man than Van Dorn, if the two could be compared; but his hatred of the white infidels made him as dangerous as the other, and we felt that one desperate enemy, at least, had been removed from our path.
“I wish he could have lived long enough to meet the Professor once more,” said I, with a sigh; “but fate has robbed the poor devil of even his revenge.”
We buried him among the rocks, to keep the jackals from preying upon his body, and mounted our camels to ride toward the place where Gege-Merak was encamped.
There was little need of haste now. The chief did not wish to escape us, it seemed, any more than we wished him to escape. The treasure was a magnet that drew both parties toward it irresistibly, and in order to possess it we must isolate ourselves in these mountains until we had fought the matter out and one side or the other became the victor.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MAD CAMEL.
Beyond the old Roman well, which had this morning witnessed so strange a tragedy, there lay, as you will remember, a stretch of sandy desert some five miles in extent, beyond which rose the black breccia cliffs of the Hammemat Mountains. It was in a rift of these cliffs that Gege-Merak had established himself.
We were proceeding leisurely across the sands and had come near enough to the edge of the mountain to note well its defiles, when our attention was arrested by a strange occurrence. A camel came racing at full speed from the hill path and dashed out upon the flat desert where we rode. For a short distance the beast made straight toward us, and we could see a rider clinging to its back—a huddled up figure dressed in a green and scarlet robe.
“It’s Iva!” cried Archie, astonished; and at the same moment the dress also enabled me to recognize the chief’s granddaughter.
Even as my friend spoke, the camel swerved and commenced running in a circle, scattering the sand in clouds as it bounded along in great leaps. The girl huddled lower, clinging desperately to her seat as the seemingly infuriated beast continued on its wild career.