“The curiosity of the girl was aroused by the peculiar meeting. Her father for certain reasons has, it seems, never told her the strange story of the past, and she does not know he won her mother while she was on the way to a Turk’s harem. She is not like other girls. Although now but nineteen years of age she has traveled much with friends, but never to Turkey. Anywhere else she was given full liberty to go, but never there; which, of course, aroused all manner of conjectures in her mind, and when she saw the awful look Aroun Scutari bent on her father she must in some way have connected it with his horror of the Moslem country.
“I cannot tell you how the cunning pasha went to work; but I am positive that the middle-aged lady who usually accompanies Samson’s daughter has been bought body and soul by his gold, and is playing into his hands.
“It has puzzled me to know why he selected me as an agent. Sometimes I think it isn’t at all complimentary to my character, and then when I get puzzling over the matter I’m forced to believe that after all it’s for the best—'there’s a destiny that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may.’
“In a spirit of deviltry, I pretended to fall in with the Turk’s plans at the start, and once having committed myself, I’ve been borne along by the current in an irresistible manner, until here I am at the crisis, confused and ready to snatch at a straw in order to escape.”
The wheel stops while they are at the top of the great circle. From below comes the strangest conglomeration of sounds with which the human ear was ever tortured: music from the German band, the infernal din of Javanese, Hottentot, South Sea Islanders, and their like, the shrieks that burst from the camel racers and the donkey riders in Cairo Street, together with laughter, shouts, and cries arising from the masses thronging the Midway—will its equal ever be heard again?
Again the rumble of machinery, and they experience the strange sensations of the descent. Wycherley begins to show more excitement as the time draws closer for the crisis of which he has spoken.
“Now to explain the strange plan by means of which I am to at once walk into the good graces of Miss Cereal. Heaven knows it is wild enough, and could only originate in the hair-brained mind of a Turk. I suggested various other schemes that would accomplish the same result, but he would have none of them, so here am I about to imperil my life to-night, unless my nerve gives way, which I fear it surely will, in order to appear a hero in the eyes of the great operator’s daughter.
“I have tried to find out what plans Scutari has beyond, but it’s useless, for he’s as close mouthed as an oyster. In secret, I am to woo and, when the time comes, marry. Beyond that all is a blank. At times I have wondered if the Turk didn’t plan to return a Roland for an Oliver—that as Samson had stolen his purchased bride years ago, he will now make it square by securing his daughter. That, I have been content to leave for the future. You see, such good fortune is a rarity with me, and I was just content to drift along, taking life easy, pretending to fall in with the plans of the pasha, who doubtless believes me a rogue, while at the same time I was scheming how to turn the game against him at the last. Thus time has flown, the Turk did not plan in vain, and let me tell you, Aleck Craig, I am on this monster wheel to-night to carry out the wildest scheme mortal brain ever conceived, as I said before, with the sole purpose in view of apparently saving the millionaire’s daughter from a terrible danger.”
“The deuce you are!” says the Canadian, looking around him in wonder, for it is beyond his comprehension how such a Quixotic knight may serve his lady love under such conditions.
“Now listen. We are almost down. The car ahead of us will be emptied. If arrangements that have been carefully made are carried out, it will receive a party in waiting. These are to be all women with one exception. This is a man with long hair and glasses—a professor in appearance and quite respectable, whose wife urges him to make the trip, and almost drags him into the car which is at once closed and the door barred.