“Good Heaven! I believe she is fainting!” he says, with evident excitement.
“It’s worse than that, my dear boy,” comes in the voice of his companion, but it sounds afar off.
“How worse? Good God, man, you don’t mean that bright, angelic creature has been stricken with death?” for Dorothy’s struggles appear to grow weaker, until she lies almost motionless in the arms of her faithless companion, a dead weight.
“No, no. What I mean is that she has succumbed to chloroform, or some devilish Turkish drug of a similar character, administered upon the white kerchief that woman fiend holds over her face—that limbs and mind are paralyzed, that she may fall into the spider’s web. Here, look at the monster advancing; note his grim smile, his hands outstretched to take his prey, his—— Jove! Craig, old boy, you’re gone, are you? Well, here’s after you.”
CHAPTER XI.
YOUNG CANADA ON DECK.
When the full meaning of what has happened flashes into Craig’s mind—when he sees Aroun Scutari, lord of the harem and pasha in the Sultan’s service, about to take Dorothy Cereal in his arms, it seems as though an electric battery must have suddenly become attached to the Canadian, so abrupt are his movements.
Leaving the side of the actor, while the other is speaking, he rushes straight for the scene of the kidnaping. Perhaps love urges his steps. At least the indignation of an honorable man sends him forward.
There is no palliation, no excuse for such an outrage, and hence the feeling he entertains for Scutari is that of righteous anger. Such a scene as this, of course, creates excitement. People gather quickly, no matter if it be a dog fight on the streets of Constantinople, an encounter between dragoman and donkey boy at Cairo on the Nile, an attempted assassination of a Czar at St. Petersburg, or a duel between two bootblacks in front of the City Hall in New York.
Already a score of people surround the two women. Questions fly back and forth. The authoritative manner in which Scutari assumes charge convinces those present that the lady who has fainted belongs to him. The veil hides her face, and while curious glances are cast in that quarter, none are so lucky as to see what lies under its screen.