Yussuf the Guide Part 27

"I cannot help being," replied Mr Burne. "Bless my heart! It is ridiculous."

"I am growing anxious, your excellencies," said Yussuf interrupting.

"The time is getting on, and I want to overtake the baggage-horses.

Will you please to mount, sir?"

"Bless me, Yussuf," cried Mr Burne testily; "anyone would think that this was your excursion and not ours."

"Your pardon, effendi, but it will be bad if the night overtakes us and we have not found our baggage. Perhaps we may have to sleep at a khan where there is no food."

"When we have plenty with the baggage. To be sure. But must I mount that animal again? I am shaken to pieces. There, hold his head."

The old gentleman uttered a sigh, but he placed his foot in the stirrup and mounted slowly, not easily, for the horse was nervous now, and seemed as if it half suspected his rider of being the cause of that startling noise.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

ADVENTURES IN THE HILLS.

"All the result of coming among savages," grumbled Mr Burne. "Anyone would think that the Turks had never learned the use of the pocket-handkerchief."

"I do not suppose many of them have arrived at your pitch of accomplishment," said the professor, laughing, as they rode on along the faint track in and out of the loveliest valleys, where nature was constantly tempting them to stop and gaze at some fresh beauty. But there was every prospect of darkness overtaking them before they reached the little mountain village where they were to rest for the night; and as the time went on the beauties of nature were forgotten in the all-powerful desire to overtake the driver with the two baggage-horses, laden with that which was extremely precious to so many hungry travellers, and at every turn their eyes were strained in front to look upon the welcome sight.

"Not so much as a tail," muttered Mr Burne. "I say," he said aloud, "what's become of that baggage?"

Yussuf was understood to say that the man must have made haste, and that they would find him at the village.

But if that was what the Muslim had said, he was wrong. For when in the darkness, after what had become quite a dangerous finish to their journey along the edge of a shelf of rock, where, far below, the rus.h.i.+ng and gurgling of a torrent could be heard, they reached the cl.u.s.ter of houses and the miserable khan, one thing was evident, and that was that the baggage had not arrived.

"What is to be done, Yussuf?" said the professor. "Must we go back and search for it?"

"We could do nothing in the dark, effendi," was the reply. "The path is safe enough in daylight; by night the risk is too great."

"But he may come yet," exclaimed Mr Burne.

Yussuf only shook his head, and said that they must wait.

But he did not waste time, for he sought out the head-man of the village to ask for a resting-place for his employers, with a supply of the best food the village could afford, and barley for the horses.

The man surlily replied that they had not enough food for themselves, and that the barley had all gone to pay the taxes. They must go somewhere else.

It was now that the weary and hungry travellers found out the value of Yussuf.

For he came to the professor, as they sat together on their tired horses, and held out his hand.

"Give me the firman, excellency," he said. "These miserable people have been robbed and plundered by travellers who ask their hospitality, till they are suspicious of all strangers. Let me show the head-man the sultan's command before I use force."

The professor handed the doc.u.ment, and Yussuf walked straight to where the head-man was standing aloof, caught him by the shoulder and pushed him inside his house, where he made him read the order.

The effect was magical. The man became obsequious directly; the horses were led to a rough kind of stable; barley was found for them, a st.u.r.dy fellow removed bridles and saddles, and carried them into a good-sized very bare-looking room in the house, which he informed them was to be their chamber for the night.

Here a smoky lamp was soon lit; rugs were brought in, and before long a rough meal of bread, and eggs and fruit was set before them, followed by some coffee, which, if not particularly good, was warm and refres.h.i.+ng in the coolness of the mountain air.

The lamp burned low, and they were glad to extinguish it at last, and then lie down upon the rugs to sleep.

It seemed strange and weird there in the darkness of that room. Only a few hours before, they were in the heated plain; now by the gradual rise of the road they were high up where the mountain-breeze sighed among the cedars, and blew in through the unglazed window.

There was a sense of insecurity in being there amongst unfriendly strangers, and Lawrence realised the necessity for going about armed, and letting the people see that travellers carried weapons ready for use.

Twice over that day they had pa.s.sed shepherds who bore over their shoulders what, at a distance, were taken for crooks, but which proved on nearer approach to be long guns, while each man had a formidable knife in his sash.

But, well-armed though they were, Lawrence could not trust himself to sleep. He was horribly weary, and ached all over with his long ride, but he could not rest. There was that open window close to the ground, and it seemed to him to offer great facilities for a bloodthirsty man to creep in and rob and murder, if he chose, before the sleepers could move in their own defence.

It was a window that looked like a square patch of transparent blackness, with a point or two of light in the far distance that he knew were stars. That was the danger, and he lay and watched it, listening to the breathing of his friends.

The door gave him no concern, for Yussuf had stretched himself across it after the fas.h.i.+on of a watchdog, and he too seemed to sleep.

How time went Lawrence could not tell, but he could not even doze, and the time seemed terribly long. His weariness increased, and, in addition, he began to feel feverish, and his skin itched and tingled as if every now and then an exquisitely fine needle had punctured it.

The restlessness and irritation ceased not for a moment, and he realised now that he must have caught same disease peculiar to the country. A fever, of course, but he knew enough of the laws of such complaints, from his long life of sickness, to feel that this was not a regular fever, for he perspired too freely, and his head was cool.

He tossed from side to side, but there was no rest, and when at last the window faded from his sight, and he became insensible to what was going on around him, he was still conscious of that peculiar irritation, that p.r.i.c.kled and itched and stung and burned, till he dreamed that he was travelling through a stinging-nettle wood that led up to a square window, through which a fierce-looking Turk armed with pistols and dagger crept to come and rob him.

It was all dreadfully real, and, in the midst of his fear and agony, he could not help feeling that he was foolish to wish that the Guilford Street police-sergeant, whom he had so often seen stop by one particular lamp-post at the corner to speak to one of his men, would come now, for he had a sensation that this must be quite out of his beat.

And all the time the fierce-looking Turk was coming nearer, and at last seized him, and spoke in a low whisper.

He saw all this mentally, for his eyes were closed; but, as he opened them and gazed upwards, a broad band of pale light came through the square window, falling right on the stern face of the Turk as he bent over him just as he had fancied in his sleep.

For the moment he was about to speak. Then he calmed down and uttered a sigh as he realised the truth.

"Is that you, Yussuf?" he said.

"Yes," was the reply. "It is morning, and I thought you might like to see the sun rise from the mountain here."

"Yes, I should," said Lawrence, uttering another sigh full of relief; "but I am not well. I itch and burn--my neck, my face, my arms."

"Yes," said Yussuf sadly, as if speaking of a trouble that was inevitable.

"Is it a fever coming on?"

"Fever?" said Yussuf smiling; "oh, no! the place swarms with nasty little insects. These rugs are full."

"Ugh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lawrence, jumping up and giving himself a rub and a shake. "How horrid, to be sure!"

Yussuf would not let him go far from the house, merely led him to a spot where the view was clear, and then let him gaze for a few minutes as the great orange globe rolled up and gilded the mists that lay in the hollows among the hills. Then he returned to the house and prepared the scanty breakfast, of which they partook before going off in search of the missing baggage-horses and their load.

Three hours were consumed in seeking out the spot where the man who had charge of the two animals had gone from his right path. It was very natural for him to have done so, for the road forked here, and he pursued that which seemed the most beaten way. Down here he had journeyed for hours, and when at last he had come to the conclusion that he had gone wrong, instead of turning back he had calmly accepted his fate, unloaded the animals, made himself a fire out of the abundant wood that lay around, and there he waited patiently until he was found.