Yussuf the Guide Part 42

"As if someone had bored a hole in my leg, and were squirting melted lead into all my veins--right up my leg, sir. It's maddening! It's horrible! It's worse than--worse than--there, I was going to say gout, Lawrence, but I'll say it's worse than being caned. Now, Yussuf, what do you say to that, sir, eh?"

"Ants, your excellency. They bite very sharply, and leave quite a poison in the wound."

"Quite a poison, sir!--poison's nothing to it! Here, I say, what am I to do?"

"If your excellency will allow me," said Yussuf, "I will p.r.i.c.k the bite with the point of my knife, and then rub in a little brandy."

"Yes, do, for goodness' sake, man, before I go mad."

"Use this," said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from his pocket.

"What is it--more poison?" cried Mr Burne.

"Ammonia," said the professor quietly.

"Humph!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect's nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper's home.

Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer's great disgust, as he prepared himself for the operation.

"Hang the scoundrels!" he cried; "anyone would think they had never seen an old man's white leg before."

"I don't suppose they ever have, Mr Burne," said Lawrence.

"Why, you are laughing at me, you dog! Hang it all, sir, it's too bad.

Never mind, it will be your turn next; and look here, Lawrence," he cried with a malignant grin, "this is a real bite, not a sham one. I'm not pretending that I have been bitten by a snake."

"Why, Mr Burne--"

"Well, I thought it was, but it is a real bite. Here, you, Yussuf, hold hard--what a deadly-looking implement!" he cried, as their guide bared his long keen knife. "Look here, sir, I know I'm a dog--a giaour, and that you are one of the faithful, and that it is a good deed on your part to injure me as an enemy, but, mind this, if you stick that knife thing into my leg too far, I'll--I'll--confound you, sir!--I'll bring an action against you, and ruin you, as sure as my name's Burne."

"Have no fear, effendi," said Yussuf gravely, going down on one knee, while the people crowded round.

"Cut gently, my dear fellow," said Mr Burne; "it isn't kabobs or tough chicken, it's human leg. Hang it all! You great stupids, what are you staring at? Give a man room to breathe--_wough_! Oh, I say, Yussuf, that was a dig."

"Just enough to make it bleed, effendi. There, that will take out some of the poison, and now I'll touch the place with some of this spirit."

"_Wough_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr Burne again, as the wound was touched with the stopper of the bottle. "I say, that's sharp. Humph! it does not hurt quite so much now, only smarts. Thank ye, Yussuf. Why, you are quite a surgeon. Here, what are those fellows chattering about?"

"They say the Franks are a wonderful people to carry cures about in little bottles like that."

"Humph! I wish they'd kill their snakes and insects, and not waste their time staring," said the old gentleman, drawing up his stocking, after letting the ammonia dry in the sun. "Yes; I'm better now," he added, drawing down his trouser leg. "Much obliged, Yussuf. Don't you take any notice of what I say when I'm cross."

"I never do, excellency," said Yussuf smiling gravely.

"Oh, you don't--don't you?"

"No, effendi, because I know that you are a thorough gentleman at heart."

"Humph!" said Mr Burne, as he limped to where the professor had resumed his digging. "Do you know, Lawrence, I begin to think sometimes that our calm, handsome grave Turkish friend there, is the better gentleman of the two."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A TERROR OF THE COUNTRY.

It was now evening, but instead of the air becoming cooler with the wind that blew from the mountains, a peculiar hot breath seemed to be exhaled from the earth. The stones which had been baking in the sun all day gave out the heat they had taken in, and a curious sombre stillness was over everything.

"Are we going to have a storm, Yussuf?" said Mr Burne, as he looked round at the lurid bra.s.sy aspect of the heavens, and the wild reflections upon the mountains.

"No, excellency, I think not; and the people here seem to think the same."

"Why? They don't say anything."

"No, excellency, but if they felt a storm coming they would have long ago hurried back to their houses instead of sitting here so contentedly waiting to see the effendi dig out his treasure."

For the people had not budged an inch, but patiently watched every movement made by the travellers, crouching as it were, ready to spring forward, and see the first great find.

But the professor made no great discovery. He was evidently right about the building having been a temple, and it seemed as if an altar must have stood there, bearing a figure of which he picked up several pieces beautifully sculptured, but nothing that could be restored by piecing together; and when, wearied out, he turned to examine some other parts of the old temple, the most interesting thing that he found was a piece of column, nearly buried, and remarkable for containing two of the rounds or drums secured together by means of molten lead poured through suitable holes cut in the stones.

"There," he said at last, "I have been so deeply interested in what I have seen here, that I owe you plenty of apologies, Burne, and you too, Lawrence."

"Humph!" grunted the old lawyer, "you owe me nothing. I would as soon stop here and look about at the mountains, as go on somewhere else. My word, though, what a shame it seems that these pigs of people should have such a glorious country to live in, while we have nothing better than poor old England, with its fogs and cold east winds."

"But this peace is not perfect," said the professor. "And now, look here; we had better go back to our last night's lodgings. We can get a good meal there and rest."

"The very thing I was going to propose," said Mr Burne quickly.

"Depend upon it that man will give us a pilaf for supper."

"And without Yussuf's stick," said the professor smiling. "But come along. Let's look at the horses."

The horses were in good plight, for Yussuf and Hamed had watered them, and they had made a good meal off the gra.s.s and shoots which grew amongst the ruins.

They were now busily finis.h.i.+ng a few handfuls of barley which had been poured for them in an old ruined trough, close to some half dozen broken pillars and a piece of stone wall that had been beautifully built; and, as soon as the patient beasts had finished, they were bridled and led out to where the professor and his friends were standing looking wonderingly round at the peculiar glare over the landscape.

"Just look at those people," cried Lawrence suddenly; and the scene below them caught their eye. For, no sooner had the professor and his companions left the coast clear than these people made a rush for the hole, which they seemed to have looked upon as a veritable gold mine, and in and about this they were digging and tearing out the earth, quarrelling, pus.h.i.+ng and lighting one with the other for the best places.

"How absurd!" exclaimed the professor. "I did not think of that. I ought to have paid them, and made them with their tools do all the work, while I looked on and examined all they turned up."

"It would have been useless, effendi," said Yussuf. "Unless you had brought an order to the pasha of the district, and these people had been forced to work, they would not have stirred. Ah!"

Yussuf uttered a peculiar cry, and the men who were digging below them gave vent to a shrill howl, and leaped out of the pit they were digging to run shrieking back towards the village on the other slope.

For all at once it seemed to Lawrence that he was back on s.h.i.+pboard, with the vessel rising beneath his feet and the first symptoms of sea-sickness coming on.

Then close at hand, where the horses had so short a time before been feeding, the piece of well-built wall toppled over, and three of the broken columns fell with a crash, while a huge cloud of dust rose from the earth.

The horses snorted and trembled, and again there came that sensation of the earth heaving up, just as if it were being made to undulate like the waves at sea.