CHAPTER XIII
A Deadly Menace
The figure seemed to melt away on the further side of the camels, which had been roused by Don’s shout and stood upright swaying their shaggy heads. They formed a screen that served perfectly the purpose of the marauder, and by the time Don had circled about the animals the man was not to be seen.
Don strained his eyes in every direction, but could see nothing. The night had swallowed up the man as though he had never been.
The shout had roused the other members of the party, and they came rushing out, the captain in the van with his rifle in his hand.
“What is it?” he asked, as they all crowded around Don.
“There was a man here busy among the camels,” explained Don. “I rushed at him and he disappeared.”
The professor had his flashlight, and they turned it upon the group of camels, which, they were glad to see, were all there.
An exclamation came from the captain.
“Here’s what he was doing,” he cried, as he pointed to one of the ropes that was almost cut through.
“A thief!” ejaculated the professor.
“Perhaps,” said Phalos, with a worried look on his face. “But then again, it may have been more than a case of common theft.”
“What do you mean?” asked Don. “Do you think,” he went on, as a thought struck him, “that Tezra and Nepahak had a hand in this?”
Phalos nodded assent.
“That is what I fear; though of course I do not know,” he said. “The design may have been to cripple the expedition and make it move more slowly by the theft of one or more of the camels. That would make it easier for them to keep us in sight.”
“But if they keep us in sight, that will mean that we will also have sight of them,” remarked Don.
“I do not mean literally ‘in sight,’” explained Phalos. “But they can keep on our trail while staying just beyond reach of our vision. I have a presentiment that they are following us. They are men who will stop at nothing.”
“We should have set a guard,” said the captain. “We will after this. I’ll take my turn to-night. And if any of those fellows try the same trick again,” he added, as he handled his rifle significantly, “it will go hard with them.”
He took his position at the door of his tent, and the rest resumed their attempts at slumber, although there was little sleep for the remainder of the night.
Nothing further developed, and they roused at dawn, made a hasty breakfast and started on.
“I have been thinking,” said Phalos, “that it would be well to use a little strategy to throw possible pursuers off our track. They probably think that we are going to the water hole of El Ira, since we are headed in that direction. But Abdul, I find, knows of another water hole off to the right that will require quite a wide circle to reach it. I would suggest that we take that route, and after replenishing our water supplies, strike out for the place where I believe we will find the Tombs of Gold. I think that plan may balk our enemies.”
This was decided on, and the party moved ahead under Abdul’s direction, turning many a look behind as they rode with a view to detecting possible pursuers.
Suddenly, the camel on which Don was riding stopped with a jerk that nearly unseated the boy. Teddy was riding beside him and his mount stopped at the same moment with similar suddenness.
“What on earth’s the matter with him?” exclaimed Don, as he urged the camel forward.
But the beasts refused to move a step, and now Don discovered that the animal was trembling.
He looked about to see the reason. Suddenly, he discovered in the sand a few feet ahead a horrid swaying head with what seemed to be horns and a pair of fierce, wicked eyes that glowed like fire.
At first he could see no body. The creature seemed to be all head. But as Don looked more closely, he could see a shape of light brownish color with yellow spots, partly hidden in the sand. The eyes were glowing like those of a basilisk, and the body began to coil as though for a spring.
Quick as thought, Don reached for his rifle, took swift aim and fired. The bullet smashed the head of the creature, and the sand went up in clouds, as the body thrashed about furiously.
“Good shooting!” cried Teddy admiringly, as they dismounted to examine the reptile.
“What’s the shooting about?” asked the captain, as he came riding up with the rest of the party.
“This,” answered Don, as he prodded the snake with the muzzle of his rifle.
“A cerastes!” exclaimed the captain, who recognized it at once. “It’s one of the deadliest snakes in the world. If you were bitten by that, you’d be dead in half an hour.”
“Cleopatra’s asp,” pronounced the professor. “It was one of those with which the Egyptian Queen committed suicide.”
“Ugh!” exclaimed Teddy. “It isn’t the thing I’d choose for a bosom friend. I’m more particular about my company.”
“It’s lucky your camel saw it when he did,” remarked the professor. “The snake would surely have bitten him as he passed. They’re the more dangerous because they can scarcely be detected in the sand. A great many horses and camels are killed by them in Egypt every year.”
The suggestion by Abdul that the snakes usually traveled in pairs was sufficient to make the travelers mount in a hurry. But the mate of the dead snake, if it were in the vicinity, failed to make itself seen or felt, and they went on unmolested, though keeping a sharp lookout on the sands ahead.
“I suppose, Don, a snake more or less is nothing in your young life, after all you killed or captured in Brazil,” remarked Teddy, with a laugh.
“That’s one case where familiarity hasn’t bred contempt,” answered Don. “It was in Brazil that I learned to respect them, sometimes to run from them, as in the case of the cooanaradi.”
“Call it coon and let it go at that,” laughed Teddy. “Why did it chase you?”
“Because it loved me and couldn’t bear to part with me,” answered Don dryly. “It was a big twelve-footer and fairly soaking with poison. The only thing I had with me was a machete. I swung just as it overtook and sprang for me, and by good luck sliced its head from its body. More than once since then I’ve dreamed that it was chasing me.”
They were preparing to pitch their tents for the midday rest when a cloud of dust appeared on the horizon ahead of them.
In the desert every man is an enemy until he is found to be a friend, and the camping was deferred, the party remaining on their camels while they awaited the figures that soon detached themselves from the dust and rapidly became larger.
“Get your rifles ready,” commanded the captain. “We’ll have to see who these fellows are. They may be Bedouins out on a raid, or they may be peaceful traders. We’ll soon know.”
As the approaching party came more distinctly into view, apprehension vanished, for the laden camels showed that it was an ordinary trading caravan of small size.
The caravan halted and all looked curiously at the captain’s party. Phalos and the captain rode toward them with shouted salutations and signs of friendliness, which were returned in the same spirit.
Phalos interrogated the leader as to whether he had seen any man who resembled Mr. Sturdy, describing him as a tall man with black hair.
No, the leader had seen no such man. He had, however, seen a tall man with white hair or nearly white. He had seen him with a party digging near a mound, some thirty miles further on.
Had he talked with him?
No, there was something about the man’s eyes that had made him feel queer. But he had talked with some of the workmen. They had told him that they were going to quit, that their employer had told them he would soon have no more money to pay them. Besides, they thought that the man had been marked by Allah. They had grown afraid. So they were going away.
This was the sum of the information they got from the leader of the caravan, and they returned and reported to the rest of the party, while the traders moved on.
It was not very definite, certainly not conclusive, but it brought to all of them an immense accession of hope. Don was elated beyond measure.
“Of course, father’s hair was black when I saw him last!” he exclaimed. “But what he has been through may have changed it.”
“The news is certainly encouraging,” said the captain. “Though don’t build too much upon it, Don.”
“It is significant to me,” remarked Phalos, “that the locality the man indicated is very close to that where I believe the Tombs of Gold to be situated.”
“Don’t you think the time has come to take us fully into your secret?” asked the captain. “Suppose anything happened to you! You might be sunstruck, become disabled in some way. In that case, our expedition will have come to nothing.”
“You are right,” agreed Zeta Phalos. “You shall know now all that I know myself,” and during the midday rest period he went into a careful calculation of facts and figures with the captain and the professor, while Don and Teddy listened with the greatest interest and attention.
The boys did not grasp all the calculation, but one outstanding thing that impressed them was that the place would be indicated by a rock shaped something like a pyramid, balanced upon another rock, flat in shape but larger than the first.
They journeyed hard and fast that afternoon and till well into the evening in the direction indicated by the leader of the caravan. And when they camped for the night, they were confident that, barring accidents, they would be within striking distance of their goal before the following night closed in on them.
The next day was the hottest that they had yet encountered. The sun beat down on them with terrific fury. They were tortured with sunburn and by innumerable swarms of sand-flies, the plague of Egypt.
They allowed themselves only a short rest period and pushed on.
Before long they came to a place where a rocky wilderness stretched away to the right of the road they were traversing. Here, after a consultation of his map and a discussion with Don’s uncles, Zeta Phalos determined to leave the camels in the care of Ismillah and Abdul and push into the wilderness on foot. The camels would have been of little use to them on those rocky slopes, and in addition Phalos was quite as well satisfied to dispense with the servants for the last stage of the trip. He believed them trustworthy, but preferred to have only the Americans with him if his goal were actually discovered.
A cave that offered a secure hiding place for the servants and the camels was found, and it was not long before the searchers had occasion to be thankful that they had taken the precaution.
As they clambered up the slope, amid the huge rocks with which it was strewn, Don’s keen eyes detected a body of riders in the distance coming fast toward them.
Instantly he communicated his discovery to the others and they sank down behind the rocks that shielded them from view.
“They’re coming fast,” muttered the captain, “and they are coming in the direction we came. If it’s that Tezra bunch, they’re tired of pussyfooting.”
“They may think that the time has come to attempt to capture us and make us lead them to the place we’re seeking,” murmured Phalos.
As the cavalcade drew nearer it could be seen that it comprised more than a dozen heavily-armed riders of fierce appearance.
“Bedouins whom Tezra has enlisted by promise of loot,” conjectured Phalos.
The captain slipped his glasses to Don, who was lying close beside him.
“You know the rascals better than I do,” he said. “See if you can recognize them.”
Don focused the glasses on the leaders.
“There they are!” he whispered excitedly. “Tezra and Nepahak! Those two in front.”
“As I suspected,” muttered the captain.
The party swept on and was soon lost to view.
“Fooled for the time being, anyway,” said Captain Sturdy, as he rose. “Now it’s up to us to act quickly.”
The Americans and Phalos worked their way along among the boulders, gazing eagerly in all directions for their landmark.
Suddenly Don gave a shout.
“There it is,” he cried, pointing straight ahead of him. “I see it. The rock!”
The other members of the party looked in the direction of Don’s pointing finger.
There, sure enough, loomed up a curious combination of two rocks, both of large size, the upper one shaped something like a pyramid, and the lower one, on which it rested, flat and a rough square in shape.
Don had been in the rear of the party with Teddy, but it was his sharp sight that marked the goal.
There was a shout of jubilation from all the members of the group, and they hastened as fast as the difficult ground would let them in the direction of the rock.
Don was behind, but was hurrying after the others and rapidly overtaking them when suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath him. He had a sensation of falling—down—down.
Then came a sharp shock and he knew no more.