CHAPTER VII
On the Trail
Only hours now separated Don from his mother, provided that she was still in Alexandria. But he had been thwarted so many times in the search for his dear ones, the cup of happy expectation had been so often dashed to the ground just as he was lifting it to his lips, that he scarcely dared to hope that this time his longing would be realized.
What might have happened since he had embarked at New York? Perhaps she was ill. Possibly she had been called away from the city by some clew as to the whereabouts of her husband. As to the possibility that he might find both of his parents reunited—Don scarcely dared hope for that.
He packed up all his belongings so that everything would be in readiness, and then paced the deck in a fever of impatience.
The steamer seemed to be only creeping along. Yet it was plowing through the water at a rapid speed that only slowed down when they neared the older of the two harbors of the famous Mediterranean city.
Captain Sturdy and Professor Bruce were almost as agitated as Don himself, though they managed to maintain more of a curb on their emotions. Teddy, too, was wrought up because of his keen sympathy with his friend.
Phalos bade them all a cordial good-bye just before they landed.
“Though it is really au revoir instead of good-bye,” he said, with a genial smile, “for I am going to hold you strictly to your promise to come to see me in Cairo as soon as you reach there, and, if possible, make my house your headquarters. I shall never forget,” he added, turning to Don and Teddy, “what you did for me in saving my—property and quite probably my life. You may count upon me for all I can do in helping you to find Mr. Sturdy.”
They thanked him, and promised that they would surely see him in Cairo.
They landed amid clamor and hubbub, the cries of porters and pleadings of beggars that are inseparable from all the seaports of the East. To these they paid no attention, but hailed a taxicab and drove through the large handsome streets of the European quarter to the hotel from which Mrs. Sturdy had dispatched her cablegram.
“Is a Mrs. Richard Sturdy among your guests?” asked the captain, as the party went up to the desk.
Don’s heart was in his throat as he listened for the answer.
“Yes,” was the reply. “Do you wish to see her?” and he reached for the desk telephone.
“No need of announcing us,” broke in Don. “These gentlemen are her brothers and I am her son. We will go right up, if you please.”
The clerk summoned a bellboy, who rose languidly and came toward them.
“Hurry, hurry!” urged Don, slipping a coin into his hand. “See how quickly you can lead us there.”
There was a noticeable quickening of step on the part of the attendant as he moved toward the elevator.
“I guess I’ll stay down here till you send for me,” said Teddy hesitatingly.
“No, you won’t!” exclaimed Don, reaching out and pulling him in with him.
They ascended to the second floor, and hurried down the hall to a door at which their guide pointed.
Don was in the van, and with a trembling hand knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly, and a sweet-faced, slender woman, still young, though there were lines of care on her forehead, stood before them.
“Mother! Mother!” cried Don, and threw himself in her arms.
“Don! My precious boy! Oh, my dear boy!” cried Mrs. Sturdy, sobbing with happiness as she folded Don close to her heart.
She hugged and kissed him and patted his hair, standing him off at times to look into his face and then drawing him again to her as though she would never let him go.
Don’s arms were about her. Tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he tried incoherently to tell how much he loved her and had missed her and how delighted he was that at last he had found her.
Now it was the turn of the captain and the professor, who had stood aside for a moment while mother and son were tasting the first bliss of reunion. Their eyes too were moist, as they embraced the sister and sister-in-law who was unspeakably dear to them and for whom they had searched over so large a part of the world.
It was a long time before the members of the happy excited group had gained some measure of control over themselves. Then Don seated his mother in a chair, on the arm of which he sat, holding her hand as though he felt he must keep close grip on her, lest she should vanish and he awake to find it all a dream.
The others drew up their chairs, and it was then for the first time that Don noticed that Teddy was not with them.
“Where’s Teddy?” he asked, as he looked around the room.
“Outside in the hall, I imagine,” replied the professor. “He probably feels shy about coming into what is so strictly a family party.”
“Who’s Teddy?” asked Mrs. Sturdy, with a smile.
“A friend of mine who came along with us,” explained Don. “We met him when we were in the Sahara, and it was his father who first gave us news of the sinking of the Mercury. He hasn’t any mother. He’s a splendid fellow, Mother. You’ll love him.”
“Of course, I shall, if he’s a friend of yours,” said Mrs. Sturdy. “And I’ll be a mother to him, as far as I can, if he will let me.”
“May I bring him in?” asked Don eagerly.
“Surely.”
Don dashed out of the door, found Teddy leaning against the wall of the corridor, grabbed him and dragged him in.
“Here he is, Mother,” he sang out, releasing his captive. “This is Teddy Allison, the best pal a fellow ever had.”
Whatever shyness Teddy might have felt was banished at once by the warmth with which Mrs. Sturdy drew him to her and gave him a hug, putting him at ease at once.
There was a host of questions from Mrs. Sturdy regarding Ruth, who, the captain in his cablegram had assured her, was safe with them at home. When these queries had been satisfactorily answered, she in turn told them of the adventures of herself and her husband after they had been rescued from the Mercury.
Tears came into her eyes as, in response to their first eager queries, she told them that nothing had developed as to her husband’s whereabouts since she had sent her cablegram.
“I’ve searched everywhere,” she said. “I’ve written and telegraphed to all parts of Egypt. At first I was crippled for lack of funds, but after I received the money you sent I employed private detective agencies as well. But all of it has resulted in nothing. It is as though he has vanished off the face of the earth.”
At this point she broke down.
“Oh, if you knew how I have suffered!” she said. “If you only knew!”
Don hugged her and tried to comfort her, and the professor patted her hand consolingly.
“Never mind, Alice,” he said. “We’re with you now, and we’ll search the whole length and breadth of Egypt.”
“We’ll find him,” asserted the captain, the very bigness of him adding power to the conviction in his tone. “You’ve had an awful burden to bear, you poor girl, but now, as far as you can, you must shift it to our shoulders.”
She looked at them gratefully through her tears.
“It would not be so bad,” she resumed, “if he went by his right name or if he even knew his name. Then it might be easy to trace him. But all we have to go by is a description of him, and that might so easily apply to many others that you can’t place much reliance on it.
“It’s all been like a hideous nightmare since the Mercury went down,” she resumed. “Richard’s head was hurt by a block that struck him in the confusion of getting off into the boat. The wound healed, however, and for the first few days he seemed to be all right. It was only after we had been landed at Bahia in Brazil and had started on our trip overland to Martin Clifton’s house, from which we expected to sail for the United States in the private yacht he offered to place at our disposal, that I began to notice something queer about him. His mind seemed to be dwelling more and more on Egypt. You know he spent a good deal of time exploring there before the war.”
“Yes, I know,” said the professor, and the captain nodded in assent.
“He kept talking about the Valley of the Kings in Egypt,” went on Mrs. Sturdy. “At first I’d try to change the subject and get him to talk of other things. But he always came back to the one thing that engrossed his mind. Then he would talk half to himself about figures and measurements. He had a tape measure and would go about the rooms in Mr. Clifton’s house and get their length and breadth and height. Then he would put them down on a piece of paper and after studying them would mutter. ‘That isn’t it. Must try further.’”
“Just the very thing you found scribbled on those bits of paper among his memoranda, Uncle Amos!” ejaculated Don. “He was looking for some special thing, something of which he already had the measurements.”
“I’m sure it was a tomb of some kind he had in mind,” said Don’s mother. “Again and again he would break out with something about the Tombs of Gold—”
“The Tombs of Gold!” exclaimed Don, with a start. “Why, that is what those fellows were trying to get information about from that old Egyptian!”
“The old Egyptian?” repeated Mrs. Sturdy inquiringly.
“A man we met on the boat coming here,” explained Don. “A man named Phalos. I’ll tell you all about him later. But go on, mother.”
“All I could think of was of getting back home as soon as possible, so that Richard could get the medical care that he needed,” his mother continued. “But we were delayed in starting, and all the time he kept getting worse. Oh, it was terrible to see such a splendid intellect losing itself in delusion,” she sobbed. “Again and again I felt that I would go crazy myself.”
“Poor, dear mother!” said Don, putting his arms around her neck.
“One night,” resumed Mrs. Sturdy, when she could speak coherently, “there was a terrific storm. The thunder and lightning seemed to affect him strongly and bring things to a climax. He and Ruth and I were seated in our room when he suddenly started up, shouting, ‘I must go to Egypt,’ and rushed out into the darkness. I rushed out after him calling to him to stop and come back. The thunder may have drowned my voice, but at any rate he didn’t heed me and kept on.”
Tears came into Don’s eyes as he pictured his gently nurtured mother running in a frenzy of anxiety and grief after his distraught father in the rain and darkness.
“No one was abroad in that terrible storm,” went on Mrs. Sturdy. “There was nobody I could get to help me. Richard kept on till he got to the river side. There was a vessel moored to the wharf and he jumped on board. I saw him stumble and disappear. I leaped after him and stumbled into an open hatchway. That was all I knew for a long time afterward.”
Don hugged her convulsively, too overcome to trust himself to speak, while the professor and the captain were not ashamed of the tears that came into their eyes.
“When I came to myself,” resumed Don’s mother, “I was in total darkness. My head was dizzy, and it was some time before I realized what had happened. Then it all came back to me. I could tell from the pitching and the swaying that the vessel was in motion. I felt about me and found your father near by. He was unconscious. After a while he came to himself in part, though he was still dazed.
“Then I found a pole and hammered at the hatch until they heard me and the cover was taken off. They brought us up on deck. I found that we were on a vessel bound for the Mediterranean. There was no wireless on board, so that I could not communicate with any one on shore. But the captain and everybody on board were very kind to us when I had told my story. There was enough money in Richard’s pockets to pay for our passage and leave a modest amount when we should reach shore. It was a long voyage and a most trying one. The worst of it was that Richard no longer recognized me. He declared that he had never seen me before. He had the delusion that he was King Ingot of the Bars of Gold.”
“Poor father! Poor mother!” murmured Don, his heart wrung by the narration.
“But why didn’t you cable us the instant you got to shore?” asked the captain.
“I should have done so, of course,” was the reply. “But I kept hoping that Richard would recover, and for his sake I wanted to keep the matter secret from everybody who knew him, even from you. I knew it would be a mortifying memory for him all through his life to have it known that he had been insane. Any man would feel that way, and Richard is very sensitive. If he had recovered, I would never have divulged the secret, and I would have put Ruth, too, under a pledge of silence.”
“I understand, and it does you credit,” said the captain.
“Finally,” went on Mrs. Sturdy, “we reached this city, and I got Richard on shore and under the care of a physician. But nothing could be done, the doctor said, except to keep him as quiet and composed as possible and depend upon the healing hand of Time to set his poor mind aright. Physically, he was in good condition, for the sea voyage had been beneficial.
“But instead of getting better mentally, he steadily grew more irrational. The very fact that he was now in Egypt, the atmosphere, the language, the heat, the sights, the sounds, emphasized his delusion. Night and day he kept dwelling on the Valley of the Kings. He would declare that he was the king of the Valley of the Kings, and that he must go and look after his kingdom. And one day he eluded me and disappeared. No one had seen him go. No one knew where he had gone. It was then that I cabled to you. And now you are here, and, oh, how thankful I am!”
Once more she broke into a storm of weeping, for the strain of the narration and the picture it had brought up before her were too much for her overtaxed strength.
The others soothed and comforted her to the extent of their power.
“You’ve been just wonderful,” declared Don, as he hugged her to him.
“A perfect heroine,” asserted her brother. “Not one woman in a thousand could have stood up under such a strain.”
“I’m mighty proud of you, Alice,” said the captain, his voice husky with emotion. “But now all the work and responsibility are going to be taken off your overburdened shoulders. It’s up to us now. You must just rest and relax, or you, too, will break down completely. And, please God, we’ll bring Richard back to you, and with care and the greatest skill that we can command, it won’t be long before he’s his old splendid self again. Then this terrible thing will be nothing more to you than a dreadful dream.”
Under their thoughtful ministrations and the delight and reassurance that their presence gave her, Mrs. Sturdy gradually recovered her composure. They refused to let her talk any longer just then about her husband’s disappearance, and chatted with her about Hillville and Ruth and the other members of the household, Don bringing a smile from her at Jennie’s remark about her mistress being all alone in “the land of the Pigamids and the Spinach.”
After a while the captain and the professor, taking Teddy along with them, went out to attend to the pressing matters in hand. Don stayed with his mother to tell her of his adventures in the Sahara and Brazil and the thousand other things that she was eager to know about.
The experience that Don’s uncles had acquired in their travels about the world stood them in good stead in the present situation. Professor Bruce knew the language almost as well as he did his own, and both were tactful and at the same time masterful in dealing with the native races of the East.
Before night fell they had learned by inquiries in the native quarters that a man corresponding to Richard Sturdy’s description had secured a small party to go with him on an exploring expedition. There had been no explicit mention of the Valley of the Kings, but the party had started south in that direction.
Had they noticed anything peculiar about the man? the professor asked.
“Well, Allah seems to have set a mark on him,” his informant replied. “His eyes were bright and he said that he was a king. But, after all, many kings visit Egypt. And then, all foreigners are queer. He promised to pay his men well and to double or treble their pay if he was successful in finding what he was going for. So there were plenty that were willing to go.”
This was much, but it was not enough, and the two American men, still accompanied by Teddy, prosecuted their researches untiringly until they found the wife of one of the party who had accompanied the bright-eyed man, and she had heard her husband say that he was going to the Valley of the Kings.
“So far, so good!” exclaimed Captain Sturdy, as, tired but exultant, they made their way to the European quarter.
“We at least have a goal to aim for,” declared the professor.