CHAPTER XXVIII.
AN UNEXPECTED BATH.
Throwing out his hands to save himself, Max clutched the door and closed it, by accident, after him.
It had a spring lock, and he was a prisoner.
Fortunately, the fall did not hurt him.
He was only shaken and slightly bruised.
His pursuers reached the door and tried it.
Max felt his heart go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat—louder than he liked.
But to his great astonishment he heard his pursuers declare that he must have scaled the wall.
“The cellar,” said one, by way of suggestion.
“The door has not been opened for a week,” answered one of the eunuchs.
“How blind they were!” mused Max, as he heard the declaration.
His heart gave a big leap for joy when he heard the eunuch call off his men and declare that the “infidel” had escaped.
When the footsteps died away Max began to think about his prison house.
If the door had not been opened for a week, was there any way of egress or ingress?
If not, then might he not starve to death?
“Perhaps the Mahdi will capture the place, and I shall be saved.”
Max was looking on the bright side of the subject, and his spirits rose correspondingly.
The cellar or basement was very dark, but Max fortunately had a small pocket lantern with him, and after being there an hour he felt it was safe to light the lamp.
He saw that he was in a great, excavated cellar, without any flooring save the mud.
The roof was very high in some places, and in others so low that Max could not stand upright.
It seemed to be under a whole series of houses, its extent was so great.
A few rats shared the pleasures of the solitude with Max, but those were the only living things he saw.
Wandering about a dark cavern, even if it is under a house, is not the most inspiring exercise, and Max was not very elated.
Once he thought he heard a flow of water.
Was he mistaken?
No; he soon found that on one side of the cellar, only separated by a very thin partition or wall of baked clay, ran the river Nile.
Two narrow doors opened from the cellar to the river, but they were both fastened.
“I may break one of these,” he said, “but not yet. I’m in for a good time, and I’ll have one.”
Max discovered some broad steps leading to the upper story.
They were made of the baked clay, and as hard as stone.
He walked up them, and found a door at the top.
Groping his way along by the wall, he came to some more steps which led to a long corridor.
There was a feeble glimmer of light at the end of the hallway, and he followed that as his guide.
Once he thought he heard voices, but made up his mind he was mistaken. There were no signs of anyone dwelling there, everything was deserted and desolate.
He had no particular desire to meet anyone, his whole thoughts being now bent on escape.
He reached the end of the corridor, and found that the little ray of light proceeded from a transom over another door.
That door he pushed open, and saw before him another flight of stairs.
“Up, up, up!” he ejaculated. “Well, never mind, if I only get out at last.”
He ascended the stairs, and at the top another door confronted him.
He opened that, and nearly fell backward at the sight which met his gaze.
No scene in the “Arabian Nights” could compare with the beauty and grandeur of what he saw.
The room was a hundred feet long, by half as many feet wide.
The walls were hung with silk and tapestry of the most exquisite patterns and quality.
The floor was covered an inch thick with padded carpets.
Great chandeliers with oil lamps, each one having a different tinted shade, shed a brilliant light over the scene.
But that was not all.
Round the great room were divans covered with the most costly silks.
And on each divan reposed, in Oriental languor, a beauteous woman.
Each woman had a little table by her side, on which cigarettes and sherbet were placed.
Many of them were smoking the most fragrant tobacco Max had ever sniffed.
He had not been seen, and so he stood watching without the beauteous creatures having any idea that their privacy had been invaded.
But his eyes recognized on one of the divans the girl Lalla.
Why should he not go to her?
He was an American, and knew no fear.
He walked down the center of the room, and instantly there was a shriek—a tiny little scream—and a flutter of a score of beauties.
But no sooner had they screamed than they felt sorry for it, for never before had any man save their lord entered the grand salon of the harem, and the novelty was refreshing.
Each one pressed forward to touch the American, and some offered to hide him.
There was a noise outside, and Lalla took Max by the shoulders and pushed him behind the drapery which covered the walls.
She was only just in time.
Three eunuchs entered.
“You screamed,” said the chief.
“A mouse,” simpered one of the beauties.
“And you all saw it at the same time?”
“Yes,” answered another.
“And did the mouse wear this?” he asked, holding up a hat, which Max had dropped on the floor.
Poor Max!
He had never missed his hat.
He had carried it under his arm when he entered the salon.
So excited was he at the sight of Lalla, that he dropped his chapeau and never missed it.
The women could not explain how it came about that a mouse wore a soft felt helmet.
The eunuch took his scimiter and started on his mission of discovery.
He slashed at every piece of drapery which he thought might cover a man, and was approaching the place where Max was hidden, when Lalla fell on her knees.
“Oh, spare him!”
“Who do you mean?”
“He came here, I know not why; I hid him. I never saw him before, but he is so handsome! Do not kill him.”
“Get up,” ordered the eunuch, gruffly.
Max emerged from his hiding place, and stood with arms folded before the servants of the pasha.
“I am to blame. I was pursued. I fell in your cellar and was trying to get away. I found myself here by mistake. Do with me as you like.”
“Don’t hurt him,” pleaded Lalla, and all the others took up the prayer.
But the men were inexorable, they knew their duty.
“He must die,” said they.
“No, no, no!” shrieked the women, but in the midst of their cries Max was seized, his hands tied by his sides, after which he was carried down the steps into the great noisome cellar by which he had entered.
Max did not try to bribe his captors.
He never made a sound, but kept his teeth close together.
“If I die,” he thought, “they shall see I can die game.”
But he felt that he had not a hope nor a chance to escape, when they produced a great sack and covered him with it.
Tying the mouth of the sack above his head, they lifted him shoulder high, and he soon felt the strange sensation of being whirled through space.
His senses were almost numbed when he realized that he was in water.
He had been thrown into the Nile!