With the greatest confidence in the strange Arab girl, Madcap Max followed her, without asking any question until she suddenly extinguished the torch.
“Why did you do that?” he inquired.
The girl did not answer in words, but dextrously placed her hand over his mouth and held it there so tightly that Max could scarcely breathe.
He struggled to release himself, but she was strong, and to add to her power, she whispered:
“Get free and I’ll kill thee!”
However disagreeable it might be it was better to have a pretty girl’s hand over his mouth than to be killed, and therefore Max made no further resistance.
A slight noise, like the dropping of water on rocks, attracted his attention.
“Do you hear that?” asked his guide.
“Yes; what is it?”
“Hush! Speak in whisper only. Thine enemies seek thee.”
“And if they find?”
“Will kill. I will save, if——”
“What?”
“Thou hast courage. Come, then, hold to my dress and follow. The least noise may seal thy fate and mine.”
“Who art thou, mysterious one? What is thy name?”
“Name, as thou wouldst say, I have several; to thee I am Girzilla. Let that be my name.”
“I will call thee Gazelle.”
“No, no, no. Girzilla, or nothing at all. Come.”
Whoever the girl with the strange name might be, she evidently knew her way, for never once did her foot slip, although Max found his ankles turning every minute, and had he not a firm hold on Girzilla’s dress, which, though of gauzy linen, seemed as strong as a hempen cord, he would have fallen frequently.
“Sit down!”
The words were uttered very abruptly, and were in the nature of a command.
Max did as ordered, and sat in silence—a silence so great that he could hear the beating of his heart, and fancied that he could also distinguish the pulsations of his guide’s organ of life at the same time. The silence was almost unbearable, and Max grew fidgety and restless.
“I have got into some queer streets before this, but I confess this is the strangest,” he mused.
“To save thee, thou must go through the place of the dead.”
The voice was that of Girzilla, but it sounded so sepulchral that Madcap Max felt a cold shiver pass over him.
“Hast thou courage?” she asked.
“I—h-have,” he stammered, his teeth chattering with nervous fear of the unknown.
“Come!”
Once more the journey was resumed, and Girzilla walked slower than before.
Suddenly Max got such a rap on the head that it made him groan with pain.
“Stoop. Better still, crawl,” said the girl, almost contemptuously.
Max felt humiliated, but he was in a quandary.
He could not go back, for he did not know the way, and he dare not go forward alone, for he was afraid.
Girzilla seemed to read his thoughts, for she laughed softly and murmured:
“Poor boy! He will have to trust his Girzilla; she will save him.”
Stooping until his head was only a few inches higher than his knees, he followed as well as he could.
Very soon the way became easier to travel, and a glimmer of light showed that the sun had risen again, and found some crevice through which it sent its heavenly rays.
Gradually the light increased, and the road became better.
The sand was so hot, however, that Max felt the shoes on his feet drying up, and even baking.
He resolved to remove them, and the hot sand blistered his tender feet.
High up above him was an opening, through which the light and heat came.
“If one of thy enemies shouldst see thee, a little stone from there”—and Girzilla pointed upward—“would make thee fit for a mummy.”
Again the spinal marrow in Max’s back seemed turned to ice, and he was almost afraid to glance upward.
“Where are we?”
“Under the temple of great Isis.”
“Under?”
“Yes, Isis had the temple high above where thou dost stand.”
“Lead on; I would know more of these mysterious passages, but I am hungry and cold.”
“Just now thou wert hot.”
“Yes, I am chilled and yet feverish.”
“Come, my gentle boy, and Girzilla will take thee where thou canst rest.”
A few yards and a sudden turn, and the narrow passageway gave place to a large plateau, on which huge bowlders were scattered promiscuously.
Scattered—apparently too large for human hands to move, and yet they bore evidence of having been transported thither.
They were of red granite, while the native rocks were of a different stone.
Max, tired and weary, sat down on one of the granite blocks, but he quickly left his seat.
He leaped away as though he had been stung by a viper.
Girzilla laughed at him, which of course added to his annoyance.
The stone was as hot as an oven bottom, and poor Max felt he would be baked or fried if he stayed there a minute.
Girzilla moved round one of the great bowlders and began scratching away the sand.
“Come and help,” she called out to Max, who was sulking since she had laughed at him.
“The way we must go is under this stone.”
“Under that stone!” repeated Max.
“Yes; there is only a small hole, but we must go through it.”
The girl was right.
The hole was so small that she could only just squeeze herself through, while the madcap declared he would not descend.
“Very well, then, you must save yourself.”
The prospect was not pleasing, and Max managed to follow the girl, though in doing so he tore his clothes and scratched his face.
But once down, he was amply repaid.
The cave, or hole, led to a large room, the atmosphere of which was charmingly cool.
Girzilla had lighted her torch, and seated herself on an open sarcophagus.
She was a happy-go-lucky kind of creature, fearing nothing, and having no superstitious dread of sitting on the stone coffin, wherein was dust, which had once been molded in human form.
“I have food here.”
“Food?”
“Yes.”
“Here?”
“Yes; art thou not hungry?”
“I am. But the place is a tomb.”
“Hush! Better men than thou lived here.”
“Have been buried here, you mean?”
“Years and years ago a brave man fled from those who would kill him, and sought refuge here.”
“Tell me of him.”
“He fought—oh, my, didn’t he fight? He cut right and left with his scimiter, and when he got tired he spurred his horse and made a run for liberty.”
“Did you know him?”
“Stupid! do I look so old, then?” and Girzilla looked coquettishly at Madcap.
“I don’t know how long it is ago; how should I?”
“Don’t get naughty again. The man was a soldier, a Mameluke——”
“What! Was it Emin Bey?”
“That was how he was called.”
“Tell me all about him. Where did he go? Had he any sons? Tell me, I am all impatience.”
“I see you are; but you must eat.”
This houri of the caves—a strange child of the desert—pushed aside the lid of another sarcophagus and took therefrom a piece of confection known as Turkish delight.
She offered it to Max, but he turned away.
Girzilla bit off a large piece and sat chewing it with all the ardor with which a Kentucky girl chews gum.
“Good!” she said, as she helped herself to another bite.
Approaching close to Max she held the confection close to his mouth, and he was tempted to take a small piece.
It was so appetizing that he asked for more.
When the gum candy was all eaten Girzilla found some bread—cakes baked in the sun, not in an oven—and some fruit, but what kind it was Max did not know.
He ate heartily and felt refreshed.
But he was thirsty.
Girzilla knew that, and produced a bottle of the most delicious sherbet he had ever tasted.
When the repast was finished Girzilla told Max that he must stay there until she came for him.
“Am I to be here alone?”
“Certainly. I must go and provide a means of escape for thee.”
“Tell me first why you have done all this for me.”
“I have my reasons.”
“And will you not tell me?”
“I heard thee speak to him who is not——”
“You mean my father?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When thou didst tell him that thou wouldst like to eat salt with the sons of Emin Bey.”
“And are you interested?”
“I have Mameluke blood in my veins. Find the descendant of Emin and he will restore Egypt to its greatness—I have said it, and the prophet hath spoken.”
“And will you help me?”
“If I can. I—had—another—reason——”
Girzilla hesitated, paused between her words, looked confused, and really blushed.
“And that was——” asked Max.
“Why should I not tell thee? I will save thee, even though I lose thee. I will prevent thy enemies taking thee, even if thou spurned me ever after. Oh! how shall I say it? Thou art the handsomest man I ever saw, and—I—love—thee.”
Before Max could recover from his astonishment she had fled.
Her secret had been revealed, and, modest maiden as she was, she felt she could not meet the eyes of the youth to whom she had confessed her love.