I shall send for you as soon as I am well
enough to investigate the coffin." "Thank you." But he continued to hold my hand and looked me in the eyes earnestly. "Be careful of yourself," he murmured. "Careful," I repeated, puzzled. "Ay," he murmured still lower, "you have incurred the curse
unwittingly--but still you have incurred it." "What curse?" "The curse which Ptahmes directed against all desecrators of his tomb." I thought he raved, and felt his pulse. But it was steady as a
rock. "Come, come," I said with a smile. "I shall be thinking you a
superstitious man, Sir Robert, presently." "Do you believe in God?" he asked. "Yes," I cried, astounded. "Then are you not superstitious, too? But there, I have warned you. I'll say no more. Good-bye. Kindly send my daughter to me." I found Miss Ottley and the two Englishmen at the door of the outer
tent. "Sir Robert wants you, Miss Ottley," I observed, and passed on. I
had hardly gone a dozen yards, however, when I found I had a companion
on either side of me. Dr. Belleville immediately opened fire. "You have been taking time by
the forelock, Dr. Pinsent," he said softly. "I should hardly have moved
the patient for a day or two. He is very weak." "My name is Frankfort Weldon--Captain Weldon," said the handsome
soldier--introducing himself. "I think you have annoyed Miss Ottley,
Dr. Pinsent. Seems to me you should have consulted her before acting,
at least." I glanced from one to the other and shrugged my shoulders. "The
thing is done," said I. "Gentlemen, good-day." My long legs left
them quickly in the rear. There seemed no good reason to waste time
in explaining myself to them. They would soon enough find out the
reasonableness of my actions for themselves, if possessed of ordinary
human curiosity. But a second later I stopped and turned. "Dr.
Belleville," I shouted, "I shall fix a watch at the temple. Ottley
wishes it maintained. Miss Ottley will tell you why." I found the fellaheen collected in a group near the old store house. They eyed me approaching with open sullenness. I chose two among their
number and directed them to stand guard before the pylon for four
hours. The two I had picked moved off obediently enough, but they
were stopped almost on instant by their leader, a big ruffian with
a scarred, black face and wild, fiercely scowling eyes. Sir Robert
Ottley's dragoman hurried to my side. "Softly, Excellency, or there
will be trouble," he muttered. "Let me speak to them. Yazouk is a
chief--he will not be commanded. His term of service does not start
till to-morrow. He is angry." "Silence, you," I responded in the same tone. "There is but one way to
crush a nigger mutiny." I stepped smilingly forward, looking into Yazouk's eyes. The black
giant--he stood six feet four in his bare feet and was a splendid
physical specimen--put his hand on the knife in his belt. But before
he could guess at my intention he was sprawling on the sand. He
uttered the yell of an angry wild beast and, springing up, rushed at
me with bare blade. I stepped aside and kicked him in the stomach. He
collapsed, howling dismally. I marched up to the rest, who were all
handling their knives, and showed them my revolver. Two minutes later
they were all disarmed and I was a walking arsenal. I turned to the
dragoman. "I am going away, Mehemet--to my own camp. But so that you
will have no trouble with this scum, I shall take their chief with me. I need a servant." Mehemet bowed to the very ground. "Your Excellency knows best," he
muttered reverently. "Yazouk," said I, "yonder is my ass. Go saddle him for me." Yazouk went. He returned with the ass saddled and bridled before I
was half through a cigarette. I mounted forthwith and started towards
my long-deserted camp. "Come, Yazouk!" I called out carelessly, and
I took good care not to look back. There is no means surer of making
an African obey you than to act as if you are certain he has no
alternative. Perhaps Yazouk hesitated for a moment, torn with fear and
hate, but he followed me. Soon I heard the patter of his footsteps on
the sand. Then I said to myself, "Now, if this man is to remain with
me and be my servant I must make him fear me as he would the plague. But how?" I solved the riddle at the end of five miles. I must show him
that I despised him utterly. So I stopped. He stopped. Twenty paces
separated us. "Yazouk," I said, "come here!" He approached, eyeing me like a wolf. "From this day for a month,
Yazouk, you shall be my slave," I observed calmly. "If you prove a good
slave I shall pay you when the term ends at the rate of fifty piasters
a day. If you offend me by so much as winking an eyelash I shall not
only pay you nothing, but I shall ask Poseidon to transform you into a
hyena. Will you like that?" Yazouk did not remark on my dreadful threat, but there was murder in
his eyes. I smiled at him, and, always looking him full in the face, I
took one by one the knives I had taken from his fellows, from my belt
and cast them on the sand at his feet. "It is not fit for a lord to
carry such trash when he has a slave," I said. "Pick up those knives." Yazouk obeyed me. When he stood upright again there was a great doubt
in his eyes. I thought to myself, it would be quite easy for this
ruffian to murder me at any time in my sleep, and already I am a wreck
for want of sleep. I threw my revolver on the sand. "Carry that,
too!" I commanded loftily--and spurred my ass on. Probably a volume
might be written on the state of Yazouk's mind as he trudged along
behind me to my camp--a whole compendium of psychology. But I cannot
write it, because I never once glanced at him, and, therefore, I can
only guess at the turmoil of his thoughts. But the event justified my
expectations. I was so mortally wearied when I reached my camp that
I had no heart left even to discover whether my precious manuscripts
had been disturbed by some chance wayfarer of the wilderness. It
sufficed me that my tent was standing and that it contained a cot. I
cast myself down, without even troubling to remove my boots, and I
slept like the dead for sixteen solid hours. When I awoke it was high
noon. A steaming bowl of coffee stood upon my table and a mess of
baked rice and fish. Beside the plate lay my revolver, and every one
of the knives I had given Yazouk to carry. Yazouk himself stood at
the flap of the tent, a monstrous, stolid sentinel. When I arose he
bent almost double. I swept the armoury into a drawer and attacked my
breakfast with the relish of a famished man. Then I set to work with
the energy of a giant refreshed; and with short intervals for meals,
sleep and exercise, I toiled at my book thereafter till it was roughly
finished. So twenty days sped by. Throughout Yazouk waited upon me
like the slave of Aladdin's lamp. I had not a fault to find with him.