CHAPTER XXIII--THE FOUNT OF FURY
"You?" exclaimed Dick, in astonishment.
Bunol inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, permitted it to escape in a thin,blue cloud, and smiled triumphantly.
"As you see," he said insolently.
"Here?" gasped the American boy.
"Here," nodded the Spaniard.
"I don't understand it!"
"I didn't think you would."
Dick's hands were clenched and his breast heaving. He stood staring athis malignant and persistent enemy, his heart overflowing with anger.
Bunol was languidly triumphant, his contemptuous glance an irritatinginsult, his triumphant smile like a stinging blur in the face of theduped lad.
"Fooled!" muttered Dick bitterly.
"Completely," nodded Bunol.
He was enjoying his triumph to the fullest. He felt that this was hishour, and he meant to make the most of it.
It was a moment when a weak boy in Dick's place would have collapsed.Dick did not. Although astonished and dismayed for the moment, he showedno sign of weakness.
Bunol laughed harshly.
"You have pretty good nerves," he admitted; "but I think you do not yetunderstand the situation. Look, Merriwell, you are in my power!"
"Where do you obtain the power?"
"I have it. You left me tied and gagged in Damascus, while you made goodyour escape. Only for the uproar in the hotel you would not haveescaped. I beat against that closet door, but no one heard me for a verylong time. I was in there hours. It seemed days. I suffered. My jawsached, I was suffocated, I nearly perished. When they did find me andpull me out the exhaustion so overcame me that I could not talk. I triedto tell them how you had escaped, but my senses fled. Not until thefollowing morning could I tell. Then it was too late."
"Which was our good luck," said Dick quietly.
"I had heard enough while in that closet to know something of the courseyou might pursue. I resolved to follow you. I found a Bedouin chief, AliBeha, who knew the country about for hundreds of miles. I paid him wellto aid me in finding you. He is chief over many men, and all the countrywas scoured in search of you. Finally we learned that you were with acamel train bound to the south. Then we located the train. Ali Beha wentfor you, while I waited here until he should bring you to me. I knew youexpected to hear from the friends from whom you had become separated, soI told him to say a friend had sent for you, but to mention no names.You were fooled with ease the greatest, and now I have you--I have you!"
Again Bunol laughed.
"You are surely the most persistent rascal in the world," said Dick.
"Perhaps so. Many times you have thought me crushed, but each time Irose again."
"You are sure to come to some bad end in time."
"But you will not live to know about that."
"I presume you mean to murder us?"
"Oh, not with my own hands! I would not take so much trouble. But Ishall see you suffer--I shall hear you whimper and beg!"
"You think you will."
"I know. I have bought these dirty Arabs, and they are ready to do mybidding. I shall take great pleasure in having you stripped and whippeduntil your back is cut into ribbons. This before I bid you a lastfarewell and return to look for Nadia Budthorne, who shall become mine."
"So that is the revenge you have planned. I thought----"
"You thought--what? That I meant to have you carried back to Damascus?"
"I fancied you might."
"Ha, ha! You do not know me. I shall take no chances that my revenge maymiscarry. Were you taken back to Damascus, you would appeal to theAmerican consul, and he might save you, for, though you were presentwhen Hafsa Pasha was slain, I know you well enough to know you took nopart in that. You haven't the blood in you to kill a man outright!"
The Spaniard uttered these final words with a sneer.
"Do you think so?" said Dick, and Bunol failed to note the deadly gleamin the dark eyes of the trapped boy.
"I know it," nodded Miguel. "So I shall give you no chance to escape.You shall meet a fate worse than death. After I have seen you cut upwith whips, I shall leave you to that fate. Do you not suspect what itis?"
"No."
"Then I will tell you. These Bedouins are men who deal in slaves. Youwill be taken from Syria into Arabia and sold as a slave to black men.There can be no escape. You will become a beast of burden. All day longyou will labor like a camel beneath the scorching sun of Arabia, drivenby black men, who will beat you when you falter. Your soft and tenderhands will become hardened and calloused. Your fine shoulders willbecome stooped and your back bent. Your rounded, muscular body will growthin and emaciated. But the distress of body that must suffer will notcompare with your distress of mind. Think of it!
"Think of yourself, a wretched and hopeless slave, lost in the desert,weary and footsore, trying to sleep at night, but haunted with dreams ofyour home far across the ocean. You will dream of those days when youwere a leader at school; when you were triumphant on the football fieldor the diamond; when you were lifted on the shoulders of your shoutingcompanions and carried aloft in triumph. Then you will 'wake to realizeyour pitiful state and know that never again can you look on the facesof those comrades and friends, but that you must go on through thewretched days of your wretched life, a thing to be beaten, scoffed at,spit on, and perhaps finally cut to death with whips. How like you therevenge I have planned? Isn't it a fine thing, indeed?"
Dick had grown gray and rigid as the venomous Spaniard painted thepicture.
There was silence in the tent when Bunol finished. That silence wasbroken by Merriwell, who spoke in a low, intense tone.
"You human fiend!"
Bunol's thin lips curled back and exposed his pointed, white teeth. Hewas smiling.
For a long time Dick Merriwell had controlled himself in a masterfulmanner, but now the aroused passions of his fiery nature burst beyondsuppression. Suddenly, and without the least warning, he flung himselfon his enemy, whom he clutched by the throat before an outcry could bemade.
Bunol was hurled flat on his back. Dick's thumbs bored into theSpaniard's throat. The knee of the American boy was planted on thebreast of his foe, pinning the fellow to the mat.
"You devil!" hissed Dick in Bunol's ear. "You have said I have not theblood to kill any one, but when my hands leave your neck you will bedead!"
Bunol had goaded the boy to a point of fury that was close allied tomadness.
The Spaniard was able to make no more than feeble resistance. Althoughhe knew his peril and understood that Merriwell meant to kill him on thespot, he found himself nailed to the ground as if a stake had beendriven through his body. His jaws opened, his tongue protruded, his eyesbulged from his head and his face turned purple.
"Die!" hissed Dick.
A black cloud fell on Bunol, and in his ears there was a thundering likethe roar of Niagara.
Then the flap of the tent behind Dick was lifted. A man peered in. Heuttered a shout. A moment later the tent was filled with men who seizedMerriwell and tried to tear him from his enemy.
Dick's hands clung fast to Bunol's throat. The expression on his facewas awful in its deadly determination. The men cried out that he wouldkill the Spaniard before their eyes.
Some one struck the American boy in the face several times, but stillhis grip did not loosen in the least.
At the tent door there was further commotion. Brad Buckhart was fightingto get in.
"Pard!" he cried--"pard, what's doing?"
Dick made no answer.
At last Bunol was wrenched from Dick's grip, one of the men havingloosened the boy's fingers a bit. In tearing the Spaniard free, however,they did not prevent Merriwell's fingers from lacerating the fellow'sneck.
Dick was carried out of the tent. He offered no resistance after hishold on his enemy was broken. They bound him, and flung him on theground not far from where Buckhart lay, tied in a similar manner.
The Texan squirmed ove
r toward Dick and tried to find out what hadhappened. Although he plied Merriwell with questions, not a word inreply could he get. Dick lay staring straight up at the sky, and theexpression on his face awed and frightened Buckhart.
The old professor was likewise bound.
After a long time the flap of the tent was lifted and two Bedouinsappeared, supporting between them the limp form of Miguel Bunol. TheSpaniard was deathly pale, and one of his hands kept wandering to hislacerated and swollen throat. When his eyes fell on Dick Merriwell theyshone like the eyes of a venomous serpent.
Bunol was led over to Dick, at whom he glared.
"You came--near--finishing me," he said, in a husky whisper, as if everyword gave him great distress; "but--but you--failed. Now it is--myturn."
He made a weak motion. Immediately several of the Bedouins seizedMerriwell, unbound his hands, stripped off his clothing to the waist,and then tied him fast with his face to a heavy post set in the ground.
Two men with rawhide whips, each having many lashes, and the lashesbeing knotted full of bits of iron and lead, approached at a call fromAli Beha, who sat beneath an awning not far away.
Still supported, Bunol stepped before Dick.
"The revenge I promised you begins now!" he said. "But it shall be evenworse than I intended. I care not if they whip you to death! I shalllaugh at your shrieks and groans. Let them begin."
One of the men was speaking to Ali Beha. The chief rose and followedthis man a little apart, where he stood gazing toward a distant ridge,over which horsemen were riding. These horsemen were coming straighttoward the Bedouin camp.
Quickly the Bedouins gathered with their arms, ready to repel an attack,if necessary. They set up a shout, which was answered by the approachinghorsemen. This answer seemed to relieve the Bedouins, for, instead ofpreparing for battle, they uttered cries of welcome.
For the time attention was turned from the captive at the post. Dick washopeless, and he paid little heed to the strange horsemen. He waswatching Bunol.
The Spaniard was impatient over the delay.
"More of the dirty Arabs," he muttered.
The leader of the strangers seemed to be a man of some distinction, forAli Beha hastened to bow low before him, his manner most humble. Thisleader was an old man, yet he dismounted from his horse with somesprightliness and looked around. His eyes fell on the white youth, whowas tied to the post, his bare body shining in the sun.
"What is this, Ali Beha?" he demanded.
"Only a dog of a foreigner whom we are about to flog."
The stranger stepped quickly forward and obtained a look at Dick's face.Instantly his manner underwent a change. He straightened to his fullheight, lifted his hand, and cried:
"Release him at once! He is my friend!"
"Ras al Had!" shouted Dick, in a burst of joy. "Oh, sheik, you came justin time!"
"I reached the camel train shortly after these men took you away," saidthe old Arab. "They told me you had been carried off by Ali Beha, and Imade haste to look for him here, knowing this to be one of his favoritecamping places. But why were they about to flog you?"
"None of your business, you meddling old fool!" snarled Bunol, givingRas al Had a thrust.
Instantly several of the sheik's followers sprang on the Spaniard andbore him to the ground.
"Bind him," commanded Ras al Had.
They obeyed, in spite of Bunol's struggles and curses.
Dick was set free at the sheik's command, as also were Brad and the oldprofessor.
Ras al Had listened to Merriwell's story, and a strange expression cameto his wrinkled face as the boy told of his enemy's plan to have himflogged and then carried into slavery in Arabia.
Turning toward the Spaniard, the sheik grimly said:
"Strip him as this boy was stripped, bind him to the post and flog him,even as he ordered you to flog this boy, who is the bosom friend of Rasal Had."
Crying and begging like a frightened child, Miguel Bunol was strippedand tied to the post. Then the men with the rawhide whips began theirwork. The whips whistled through the air and fell on the Spaniard's bareback, bringing the blood with the first blow.
A shriek of pain came from Bunol's lips.
Dick could not endure much of this. After a little he implored the sheikto stop it.
"But this is merely a taste," said Ras al Had grimly. "Do you think hewould have stopped so soon with you at the post?"
"It makes no difference," returned Merriwell. "I can't see any humanbeing beaten up that way."
"If I stop them now, you must promise me not to interfere further in hisbehalf."
"You will punish him in some other manner?"
"But not with the whip."
"All right; I promise."
Immediately Ras al Had checked the men who were wielding the whips. Hespoke a few words to Ali Beha, who nodded.
Then the sheik turned to Dick and his companions and bade them prepareto leave the Bedouin camp.
"Before the sun sinks to rest," he said, "you shall be with yourfriends, both of whom are safe and well."
It was not necessary for our friends to spend any time in preparing todepart. They were ready and eager to go.
"What of Bunol?" asked Dick.
"We will leave him here with the friends he has chosen," said Ras alHad.
An hour later, when they were miles away, the old sheik turned to Dick,a grim smile on his lips.
"Your enemy will trouble you no more," he declared. "You will neveragain behold his face."
"Why not?" questioned Dick. "Do you mean that he will be slain?"
"No; but the fate he chose for you shall be his. He condemned you to becarried a slave into Arabia. That is to be his doom. It is the commandof Ras al Had, which Ali Beha must obey."