Chapter 29 | A Game at Marbles | Yussuf the Guide

It was a false alarm. The people who had collected about them were not brigands, and they only carried working tools, not weapons for attack.

“Means what, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.

“They have come to see how you dig out the buried treasure, effendi,” said the guide with a suspicion of a smile.

“Treasure! what treasure?” cried the professor.

“It is of no use to argue with them, your excellency; they of course know that, in place of there being only little villages here in the far back days, there were great cities, like Istamboul and Smyrna and Trieste, all over the country.”

“Quite true; there were.”

“And that these cities were occupied by great wealthy nations, whose houses and palaces and temples were destroyed by enemies, and they believe that all their golden ornaments and money lie buried beneath these stones.”

“What nonsense!” cried Mr Burne impatiently. “If you dug down here you would find bones, not gold. It is an old cemetery, a place of tombs—eh, Preston?”

“Quite right,” said the professor. “Tell them that we are only looking for old pieces of sculpture and inscriptions.”

“I will tell them, effendi,” said Yussuf smiling; and he turned to the people who were gathered round, and repeated the professor’s words in their own tongue.

The result was a derisive laugh, and one of the men, a great swarthy fellow, spoke at some length.

“What does he say, Yussuf?” said Mr Burne.

“He asks the excellency if we think they are fools and children—”

“Yes, decidedly so,” replied Mr Burne; “but hold hard, Yussuf; don’t tell them so.”

“If it is likely they will believe that the Franks—”

“No, no, not Franks, Yussuf,” said the professor laughing; “he said ‘giaours.’”

“True, effendi; he did—If they will believe that the giaours would come from a far country, and travel here merely to read a few old writings upon some stones, and examine the idols that the old people carved.”

“Well, I don’t wonder at it,” said Mr Burne with a sigh as he tickled his nose with a fresh pinch. “It does seem very silly. Tell them it is not they, but we: we are the fools.”

“Don’t tell them anything of the kind, Yussuf,” said the professor. “It is not foolish to search for wisdom. Tell them the truth. We are not seeking for treasures, but to try and find something about the history of the people who built these cities.”

Yussuf turned to the country people again and delivered himself of his message, after which several of the people spoke, and there was another laugh.

“Well, what do they say now?”

“They ask why you want to know all this, effendi,” replied Yussuf. “It is of no use to argue with these people. They have no knowledge themselves, and they cannot understand how Frankish gentlemen can find pleasure therein. I have travelled greatly with Englishmen, and it is so everywhere. I was with an effendi down in Egypt, where he had the sand dug away from the mouth of a buried temple, and the sheik and his people who wandered near, came and drove us away, saying that the English effendi sought for silver and gold. It was the same among the hills of Birs Nimroud, where they dig out the winged lions and flying bulls with the heads of men, and the stones are covered with writing. When we went to Petra, four English effendis and your servant, we were watched by the emir and his men; and it was so in Cyprus, when the effendi I was with—an American excellency—set men to work to dig out the carved stones and idols from a temple there—not beautiful, white marble stones, but coarse and yellow and crumbling. It is always a fight here in these lands against seeking for knowledge, effendi. It is a thing they cannot understand.”

“What shall we do, then?”

“What they do, effendi, half their time—nothing.”

“But they will be a nuisance,” cried the professor.

“Yes, effendi,” said the guide, with a shrug of the shoulders. “So are the flies, but we cannot drive them away. We must be content to go on just as if they were not here.”

The professor saw the sense of the argument, and for the next four hours the party were busy on that hill-slope climbing amongst the stones of the ancient city—one which must have been an important place in its day, for everywhere lay the broken fragments of noble buildings which had been ornamented with colonnades and cornices of elaborate workmanship. Halls, temples, palaces, had occupied positions that must have made the city seem magnificent, as it rose up building upon building against the steep slope, with the little river gurgling swiftly at the foot.

There were the remains, too, of an aqueduct, showing a few broken arches here and there, and plainly teaching that the water to supply the place had been mainly brought from some cold spring high up in the mountains.

And all the time, go where they would, the travellers were followed by the little crowd which gaped and stared, and of which some member or another kept drawing Yussuf aside, and offering him a handsome present if he would confess the secret that he must have learned—how the Frankish infidels knew where treasure lay hid.

They seemed disappointed that the professor contented himself by merely making drawings and copying fragments of inscriptions; but at last they all uttered a grunt of satisfaction, rubbed their hands, gathered closely round, and seated themselves upon the earth or upon stones.

For the professor had stopped short at the end of what, as far as could be traced, seemed to be one end of a small temple whose columns and walls lay scattered as they had fallen.

Here he deliberately took a small bright trowel from a sheath in his belt, where he carried it as if it had been a dagger, and, stooping down, began to dig.

That was what they were waiting for. He had come at last upon the treasure spot, and though the trowel seemed to be a ridiculously small tool to work with, they felt perfectly satisfied that it was one of the wonderful engines invented by the giaours, and that it would soon clear away the stones and soil with which the treasure was covered.

“What are you doing?” said the old lawyer, as Lawrence helped the professor by dragging out pieces of stone. “Going to find anything there?”

“I cannot say,” replied the professor, who was digging away energetically, and dislodging ants, a centipede or two, and a great many other insects. “This is evidently where the altar must have stood, and most likely we shall find here either a bronze figure of the deity in whose honour the temple was erected, or its fragments in marble.”

“Humph! I see,” cried the old lawyer, growing interested; “but I beg to remark that the evening is drawing near, and I don’t think it will be prudent to make a journey here in the dark.”

“No,” said the professor; “it would be a pity. Mind, Lawrence, my lad; what have you there?”

“Piece of stone,” said the lad, dragging out a rounded fragment.

“Piece of stone! Yes, boy, but it is a portion of a broken statue—the folds of a robe.”

“Humph!” muttered the old lawyer. “Might be anything. Not going to carry it away I suppose?”

“That depends,” said the professor labouring away.

“Humph!” ejaculated Mr Burne.

“How is it that such a grand city as this should have been so completely destroyed, Mr Preston?” asked Lawrence.

“It is impossible to say. It may have been by the ravages of fire. More likely by war. The nation here may have been very powerful, and a more powerful nation attacked them, and, perhaps after a long siege, the soldiery utterly destroyed it, while the ravages of a couple of thousand years, perhaps of three thousand, gave the finishing touches to the destruction, and—ah, here is another piece of the same statue.”

He dragged out with great difficulty another fragment of marble which had plainly enough been carved to represent drapery, and he was scraping carefully from it some adhering fragments of earth, when Mr Burne suddenly leaped up from the block of stone upon which he had been perched, and began to shake his trousers and slap and bang his legs for a time, and then limped up and down rubbing his calf, and muttering angrily.

“What is the matter, Mr Burne?” cried Lawrence.

“Matter, sir! I’ve been bitten by one of those horrible vipers. The brute must have crawled up my leg and—I say, Yussuf, am I a dead man?”

“Certainly not, your excellency,” replied the guide gravely.

“You are laughing at me, sir. You know what I mean. I am bitten by one of those horrible vipers, am I not?”

The professor had leaped out of the little hole he had laboriously dug, and run to his companion’s side in an agony of fear.

“Your excellency has been bitten by one of these,” said the guide quietly, and he pointed to some large ants which were running all over the stones.

“Are—are you sure?” cried Mr Burne.

“Sure, excellency? If it had been a viper you would have felt dangerous symptoms.”

“Why, confound it, sir,” cried Mr Burne, rubbing his leg which he had laid bare, “that’s exactly what I do feel—dangerous symptoms.”

“What? What do you feel?” cried the professor excitedly.

“As if someone had bored a hole in my leg, and were squirting melted lead into all my veins—right up my leg, sir. It’s maddening! It’s horrible! It’s worse than—worse than—there, I was going to say gout, Lawrence, but I’ll say it’s worse than being caned. Now, Yussuf, what do you say to that, sir, eh?”

“Ants, your excellency. They bite very sharply, and leave quite a poison in the wound.”

“Quite a poison, sir!—poison’s nothing to it! Here, I say, what am I to do?”

“If your excellency will allow me,” said Yussuf, “I will prick the bite with the point of my knife, and then rub in a little brandy.”

“Yes, do, for goodness’ sake, man, before I go mad.”

“Use this,” said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from his pocket.

“What is it—more poison?” cried Mr Burne.

“Ammonia,” said the professor quietly.

“Humph!” ejaculated the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect’s nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper’s home.

Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer’s great disgust, as he prepared himself for the operation.

“Hang the scoundrels!” he cried; “anyone would think they had never seen an old man’s white leg before.”

“I don’t suppose they ever have, Mr Burne,” said Lawrence.

“Why, you are laughing at me, you dog! Hang it all, sir, it’s too bad. Never mind, it will be your turn next; and look here, Lawrence,” he cried with a malignant grin, “this is a real bite, not a sham one. I’m not pretending that I have been bitten by a snake.”

“Why, Mr Burne—”

“Well, I thought it was, but it is a real bite. Here, you, Yussuf, hold hard—what a deadly-looking implement!” he cried, as their guide bared his long keen knife. “Look here, sir, I know I’m a dog—a giaour, and that you are one of the faithful, and that it is a good deed on your part to injure me as an enemy, but, mind this, if you stick that knife thing into my leg too far, I’ll—I’ll—confound you, sir!—I’ll bring an action against you, and ruin you, as sure as my name’s Burne.”

“Have no fear, effendi,” said Yussuf gravely, going down on one knee, while the people crowded round.

“Cut gently, my dear fellow,” said Mr Burne; “it isn’t kabobs or tough chicken, it’s human leg. Hang it all! You great stupids, what are you staring at? Give a man room to breathe—wough! Oh, I say, Yussuf, that was a dig.”

“Just enough to make it bleed, effendi. There, that will take out some of the poison, and now I’ll touch the place with some of this spirit.”

“Wough!” ejaculated Mr Burne again, as the wound was touched with the stopper of the bottle. “I say, that’s sharp. Humph! it does not hurt quite so much now, only smarts. Thank ye, Yussuf. Why, you are quite a surgeon. Here, what are those fellows chattering about?”

“They say the Franks are a wonderful people to carry cures about in little bottles like that.”

“Humph! I wish they’d kill their snakes and insects, and not waste their time staring,” said the old gentleman, drawing up his stocking, after letting the ammonia dry in the sun. “Yes; I’m better now,” he added, drawing down his trouser leg. “Much obliged, Yussuf. Don’t you take any notice of what I say when I’m cross.”

“I never do, excellency,” said Yussuf smiling gravely.

“Oh, you don’t—don’t you?”

“No, effendi, because I know that you are a thorough gentleman at heart.”

“Humph!” said Mr Burne, as he limped to where the professor had resumed his digging. “Do you know, Lawrence, I begin to think sometimes that our calm, handsome grave Turkish friend there, is the better gentleman of the two.”