“GET YOUR RIFLES READY,” COMMANDED THE CAPTAIN.
Don Sturdy in the Tombs of Gold. Page [132]

DON STURDY IN THE
TOMBS OF GOLD

OR
The Old Egyptian’s Great Secret

BY
VICTOR APPLETON
Author of “Don Sturdy on the Desert of Mystery,”
“Don Sturdy Across the North Pole,” “Tom
Swift and His Sky Racer,” “Tom Swift
and His Photo Telephone,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
Walter S. Rogers

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

BOOKS FOR BOYS

By VICTOR APPLETON

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE DON STURDY SERIES

DON STURDY ON THE DESERT OF MYSTERY
DON STURDY WITH THE BIG SNAKE HUNTERS
DON STURDY IN THE TOMBS OF GOLD
DON STURDY ACROSS THE NORTH POLE
DON STURDY IN THE LAND OF VOLCANOES

THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT OIL GUSHER
TOM SWIFT AND HIS CHEST OF SECRETS

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1925, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Don Sturdy in the Tombs of Gold

CONTENTS

DON STURDY IN THE
TOMBS OF GOLD

CHAPTER I
A Call for Help

“Then, you think Dad really went to Egypt?” asked Don Sturdy, with deep anxiety in his tone, as he stood beside the desk where his uncle, Professor Bruce, was carefully looking over a mass of papers.

“I’m inclined to think so, my boy,” replied the professor, as he sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “Everything seems to point that way, though we haven’t a bit of positive proof. But we know, at least, that the idea of going there was in his mind when he rushed out of Clifton’s house in Brazil shouting that he must go to Egypt.”

“Still, that may have been the mere whim of a deranged mind, forgotten almost as soon as the words were spoken,” put in Captain Frank Sturdy, another of Don’s uncles, as he turned from the window through which he had been looking.

“True enough,” assented the professor. “But we know from what Ruth told us that for weeks he had been talking about the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was, I believe, a fixed idea that had taken possession of him. And these papers I’ve been looking over explain why he was so deeply interested in that country.”

He picked up the heap of manuscript as he spoke, and selected some papers from the mass.

“There’s no collected story here,” he remarked; “simply a lot of memoranda scribbled on whatever he had at hand, old telegraph blanks, backs of envelopes, and the like. They bear upon a trip that Richard took to Egypt several years ago. The magic of the country seems to have captivated him. But there’s something more than the awakened interest of a tourist in them. They’re aflame with the ardor of a discoverer. He seems to have been right on the brink of some remarkable find—so remarkable, in fact, that he feared to commit it to paper lest it should get into hands for which it was not intended.”

“I remember now,” broke in Captain Sturdy, “that when he got back from that trip he seemed strangely excited. But I could never get much out of him about it. He’d talk about it in a general way, but whenever it came to details he’d change the subject. I gathered that he meant to go back the next year, but the war came and that put an end to his plans for the time.”

“He seemed to have spent most of his time among the tombs,” resumed the professor. “There is one he mentions that was fifty-two feet long, thirty-one feet wide, the sides of which were entirely covered with paintings, while the roof, twenty-four feet high, was adorned with a hundred squares of over a dozen different designs. There’s a diagram of it here.”

“What do you gather from that?” asked the captain.

“Nothing much in itself,” was the reply. “But at the end of the description are the words: ‘This is not the one. Must look further.’ And there are several other descriptions of tombs scattered through the papers, each with this little note of disappointment at the end. It seems clear to me that Richard was hunting eagerly for one particular tomb and desperately anxious to find it.”

“What for, do you suppose?” asked Don.

“What he wanted to find it for or what he expected to find in it I don’t know. It may have been gold or scarabs or alabaster vases or amulets or any of the thousand things that make some of those tombs veritable treasure houses. But whatever it was, his mind was centered on it. It may have become a sort of obsession. Then, when his head was hurt in that accident at the time of the shipwreck, that one overpowering desire to get back to Egypt may have come to the front and been too strong to be resisted.”

“Even if he did go there,” said Don, in perplexity, “it’s strange that nothing has been heard of him. He had to live somewhere, must have registered at some hotel. Yet all the consuls in the various cities have investigated and can find no traces of any one named Sturdy.”

“He may have used some other name,” suggested the professor. “It’s quite possible that he’d forgotten his own. Cases of amnesia are common enough, when a man forgets all his past history, even his name.”

“But if mother had been with him, she’d have set that all right,” objected Don.

“True enough,” replied the professor. “But how do we know that she was with him? All we know is that she ran out after him into the night. We cannot be sure that he didn’t elude her.”

“Oh, shall we ever be able to solve the mystery?” cried Don, in desperation.

“Yes, we will,” declared the captain heartily, as he placed his hand encouragingly on his nephew’s shoulder. “Keep up your heart, my boy. Remember that we found your sister Ruth when we had almost given up hope. And with heaven’s help we’ll find your father and mother too.”

“To be sure we shall, even if we go to Egypt to do it,” chimed in the professor. “We’ll rake that country with a fine-toothed comb before we’ll give up and admit that we’re beaten.”

The sound of the dinner bell broke up the conference, and Don hastened to his room to wash and to brush his hair.

They were served at table by Jennie Jenks, the maid of all work, who in her flittings to and fro that afternoon had caught snatches of the conversation and was bursting with the desire to impart it to Mrs. Roscoe, the housekeeper of the Sturdy home.

“I guess we kin say good-bye to Mister Don an’ his uncles,” she remarked, in one of her migrations to the kitchen. “They’re all a goin’ to the tomb.”

Mrs. Roscoe was so startled that she nearly dropped the dish she was carrying from the oven.

“What do you mean?” she gasped. “Are they sick?”

“You wouldn’t think so if you seen the way they was eatin’,” replied Jennie, shifting her wad of chewing gum. “I mean they’re goin’ to them Egypt tombs, where they’s alligaster vases an’ omelets an’ things like that.”

“Oh, you mean the tombs of the Pharaohs,” said the motherly housekeeper, in great relief. “They’ve been dead a long time.”

“Mebbe,” admitted Jennie. “Though I hadn’t even heard they was sick. But it just beats all the way them men go trampin’ all over the earth when they got a good home like this. Here they jest got back from Brazil, an’ lucky they was not to be et up by golcondas or cannonballs, an’ instead of settlin’ down, thankful like, they must be goin’ off lickety-switch to another of them heathen places. Who knows what’ll happen to ’em? Like as not Mister Don may fall down into one of them Egypt tombs an’ be squashed.”

“Oh, I guess not,” replied the housekeeper soothingly. “He’s been in a good many tight places and has come through all right.”

“Yes,” admitted Jennie. “But the picture that goes to the well too often is broke at last. An’ it jest makes my blood creep to think of them goin’ to that Egypt place, where all them plagues used to be.”

“That was a long time ago,” remarked the housekeeper. “I guess it’s all right now.”

“I don’t know,” said Jennie, renewing her attack on her chewing gum more vigorously and shaking her head. “From all I’ve heard, them Egyptians ain’t any better than they ort to be.”

“Who is?” asked Mrs. Roscoe mildly.

“A feller took me to a movie once that showed all ’bout Egypt,” went on Jennie, ignoring the question. “The big buildings was so dark an’ gloomy they give me the shivers. I ast the feller why they didn’t have electric lights, an’ he tole me that they didn’t need electric lights coz they had so many Israelites. I ast him what they had to do with it, an’ he only laughed an’ said he loved every bone in my head.”

“He had a lot to love, then,” put in Mrs. Roscoe dryly.

“An’ they was a picture of the ocean,” Jennie continued, oblivious of the sarcasm, “an’ the feller that was with me tole me that was Pharaoh an’ his chariots an’ the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea. I said, ‘Where’s the children of Israel, I don’t see any,’ an’ he said, ‘Oh, they’ve gone over’; an’ I said, ‘Well, then, where’s Pharaoh and his chariots?’ an’ he said, ‘Oh, they’ve gone under.’ I s’pose that was the way of it since he said so, but it didn’t seem just right somehow.”

Just then Jennie was interrupted by a call from the dining room and scurried away, saving the housekeeper the necessity of listening to any further details for the moment.

Don finished his dinner and then went out and sat down in a chair on the porch. It was a beautiful summer evening, and in the great old trees about the house the birds were singing their vesper songs.

Ordinarily the charm of the hour would have appealed to Don, but now the outer peace only helped to emphasize by contrast the ferment of anxiety in his mind. Where was his father? Where was his mother? Were they still alive? What fate was keeping him without tidings of his parents, dearer to him than life?

A boy on a motorcycle came at a rapid gait up the road. Don looked at him listlessly as he neared, but with quickened interest when he stopped at the gate.

The messenger opened the gate and wheeled his machine up the path.

“Cap’n Sturdy in?” asked the boy.

“Yes,” replied Don. “Want to see him?”

“Got a cablegram for him,” was the answer.

“Uncle Frank!” called Don. “Will you step here a minute? Something for you.”

The captain came to the door, carrying in his hand the evening newspaper he had been reading.

“What is it?” he asked.

The messenger handed him the envelope he drew from his pocket. The captain signed for it and tore it open.

He ran his eyes over the message, and gave a shout that brought Don to his feet in a twinkling.

“What is it?” he asked in surprise and some alarm. “What’s the matter?”

“Read it! Read it!” cried the captain, shoving the message toward his nephew with a hand that trembled.

Don looked at it, and started as though he had received an electric shock.

“It’s from mother!” he cried. “It’s from mother!”

This was the way the message ran:

“Strange disappearance of Richard. Must have assistance. Cable immediately.

“Alice Sturdy.”

CHAPTER II
Like a Voice from the Grave

“From mother!” shouted Don. “She’s alive! A cablegram from mother!”

He kissed the precious message and pressed it to his heart. Happy tears were in his eyes. The captain was scarcely less stirred.

The commotion brought the professor hurrying to the porch, as well as Don’s sister Ruth, who, not yet fully recovered from her long illness, stood like a frail lily, framed in the doorway.

“What is it, Don?” she asked, clasping her hands beseechingly. “I heard you say something about mother? What has happened?”

Don sprang to her side and led her to a chair, where he seated her tenderly.

“Good news, Ruth, glorious news!” he cried. “We have a message from mother. She’s alive! Think of it, Ruth! Mother’s alive and we’re going to see her soon!”

Ruth’s head drooped on his breast and she fell into a passion of weeping. They let her cry to her heart’s content, knowing they were tears that could bring balm and blessing. The captain turned away, and the professor, to conceal his emotion, blew his nose vigorously.

The paroxysm passed, and Ruth, her eyes shining through her tears, looked at Don.

“What about Dad?” she asked.

Don’s face clouded.

“That news isn’t so good,” he answered. “Mother says that he has mysteriously disappeared. But we’ll find him, never fear. And, anyway, we know that he is still alive—or was up to within a very short time. When is that cablegram dated, Uncle Frank?”

“This morning,” answered the captain, “and it comes from Alexandria. That shows that they both reached Egypt from Brazil. It’s probable that Richard has been missing for a day or two only, or Alice would have cabled sooner. I wish she had gone more into details. But those will come later,” he added.

“She has probably been short of money, and cable tolls are expensive,” suggested the professor.

“We’ll soon settle the money question!” exclaimed the captain. “Dan,” he called to the man of all work, who, together with Mrs. Roscoe and Jenny, had been called out by the excitement and stood near by, “get out the car at once and drive me down to the village. I’ll cable her a thousand dollars to-night, and tell her we’re coming to her by the first steamer we can get.”

Dan hurried away to the garage, while the captain went into the house to get his hat.

“Come into the house, my blessed lamb,” said Mrs. Roscoe, her own face wet with happy tears, as she folded Ruth in her motherly embrace and led her inside.

“My poor dear Missus!” blubbered Jenny, as she followed them. “All alone out there in the land of the Pigamids and the Spinach!”

“I’m going with you, Uncle Frank!” cried Don, as Dan brought the car up to the door.

“Jump in,” said the captain, as he set the example. Dan threw in the clutch and the car whirled out of the gate.

While uncle and nephew are speeding to respond to that call for help from faraway Egypt, it may be well, for the benefit of those who have not read the preceding volumes of this series, to tell who Don Sturdy was and what had been his adventures up to the time this story opens.

Don was a lad of fourteen, unusually tall and muscular for his age, with brown hair and eyes and a fair complexion. He had been born and brought up in Hillville, a thriving town in an Eastern state, about fifty miles from New York. The Sturdy house was of stone, as were the barn, garage and other outbuildings, surrounded by several acres of ground set out with large trees.

Some time before the beginning of the events here narrated, Don’s father, Richard Sturdy, a great traveler, had set out on an exploring expedition, accompanied by his wife, Alice, and by his daughter, Ruth, who was about two years younger than Don. No word came from them, nor did the ship Mercury on which they had embarked reach port, and with the passage of time it began to be feared that the Mercury had gone down with all on board while rounding Cape Horn. The blow was a terrible one to Don, who dearly loved his parents and younger sister, and drove him nearly frantic with grief.

During his parents’ absence, Don had been left in the care of his uncle on his father’s side, Captain Frank Sturdy, his official guardian, a big game hunter of great repute, whose business of gathering animals dead and alive for museums and menageries had taken him at times all over the world. He was a big man of iron nerve, sinewy, with black hair and eyes. He was a dead shot, and his instructions had made Don also a marksman only second to himself.

Don was also under the general oversight of Professor Amos Regor Bruce, his uncle on his mother’s side, and an eminent scientist and member of many learned societies. He also had traveled extensively in the interest of museums, for whom he gathered rare archæological specimens.

To divert Don’s mind from dwelling on his supposed loss, his uncles, both of whom were bachelors, took him with them on a trip to the Sahara Desert. There one adventure trod quickly on the heels of another. Don rescued a boy of about his own size, Teddy Allison, from the attack of thievish Arabs. It developed that Teddy’s father had been captured and carried into slavery. The sympathies of Don and his uncles were enlisted by the boy’s plight, and they organized an auto expedition into the desert to find Mr. Allison and incidentally to discover, if they could, the City of Brass and the Cave of Emeralds. What difficulties they had to surmount; the encounters they had with bandits; the thrilling circumstances attending the rescue of Mr. Allison and their finding of the emeralds are told in the first volume of this series, entitled: “Don Sturdy on the Desert of Mystery; or, Autoing in the Land of the Caravans.”

Don’s astonishment and delight may be imagined when he learned from Mr. Allison that, though the Mercury had indeed been shipwrecked, a number of passengers on the ill-fated ship had been picked up by a sailing vessel and carried to Brazil. Teddy’s father had heard the story from others of the rescued party, a scientist and a sailor, who were presumably somewhere in Brazil, though he did not know their exact whereabouts. Don’s hopes that his parents and sister might have been among the survivors were revived, and he and his uncles determined to go to that great South American country, a project rendered the easier by the fact that the captain had a contract to capture big snakes and the professor wished to go to the same region to search for rare drugs.

Before long their expedition was organized and they had plunged into the wilds of Brazil. Here they had the most exciting adventures with anacondas, boa constrictors, alligators and jaguars, and were many times in peril of their lives.

How they captured the hideous monsters of the jungle; how they followed up traces of Don’s parents and sister and finally found Ruth in a hospital and brought her back to America; how they were baffled by the perplexing mystery that still clung about the movements of Don’s father and mother, are fully narrated in the second volume of this series, entitled: “Don Sturdy with the Big Snake Hunters; or, Lost in the Jungles of the Amazon.”

Now to return to Don, as, with his heart thumping against his ribs with joy and excitement, he accompanied his uncle to Hillville in order to send the message that would bring relief and assurance to his mother’s heart.

Cable tolls were a matter of no consequence to the captain, and he sent a long message to his sister-in-law, full of love and sympathy and encouragement, accompanied by a telegraphic order for a thousand dollars and directions to draw on him for all she needed to any amount. He told her also that Ruth was safe at home, and that he and the professor and Don would be on their way to her by the first steamer on which they could secure passage.

“Well, that’s that!” exclaimed the captain, when he had finished and again climbed into the car. “Now to be up at daybreak and on my way to New York to make arrangements for our passage. You’ve got to hustle now, my boy, to get ready.”

“Ready?” cried Don. “I’m ready now. I’d like to start off this minute.”

“So should I,” replied his uncle. “But a trip half-way around the world can’t be taken at the drop of a hat. We’ll make things hum though, you can be sure of that.”

“How long will the voyage take?”

“Three weeks, probably. Possibly a little less if we make good connections. We’ll have to go to England first, and book passage on a liner from there. But they run frequently, and we won’t have long to wait.”

It was getting dark as they drew near the Sturdy home. In the dusk Don saw two figures walking by the side of the road whom he recognized at once. He called to Dan to stop, and the car halted abreast of them.

“Hello, Emily! Hello, Fred!” Don called out. “Jump in. Where are you going?”

“Just coming over to make you a little call,” replied Fred Turner, a boy of about Don’s own age.

“Better and better!” exclaimed Don. “Get in. I have some glorious news, and if I don’t tell it to some one I’ll burst!”

CHAPTER III
Off for Egypt

“It would be too bad to have anything like that happen, Don,” was the laughing reply of Fred, as he helped his sister into the car and followed her. “So fire away and let’s have it.”

“Oh, you don’t mean, Don, that you’ve heard from your parents?” asked Emily eagerly. “I can’t imagine anything else that would make you so happy.”

“It’s just that!” declared Don jubilantly. “Got a cablegram from my mother. She’s in Egypt, and we’re going right over there to get her and bring her home.”

Emily gave a little squeal of delight and Fred grabbed Don’s hand with a fervor that made him wince.

“Glory hallelujah!” cried Fred. “Isn’t that splendid!”

“Oh, Don, I’m so glad and thankful!” exclaimed Emily. “Now Ruth will get well in a hurry. It’s just that awful worry that’s made her so weak and ill. How did she take it?”

“Too happy for words,” replied Don. “It will do her more good than all the tonics and medicines in the world.”

“Your father is with your mother, I suppose,” remarked Fred.

“No,” replied Don slowly, his tone tinctured with soberness. “That’s the one bad thing in the news. He’s disappeared, and mother doesn’t know where he is. We’re going over to hunt him up. But at least we know that he was alive nearly up to the time she cabled, and that’s a whole lot in itself.”

By this time the car had reached the house. Captain Sturdy went inside to discuss the coming trip with Professor Bruce. Don and Fred sat down on the porch, while Emily rushed inside to rejoice with Ruth over her new-found happiness.

Fred and Emily Turner were orphans, who lived at a little distance from the Sturdy home. Their first acquaintance with Don dated from the time just before his journey to Brazil when Don had saved Emily from a raging torrent into which she had fallen. Fred at that time was badly crippled, so badly, in fact, that his recovery seemed hopeless. The orphans were also in bad financial circumstances, and the small estate in stocks and bonds that had been left them by their father had been taken from them by a heartless swindler.

A warm friendship sprang up between Don and the young folks, and the former enlisted the help of his uncles in their behalf. The story of what was done for the Turners by Professor Bruce and Captain Sturdy and how Fred was cured of his lameness and made as strong and well as other lads of his age has been narrated in the preceding volume.

Don and Fred had been chatting for a few minutes on the porch when the telephone bell rang. Don excused himself and went inside to answer it.

“Hello!” came the call. “Is that you, Don? This is Brick.”

“Bully!” cried Don, as he realized that his caller was Teddy Allison, nicknamed Brick because of his mop of fiery red hair. “I’ve been wondering why I hadn’t heard from you.”

“Been plugging away at my books,” growled Brick. “But vacation will be here in a few days now, and I’m going to make tracks to Hillville just as soon as I can get away. I’m crazy to hear all about your trip to Brazil.”

“You haven’t been any crazier than I’ve been to have you come,” replied Don. “But, Brick, old boy, I’m afraid I won’t be here when your vacation begins. I’m going to Egypt.”

There was an exclamation at the other end of the wire as though Brick had been stunned. Don went on to explain the good news he had received and Teddy was overjoyed.

“It’s glorious, Don!” he said. “It’s the best news I’ve heard in months. But, say, Don, if you’re going to Egypt, why can’t I go along?”

“That would be great,” responded Don enthusiastically. “I’d be tickled to death. And I’m sure my uncles would have no objection. You know what they think of you. They think you’re about the finest boy that ever wore shoes. But how about your father? Would he be willing to have you go?”

“He isn’t in New York, worse luck,” replied Brick. “He’s gone out West on a business matter. But I’ll try to get him by telegraph or long distance ’phone. Oh, Don, I’ve just got to go with you! I’ll go if I have to swim!”

“Pretty long swim,” laughed Don. “But do your best, old boy, and I’ll talk to my uncles; though I’m sure they’ll be willing.”

The boys talked for a few minutes longer, and then Don hung up the receiver and rejoined Fred on the porch.

“From Brick Allison,” he explained. “He’s wild to go with us to Egypt.”

“I don’t wonder,” commented Fred. “But now, Don,” he went on, rising as Emily came out on the porch, “I guess we’d better go, for I know you’ll have a thousand things to do in getting ready for your trip on such short notice.”

The next few days were busy ones. Clothes suitable for the hot climate of Egypt had to be bought, arrangements made for letters of credit, passages booked on the steamer, and a host of other details attended to that had to be crowded into their hurried preparations.

The captain and professor kept the wires hot in their calls on the various shipping offices, and were delighted to find that they could get passage on a steamer going directly to Alexandria in Egypt, thus obviating the necessity of going to England first, an arrangement that would save them several days. At a time when every day counted, this was an item of prime importance.

No answering cable had come from Mrs. Sturdy, a fact that increased their uneasiness and gave an added intensity to their longing to be off.

Nor had Teddy ’phoned again, except once to tell Don that he was trying frantically to get in touch with his father but had not yet succeeded. But no other message followed, and Don was forced reluctantly to give up hope of his boy friend taking the trip with him.

The day came at last when they were to go to New York, there to board the Cleopatra, the vessel on which their passage was booked. There were tender partings from Ruth, in whose cheeks the roses were again coming from the knowledge that her mother was alive. They promised to keep in frequent touch with her by cable.

There were warm good wishes also from Dan and Mrs. Roscoe and Jenny. The hired girl’s agitated feelings were revealed by the unusual vigor with which she chewed her gum.

“Good-bye, Mister Don,” she whimpered. “Don’t get trompled by no cambles an’ don’t get et by no crockumdiles an’ don’t fall down in none of them Egypt tombs.”

Don promised that he would be careful, and the party stepped into the car and were driven down by Dan to the station, where they took the train to New York.

The Cleopatra was to sail the next morning at eleven, and two hours earlier Don and his uncles went on board. The ship was new and well equipped, their staterooms were favorably located and satisfactorily furnished, and to all appearance they would have a comfortable and, they hoped, a speedy voyage.

Don quickly arranged his belongings in his cabin and then went out on deck, which was humming with the activity always prevailing on a steamer on the point of sailing. He hung over the rail looking eagerly for one particular face among the many that thronged the pier. In his last talk with Teddy he had told him of the steamer he would take and the day and hour of sailing, and he confidently expected that his chum would be on hand to see him off.

But Teddy did not appear, and when at last the gangplank was drawn in and the great vessel edged her way out into the river, Don turned away with a feeling of disappointment. What on earth had kept his friend from being on hand? It was not like Teddy to fail him in anything.

But though a sore spot remained in his heart, the first days of the voyage were full of interesting things to engross his attention. The weather was fine, and he spent most of the time on deck, enjoying the cool breezes, the never ending fascination of the ocean, and studying his fellow passengers.

These last embraced more varied types than usual, because many of them were natives of countries that bordered on the Mediterranean and were clad in the picturesque garb of their various lands. There were many Greeks, Algerians, Tunisians and Egyptians, the latter of whom were of special interest because of the preëminent place that Egypt held in his thoughts.

Three whose dress proclaimed that they belonged to the land of the Nile particularly attracted his notice.

One was an elderly man of benevolent expression, with deep piercing eyes peering out from beneath shaggy eyebrows. He seemed a sage and a scholar, rich in wisdom and experience. Don instinctively liked him without exactly knowing why. His name, as the boy ascertained from one of the deck stewards, was Zata Phalos.

Two other Egyptians, who, as Don learned from the same source, bore the names of Tezra and Nepahak, aroused in Don a feeling of suspicion and distrust. They were always together, and usually conversing in low tones, as though fearing to be overheard. From glances they cast frequently at Phalos, accompanied by a vindictive glitter, Don judged that the latter was the subject of their conversation.

Tezra was tall and stoop-shouldered, while Nepahak was fat, short and oily. Don noticed that Tezra did most of the talking, while Nepahak assented by nods or objected in monosyllables. Tezra was apparently the dominant character of the two. To Don, the faces of both bore the stamp of evil.

“Those birds will bear watching,” Don muttered to himself. “I’d hate to be at their mercy if they had an object in injuring me.”

On the third afternoon out Don noticed a certain confusion about one of the hatchways. A number of the crew seemed to be hauling about rather roughly a figure that was obscured by the crowd.

“What’s the matter?” asked Don of a steward who came hurrying past him.

“They’ve nabbed a stowaway,” was the reply.

“Poor fellow,” thought Don. He knew that a stowaway was about as popular with a ship’s officers and crew as a rattlesnake at a picnic party. “I suppose they’ll make him work out his passage in the stokehole for the rest of the voyage.”

Just then a petty officer came up to where Don was seated in his deck chair between those occupied by the captain and the professor.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, addressing the captain, “but we have a stowaway there who insists on seeing the Sturdys and Professor Bruce. Just sheer impudence, I suppose, but I thought I’d tell you, sir.”

Don and his uncles looked at each other in astonishment.

“What on earth can that mean?” cried the captain, jumping to his feet and striding toward the hatchway, closely followed by Don and the professor.

The crowd opened as they approached, and their astounded eyes fell on—Teddy Allison!

CHAPTER IV
A Pair of Scoundrels

“Brick!” cried Don, scarcely daring to believe his eyes.

“Teddy Allison!” ejaculated Captain Sturdy, in a tone that conveyed sternness as well as astonishment.

“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Professor Bruce, staring hard at the stowaway, as though wondering whether it was Teddy in the flesh or his ghost.

But it was a very substantial Teddy that stood before them, held in the grip of two of the sailors, his clothes rumpled and disheveled, smears of dirt across his face, his uncombed red hair flaming above his pale features.

His eyes had lighted with joy as they looked at Don, but fell sheepishly before the gravity that had replaced astonishment in the eyes of the captain and the professor.

Don leaped forward impulsively and threw his arm over Brick’s shoulder.

“You sure had me going for a minute, Brick,” he said. “You could have knocked me down with a feather. But I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you here.”

The evident acquaintance of the Sturdys and Professor Bruce with the stowaway caused the sailors to relinquish their hold of Teddy’s collar, and just at that moment one of the officers of the ship came along to look into the matter.

Captain Sturdy addressed him.

“You needn’t worry about this boy, officer,” he said. “His father is a friend of mine. I’ll take all responsibility for him and pay his passage.”

“Certainly, sir, certainly,” replied the officer. “That will be all right. Hardly know where we’ll find accommodation for him though. All our staterooms are taken.”

“He can share the cabin of my nephew,” replied the captain. “Come, Teddy,” he went on, addressing the culprit. “Don will take you to his room and fit you out with some of his clothes after you’ve had a bath. Then I’ll have something to say to you, young man.”

There was something in Captain Sturdy’s tone and glance that was not at all reassuring to the aforesaid young man, who hurried away with Don, glad to get away from the half-wondering, half-amused glances of the passengers who had been summoned by the hubbub.

“Gee, Don, I suppose I’m in for an awful scolding,” Teddy whispered to his chum, as he watched the uncompromising back of the captain.

“Shouldn’t wonder, old boy,” laughed Don. “You’ll probably get an earful. But, after all, Uncle Frank won’t eat you. And, at any rate, you’re here, and nothing else matters much. You won’t get any scolding from me, that’s a cinch. You look mighty good to me, Brick. I’m crazy to hear what’s happened to you since the ship sailed.”

“It’s a long story, mates,” replied the grinning Teddy, whose mercurial spirits began to rise, despite the lecture in store for him. “But first let me get rid of some of this grime and slip into some decent clothes. Then I’ll feel like a civilized human being again. Gee, there’s no hobo has anything on me.”

So Don forbore to question his friend further, and busied himself in getting out some of his clothes, while Teddy splashed about in the bathtub.

Teddy had scarcely finished dressing when there came a knock on the door. Don opened it, and the captain and the professor entered.

“Now, young man,” said the captain, as they seated themselves, “perhaps you can explain your action in running away from home and stowing yourself away on this ship. It goes without saying that your father knew nothing about it.”

The tone was cold and the look that went with it seemed to bore Teddy through and through and demand the truth. Not that Teddy thought of telling anything else. Falsehood was not one of his vices.

His face flushed almost as red as his hair as he fidgeted about, nervously clasping and unclasping his fingers.

“I—I—meant to tell my father,” he stammered. “I tried to find out where he was. I wrote and telegraphed and telephoned. But he was going from one place to another, and, somehow, I couldn’t get in touch with him.”

“Well?” said the captain, as Teddy paused.

“Then,” confessed Teddy. “I got desperate to think of Don going to Egypt without me, and I made up my mind to go anyway and tell my father about it afterward.”

“Afterward!” repeated the captain, with a sarcasm that was not lost on its object. “So you think it’s all right to do things like this and ask your father’s permission when it’s too late for him to say no?”

“I don’t suppose it was just right,” admitted Teddy. “But I was sure he would let me go if he knew about it. When I wanted to go with Don to Brazil and he wouldn’t let me, he half promised that I could go along if Don made another trip. And it isn’t as though I hadn’t tried to get his permission,” he added, in the hope of softening Captain Sturdy’s heart.

“That would have made it worse,” conceded the captain. “All the same, that is no excuse for doing as you did. Undoubtedly your father will be greatly worried when he comes home and finds you gone.”

“Oh, I took care of that!” exclaimed Teddy, snatching eagerly at any redeeming feature. “I left a letter for my father with one of the servants, telling him all about it. He’ll know I am with you and that you will take good care of me.”

The calm assurance of this almost took the captain’s breath away, and a smile came to the professor’s lips that he repressed instantly.

“And of course father will pay you for any expense I am to you,” said Teddy, who had caught the professor’s smile and took heart of hope from it.

The captain pondered for a moment.

“You did very wrong, Teddy,” he said gravely. “No boy has a right to take such a step as that without his father’s consent. If I could, I would send you back at once. But that is impossible. At the first stopping place, I will cable to your father and get his directions in the matter. In the meantime, of course, you are one of our party. I am very much displeased with you.”

With this Parthian shot, the captain left the cabin, followed by the professor.

Teddy wiped the perspiration from his face and looked at Don.

“Gee, he did give it to me good and plenty,” he said, as he sank down on the bed. “I feel as though I’d been drawn through a knothole. And at that, I know that everything he said was right.”

“Everything that Uncle Frank says is right,” declared Don loyally. “But tell me now, Brick, just how you managed to get on board and stow yourself away. Here I was, sore as a pup because you didn’t come down to see me off, and you’ve been right on the ship with us all the time.”

“I came down to the ship the night before she sailed,” explained Teddy. “It was dark, and I slipped on board when no one was looking and hid away in one of the lifeboats. I didn’t mean then—anyway, I didn’t more than half mean—to be a stowaway. I told myself that I’d see you and your uncles when you came on in the morning and beg them to take me with them. I knew I wouldn’t have to beg you,” he added, with a grin.

“You bet you wouldn’t,” laughed Don. “I couldn’t have said yes quick enough.”

“But while I was hiding in the lifeboat I had plenty of time for thinking,” went on Teddy; “and the more I thought, the surer I got that your uncles wouldn’t do it without my father’s knowledge.”

“You were dead right there!”

“But I was crazy to go,” resumed Teddy, “and I decided that the only way I could go was to stow myself away so that I couldn’t be found until after the vessel sailed. The lifeboat didn’t seem safe enough, for all that any one walking around would have to do would be to lift the tarpaulin covering and spy me.

“So I waited till after midnight and watched my chance and slipped down one of the open hatchways into the hold. There were hundreds of bales and barrels there, and it was easy to find a place where nobody would have a chance of finding me.”

“Why didn’t you come out sooner?” asked Don, in wonderment. “This is the third day that we’ve been sailing.”

“Couldn’t,” was the reply. “I found it was easier to get in than it was to get out. I’d have come out after the first day if I could. But it was only this afternoon that a sailor came down in the hold for something, and I yelled to him. You ought to have heard the howl he let out. Guess he thought it was a ghost at first. Then he came for me. Oh, I got out on deck quick enough then—pulled up by the scruff of my neck.”

“Were you hurt?” asked Don quickly.

“He didn’t actually hit me,” replied Teddy; “but he twisted his knuckles in my neck till I thought I’d choke. I guess sailors feel toward stowaways something as brakemen feel about hoboes stealing rides on railroad trains. As soon as I could get my breath, I asked for the Sturdy party; and you know the rest.”

“How did you get along for grub?” asked Don. “Did you have any with you?”

“Not a bit,” was the answer. “You see, when I first came on board I counted on seeing you the next morning, really, so I didn’t bring anything along with me. After I’d been down in the hold awhile I began to feel hungry. Then I got scared for fear I’d starve to death. But I rustled around among the boxes and barrels and found some boxes where the covers had been cracked or loosened and got hold of some canned goods, beef and preserved cherries. I broke the cans open on the sharp edge of a box. But, oh, boy, what I’m going to do to the grub when I once get at a regular table!”

“There goes the gong now,” said Don, rising. “Come right along and fill up.”

“Lead me to it!” cried Teddy, jumping up.

What he did to the fare of the liner’s table amply fulfilled his prediction. Even the silent disapproval that still persisted on the faces of the captain and the professor had no effect on his appetite.

“Does it beat canned beef and cherries?” whispered the grinning Don, who was sitting beside him.

“By a thousand miles,” replied Teddy, as clearly as he could with his mouth full. “I’ve already let out my belt twice.”

They had reached the dessert when Teddy gave a start. His eyes had fallen on the faces of two of his fellow passengers, seated at a table a few feet away.

“Who are those fellows?” he asked, in an agitated whisper.

Don followed the direction of his glance.

“They’re Egyptians,” he answered. “Their names are Tezra and Nepahak. Why do you ask?”

“They’re rascals!” declared Teddy emphatically.

CHAPTER V
A Villainous Plot

Don looked at Teddy in surprise.

“How do you know those men are rascals?” he asked. “I don’t like the looks of them myself, but I hadn’t heard anything against them.”

“I’ve heard plenty,” rejoined Teddy. “And from their own lips, though they didn’t know I heard them.”

“Spill it,” urged Don impatiently.

“Wait till I finish this pie,” replied Teddy. “That’s the most important thing I have to do just now.”

He kept on imperturbably, while Don waited in a fever of curiosity.

“Come across now,” said Don, when Teddy had finished the last crumb.

“That pie’s mighty good,” remarked Teddy, as he signaled the waiter to bring him another piece.

“I’ve seen anacondas eat,” said Don disgustedly. “But you have it all over them.”

“That’s because they never tasted pie as good as this,” remarked Teddy complacently.

He finished his second helping, and then looked around for the waiter.

“No you don’t!” exclaimed Don, jumping up and grabbing Teddy by the arm. “Come along now, or there’ll be a famine on board this ship.”

“I never thought you had such a mean disposition,” remarked the grinning Teddy, resigning himself, nevertheless, and followed his friend out on the deck.

“Now, if you want to live another minute,” said Don, when they had ensconced themselves comfortably in deck chairs, “tell me what you mean about those fellows.”

“They came along the night I was hiding in the lifeboat,” replied Teddy. “There was nobody else around that part of the deck, and they sat down within a few feet of me and began to talk. They kept their voices low and they talked in their own language, so that they felt pretty safe. But you know I picked up a good deal of Arabic while I was living in Algiers; so, though there was some difference, I could understand almost all they said.

“I didn’t pay much attention at first. They were talking about some fellow named Fellus or something like that—”

“Phalos,” interrupted Don. “That’s another Egyptian that’s on the ship. Kind of an old man, a pretty good kind of a scout, it seems to me.”

“I guess that’s the one, then,” said Teddy. “I hadn’t listened long before I knew that they were trying to put something over on this Phalos, as you call him. Then I lifted up the edge of the tarpaulin a bit, and took a peep at them. The moon was up, so I had a good look, and I knew them again the minute I saw them at the table.”

“What were they trying to put over on him?”

“Seems he’s got some papers they want to get. I couldn’t get just the rights of it, but it seemed mighty important to them. Heard one of them say it would make them rich if they could cop them. And I don’t think they’d stop at anything to get them. I heard one of them say something that means about the same thing as our ‘dead men tell no tales.’”

Just at this moment the two men they were talking about passed them. They were not sauntering, in the manner of most of the passengers, but moved as though they were bent on a purpose, like hounds on a trail.

“Look like a pair of pirates,” snorted Teddy.

“They wouldn’t take any prizes at a beauty show,” agreed Don. “Wonder what they’re up to now.”

“Something they wouldn’t want any one to know about, I bet,” Teddy conjectured.

Suddenly a thought struck Don, and he started up.

“I didn’t see Phalos at the table to-night!” he exclaimed. “He sits near us, and is usually there.”

“Well, what of it?” asked Teddy carelessly. “Perhaps he’s off his feed. And that’s where he’s different from me.”

“I suppose it was something like that,” agreed Don, sinking back again into his chair.

They chatted of other things, but Don’s mind was haunted by a feeling of uneasiness. He could not shake off a conviction that something was wrong with the benevolent old Egyptian, whom he had learned to like. He told himself that he was foolish. Still an uncomfortable feeling persisted. At last he rose with decision.

“Come along, Brick,” he said. “Let’s stretch our legs a bit.”

“Don’t feel as though I could move,” complained Teddy. “I was a trifle hearty at the table to-night.”

“A trifle!” jeered Don. “That certainly is putting it mildly! All the more reason why you should walk it off. Up you come.”

As he reinforced his urging by a vigorous tug at his friend’s sleeve, Brick yielded with a groan.

“Where are you going?” he asked, extricating himself with difficulty from the depths of his chair.

“Oh, just going to take a turn or two about the deck,” answered Don. “And if by chance we should happen to run across those two Egyptians, so much the better.”

“What have you got on your chest?” asked Teddy, with quickened interest.

“Just a little hunch of mine that they may be up to some mischief,” answered Don. “What you’ve told me about them and Phalos has made me feel uneasy, especially as the old fellow didn’t turn up at meal time.”

Teddy’s previous experiences with Don in the Sahara had given him considerable respect for his friend’s “hunches,” and he went along with alacrity.

Twice they made the circuit of the deck without seeing the people of whom they were in search. Then, in the growing dusk, Don caught a glimpse of Tezra and Nepahak emerging hurriedly from a cabin a little way ahead.

He clutched Teddy’s arm and drew him into a corridor leading from the deck, where they stood until the men had passed.

“Come along,” he said, relinquishing his hold on his friend’s arm and hastening out on deck.

“But I thought you were going to follow them!” exclaimed Teddy, as he saw that Don was going in the opposite direction.

“Not now,” replied Don. “That was Phalos’ cabin they came from, and I’m going to take a look at that first.”

In a moment the two boys were standing before the cabin in question, and Don knocked on the door.

There was no answer and no sound of any one stirring inside. Don waited a moment and then knocked again. Still no answer. Then he tried the knob. The door refused to give. It was locked.

Don looked hurriedly about and saw that the door of the room immediately adjoining was standing a little ajar. He pushed it open and found that it contained no bed but a miscellaneous collection of boxes, and was evidently a storeroom.

His eyes roved over the place and detected a transom at the side nearer the cabin of Phalos. Instantly he beckoned to Teddy and they went in, closing the door softly.

Making no noise, Don piled up some of the boxes and stood on them. This brought his head to a level with the transom.

For a moment he could make out nothing definite in the cabin. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, he saw the form of Phalos sitting in a chair. Looking closer, he saw that the old man was tightly bound and that a gag had been thrust into his mouth.

Teddy also had mounted the boxes and stood at Don’s side.

“Do you see that?” asked Don, in a whisper. “There isn’t a minute to lose.”

“What should we do?” exclaimed Teddy.

Don tried the transom and found that it swung toward him. He pulled it still further forward and fastened it to a hook above his head.

The aperture was none too large, but sufficient to permit the passage of his body.

“Come after me as soon as you can,” directed Don, as he swung himself up and through the opening.

He dropped lightly on the other side and a moment later Teddy had followed him.

They rushed to the chair in which the old Egyptian was fastened. His eyes, which had been closed, opened with a look of terror, to be quickly replaced by one of hope as he recognized Don.

In a trice the boys had pulled out their jack-knives and were sawing away at the cords that bound the captive. In a few minutes they succeeded in freeing him from bonds and gag.

The old Egyptian tried to speak, but his tongue at first refused to obey him.

“How can I thank you?” he said, at last, to the boys, who were rubbing his wrists and hands to restore the circulation. “How can I reward you? You’ve saved my property, and perhaps you’ve saved my life.”

“That’s all right,” replied Don. “We’re glad we came in time.”

“But how did you know what had happened to me?” asked Phalos.

“We saw those countrymen of yours coming from the cabin,” explained Don. “We knew that they were enemies of yours, and as you hadn’t turned up at meal time, we thought there was something wrong. What have those men got against you that they should treat you this way?”

“They are robbers,” replied Phalos. “They knew that I had a great secret—” Here he checked himself and darted a quick glance at his deliverers. “That is, they know I have some valuable property which they want to take from me.”

“Where are they now?” asked Don.

“They’ve gone to their own cabin to get implements to torture me with,” was the startling reply. “I refused to tell them what they wanted, and they said they would find a way to cure my stubbornness. They may be back at any minute. We must get out of here at once.”