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Irene avoided him ostentatiously while her grandfather was writing, and thereby laid herself open to the unjust suspicion that she was flirting with him. In very truth, she was torn with misgiving, and Royson's share in her thoughts was even less than he imagined. Her quick brain divined that the arrest of von Kerber had only strengthened the Austrian's claim on Mr. Fenshawe's sympathies.
Though Irene was listening, and Dick was sure she had hit on the true cause of his anxiety, he determined to win Abdullah's loyalty. So he told him of Mr. Fenshawe's resolve to follow the seaward route. "Your interests, whatever they may be, are absolutely safe if you trust us," he said. "The Baron, is only two marches ahead of us. He does not know we are going the same way.
Alfieri sent a volley at him, and stopped the work before much was done, but the Arabs tell me that some leather wallets are visible. The men who were here this morning know that the contents are valuable, so I have stationed an armed guard there." "I wish I could destroy every vestige of the wretched stuff. There is a curse on it." Fenshawe's tone revealed how deeply he was moved.
But Dick, half unconsciously, still clutched the broken rifle. There were blood stains on his clothing, which was ripped in the most obvious way by bullets that had either wounded him or actually grazed his skin. Fenshawe's keen old eyes made a rapid inventory of these signs of strife, and he forgot, in his anxiety, that Irene was present.
Haxton, and not Irene, was the prize sought by the marauders. Royson, though in a white heat of helpless rage, soon became alive to this element in an otherwise inexplicable outrage, and endeavored to soothe Mr. Fenshawe's wild-eyed alarm by telling him the girl would surely be sent back as soon as the error was discovered. There was no time for explanations.
Again, there was direct evidence of his duplicity with regard to the meeting arranged for that morning. Fenshawe's friendly letter was found among his papers, so he had hurried from his camp on the Suleiman's Well route with the deliberate intention of wiping out of existence the man who was his sworn enemy.
Fenshawe's eyes to the character of his associates, for Dick had no manner of doubt that Mrs. Haxton was the leading spirit in the plot of which the millionaire was the "dupe," according to the lawyer. But Royson had found adversity a hard task-master.
A rogue unmasked will grovel: von Kerber was defiant. For the moment, Mrs. Haxton was struck dumb with foreboding. Mr. Fenshawe's. dejected air showed that a deadly blow had been dealt to the project to which she had devoted all her resources since the beginning of the march. She, too, had begun to doubt. Here, in the desert, the buried treasure was an intangible thing.
It was a moment of tension, and something might have been said that would tend to place Royson and the captain at arm's length if the Aphrodite had not taken it into her head to emulate Miss Fenshawe's action by coming to Dick's assistance. The little vessel remembered that which Stump paid small heed to, and asserted herself.
Under his bent brows the gaunt sheikh had noted Mr. Fenshawe's manner when he turned excitedly to demand an explanation from von Kerber. The Effendi's change of tone told its own tale.
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