reluctantly and with many a backward look, we retired from that glimmering vault of wealth, and climbed to the atrium. we were all soaked to the waist and suddenly conscious of the fatigue of the last two crowded days. personally, i felt that i had reached the limit. i didn't care what happened. i thought that we were in a hopeless fix. vernon king was equally morose. betty was ready to weep. nikka was sardonically amused at our ill-luck. kara was indifferent, so long as nikka refused to embark upon a scheme of wholesale murder in order to impound the treasure for themselves alone. watty was tiredly hopeless. only hugh squared his jaw and said nothing.
"i'll have the precious pair fetched in if you like," volunteered nikka as we sat about the room. "but i don't see the use. i've talked to them, and i can assure you they aren't in a mood to be agreeable. mrs. hilyer is consumed with revenge. she isn't thinking of anything else. she just wants to get back at us. mahkouf is politely threatening. he figures that he has us on the hip because of the killings last night,—murder of his imperial majesty's subjects and all that. he talked about international complications, and lawlessness."
"could we, perhaps, detain them sufficiently long to permit us to get away?" inquired my uncle.
"with the treasure? hardly! i say, do you realize the sheer physical job in removing that stuff? why, there must be tons of it! it would have to be boxed and crated. and where would you take it to? how would you take it anywhere? to arrange for its removal would require—oh, i'd hate to say how long! in the meantime, we might hold mrs. hilyer without causing any comment, but mahkouf is a well-known person. he isn't called 'the grand vizier's jackal' for nothing."
wasso mikali appeared in the doorway at the foot of the stairs that led up to the large chamber on the courtyard level. his face was grim and the tone in which he addressed nikka so savage as to attract the attention of all of us. kara eyed him with approval, and ventured a confirmatory nod.
"he says," nikka translated, "that the only thing for us to do is to kill tokalji and the rest of the prisoners, stow their bodies in the drain that i have told him about, and then deny to mahkouf that there ever was a fight or that there is any treasure here. he insists it was a great mistake for us to take any prisoners, but that we can yet remedy it in time."
"he's dead wrong," said hugh abruptly. "i think i can use tokalji to work out of this mess."
"how?" asked nikka.
"by making it worth his while. he'd do anything for money, wouldn't he?"
"yes."
"well, we have the money in limitless quantities. i want to say a word to you lads and professor king that has been on my chest ever since i saw that treasure-vault. i never thought of this before, because i didn't take the story any too seriously, as i've already said. but now it's beyond cavil. my point is this: there's too much wealth down there for any one man. professor king says there may be $125,000,000. nobody needs that much just to lead his own life in affluence.
"i'm going to divide it equally between you, nikka, jack, professor king, watty and myself, subject to whatever disbursements nikka thinks wasso mikali should have and a price necessary to attach tokalji's allegiance to us."
"your idea of purchasing tokalji's aid, supposing he can aid us, is a good one," said my uncle. "but i have more money now than i can use. i must absolutely refuse your offer so far as it concerns myself, hugh."
"me, too, your ludship," spoke up watkins. "what would i do with millions of pounds? all the other servants would be jealous of me, and the newspaper gentlemen would be 'aving their fun with me every day most like. no, no, sir. i'm an old man, and with all due respect, i'm sure i'd much rather stay on with you at chesby, your ludship, and valet you properly. it ain't so easy to find a good valet nowadays, sir. really, sir, i'd rather not."
"well," said hugh, "we won't fight about that, watty. if you stay with me you— why, hang it all, you're one of the best friends i've got! you must stay. but i'm going to insist on splitting with jack and nikka. then jack can build houses to suit himself, and nikka can play his fiddle to poor boys and girls."
"i knew you'd make an offer like that, hugh," said nikka simply. "it's like you. and don't you worry about wasso mikali. i'll take care of him and his tribe with my share. it wouldn't do them any good to make them grossly rich. they'd leave their old ways of life, contract tuberculosis or dissipate themselves to death. let them be. they live an idyllic life, a life good enough for me, anyway.
"but i'm not going to protest against the corruption of tokalji, if you believe you can make anything out of it. what is your idea?"
"have him in," answered hugh. "i'll show you."
wasso mikali brought in the brigand chief, his broken arm in a sling, a sour glint of hatred in his eye.
"now," said hugh, "ask him, nikka, if he'd like to be so rich he wouldn't need to steal again, except to indulge his sportin' tastes?"
tokalji evidently considered he was being spoofed, and he drew himself haughtily erect.
"he says any man would answer that one way," replied nikka. "but that you seek to annoy him."
"tell him," returned hugh, "that i'll give him £100,000 turkish if he'll come over to our side, and back us up against mahkouf pasha. explain to him about mahkouf pasha."
the change in tokalji's manner was ridiculous.
"he says," translated nikka, "that he will kill the sultan for you for £100,000 turkish. but he wants to see the money.'
"watty," said hugh, "go down into the sewer-treasury and collect a sack of jewels—anything will do. tell tokalji i'm sending for an earnest of our good-faith, nikka."
avarice glowed in the brigand's face. wasso mikali looked disgusted. he nursed some secret grudge of his own against tokalji, and had wanted to cut his throat from the minute he discovered the scoundrel was our prisoner. but hugh's hunch was a good one. none could doubt that as tokalji gradually thawed under the influence of his stimulated acquisitive instincts.
and when watty tramped in fifteen minutes afterward and plumped a bulging sack into the old thief's lap a miracle was wrought. sweat beaded on his forehead; his hands clawed the lovely stones; his eyes shone; he cackled to himself and crooned like a mother over her baby.
"tell him they are his, and that we will add gold to them, if he plays fair with us," continued hugh when he judged he had made his effect. "but he will have to remain our prisoner until we leave.'
"he awaits your orders," nikka translated the reply, as tokalji regretfully tore his attention from the treasure on his knees. "wait a minute." this last as tokalji burst into a tumult of excited speech. "he says for you not to worry about mahkouf pasha. he knows all about the pasha. he, the pasha, has been smuggling arms from roumania to kemal pasha at angora, and tokalji has played a part in the business."
hugh just grinned, and the rest of us grinned back at him.
"we are indeed fortunate," remarked king.
"fortunate your eye!" returned hugh with jubilant disrespect. "i knew such precious scoundrels would sell each other out. now, nikka, you tell tokalji he is to inform mahkouf pasha that he regards us as his friends, inasmuch as we relieved him last night from the oppression of a band of thieves. and we'll have mahkouf in here, and give him an earful. i suppose we'll have to drag in that poor hilyer woman, too. i hate that. but she'll have to be made to understand her position."
the interview that followed was absurd and sordid. mahkouf pasha, after an attempt at hectoring defiance, collapsed completely and begged to be let alone. nikka, who handled him, squelched him to putty, and told wasso mikali to see him to the street.
"and remember," nikka concluded, "if you dare to breathe a word against us, you levantine dog, we will show you up for what you are to the allied high commissioners, to your master the grand vizier and to the nationalists at angora. you have played all three of these, one against the others, and all three will be glad to hang you. go, before i kick you!"
wasso mikali positively chuckled as he jerked the ashen-faced mongrel to his feet and steered him up the stairs.
maude hilyer was not so easy. she began by a wailing tirade that degenerated into a filthy harangue. i learned afterwards that she had risen in life from a position which had made her engagement for the gayety theater chorus an epochal event for her. we sent betty from the room, and hugh gently quieted her.
"see here, mrs. hilyer," he said. "we don't enjoy this any more than you do. for what happened to your husband— perhaps anything i say will be in bad taste. but the fact remains that we had nothing against him. it was he who went after us. and i notice that although that demon lafitte tortured and attempted to abuse several of us, including a woman, you never raised your hand to restrain him.
"but i'm not appealing to you on grounds of decency, but of self-interest. if nothing comes out about hilyer's end, you can go home and hold up your head. on the other hand, if you want to air what happened, i shall see to it that the whole story of my uncle's death becomes known. do you think that then you will be received anywhere at home? i leave it to you."
the queer social vanity that was the main-spring of the woman's life responded to this argument. she dried her tears and restrained her tongue; and for a moment i felt sorry for her. but she showed her character at the last, even as she rose to go.
"it's all very well what you say, lord chesby," she whimpered. "but what am i going to do now? hilyer's dead, little depping is loaded with mortgages. his cousin george will inherit what's left of it, anyway. and i—"
she hesitated artistically.
"i am not going to pay you blackmail," returned hugh coldly, "but you may call on my solicitors this day two months. what we do for you will depend upon your conduct."
and that was the last any of us saw of maude hilyer. but i may as well say here that she did call on mr. bellowes in london, and that by hugh's direction he arranged to pay her a small income conditioned on good behavior. hugh, with his usual generosity, insisted, too, upon making substantial presents—booby-prizes, he called them—to our two russian prisoners. they were not released, however, until we left constantinople, as their vindictive attitude assured us of their desire to wreck our fortunes, if they could discover an opportunity. what happened to the strange pair after wasso mikali freed them i do not know. but i should hazard a guess that while mrs. hilyer will be content to live respectably in a cheap brighton hotel, eking out her means with the practice of bridge of an uncommonly sharp variety, serge vassilievich and sandra vassilievna—whether brother and sister, in truth, i never found out—will fleece their way through the smart watering-places and resorts of the continent so long as the police permit them at large.
"are we downhearted?" demanded hugh, as the door closed behind mrs. hilyer.
"we are not," returned king. "it is amazing to reflect upon the apparent hopelessness of our position a couple of hours ago, while now we seem to have no reason to anticipate any insurmountable difficulties."
"don't be too sure about that," i remonstrated. "we still have to consider the proposition of smuggling tons of treasure out of a country that would be delighted to get its hands on it."
"we'll find a way," nikka declared. "i feel more hopeful than i did. hugh has given us a lesson in practical strategy. it was a master-stroke to buy in tokalji. now we have some time to spare."
"and with submission, sir, mister nikka," said watkins, gently closing the door behind him. "miss betty is dead asleep on some rugs upstairs. 'ave you gentlemen forgot it's past eight o'clock? come, now, a bite of supper, and you'd best sleep a while."
"he's right," assented hugh. "we're overdoing it. a night's sleep will set us all up."
we slept royally, leaving the guard duty to wasso mikali's men; and the next day we awoke with confidence in our united ability to overcome all remaining obstacles. at nikka's suggestion we called upon wasso mikali for his advice. he pondered for five minutes or so, then spoke like a judge on the bench.
"a great treasure like this cannot be trusted in many men's hands," he said. "otherwise i would offer to transport it by mule-trains to the dwelling-place of my tribe. jakka knows how secure that is. but even if we succeeded in carrying it there, what should we do with it? to make use of it, you must carry it to the lands where you live.
"so, friends of my sister's son, i say that you must put the treasure on a boat, and you must go on that boat, yourselves, and you must be sure you can trust the captain."
"but how can we find such a boat and captain?" asked hugh.
"leave that to me," answered wasso mikali promptly. "i know certain men of my race in this city who can furnish me with information about the vessels that come to the golden horn. and in the meantime, you must make boxes to hold the treasure."
we heard no more from him for a week. he went and came, sometimes by day and sometimes by night; and we in the house in sokaki masyeri, prisoners as well as captors, labored with saw and hatchet, hammer and nails. as fast as we shaped the boxes, we carried them down to the drain and packed them, wrapping gold and gems in whatever fabrics we could find around the house, and in this way we used up all the loose lumber, cloth and bedding in tokalji's store rooms.
then, one night as we sat in the atrium, very sore as to hands and fingers from the unaccustomed carpentry, there was a knock on the courtyard door, and wasso mikali ushered in a tall, lean man in a blue sea-officer's cap. he left this man in the courtyard, and came down to us.
"i have brought you a sea-captain who does not fear to dodge the law," said the old gypsy without preface. "he loves a circassian girl who lives in a street near the khan of the georgians, and i have made it plain to him that if we do business with him the girl stays in my custody for surety of his honesty. he is a russian, and his ship is his own—or so he says."
"you did not tell him what we wanted him for?" questioned hugh.
"tell him only what you must," counseled wasso mikali. "i think i have a hold on this man, but i would not trust him more than i could help."
"why can't we tell him that we have made a remarkable find of ancient statuary, mosaics and that sort of thing?" i suggested. "he will look us up, and the story will sound credible for king. we'll let him know that the government wouldn't like to see such a valuable collection go to foreigners, and so we have to smuggle it."
"that will do," nikka approved. "and that will explain why we must send the boxes aboard secretly."
we made the deal with the russian captain that night. he was not a bad chap, but a bit put to it to earn the keep of himself, his crew and his vessel by reason of the anomalous situation in which they found themselves, the slava still running under the old imperial registry. she was a tidy tramp of 5,000 tons odd, and captain malakovich made no objection to turning over the necessary cabins for our use. he expressed himself feelingly as glad to help any one who was trying to diddle the turkish government, and he served us with a loyalty that earned him a considerable additional honorarium upon our arrival in southampton.
"i'll enter your stuff on my manifests after we clear the port," he said frankly. "i don't care whether i ever come back here. as to aleikouan—" the circassian—"wasso mikali can send her to salonika when he receives word that i have landed you gentlemen. i'll trade with the greeks after this. i'm through with the turks."
the transfer of the treasure occupied a week, for we could only work at night, carrying the heavy boxes down the drain and utilizing the limited stowage-room of the curlew. we set watkins aboard the slava to watch the boxes, and the rest of us either mounted guard on our prisoners or else made more boxes and packed. it was a hectic time. the only real excitement that marked it, however, was a visit we received from two of tokalji's men from the camp of the tribe in the forest of belgrade. kara took care of them, sending them back with imaginary instructions from her father.
the last day, after the treasure boxes, now duly stenciled "antiques, statuary, chgs. pd., with care," were stowed away in a secret compartment of the slava's hold, we all found time to go to the british embassy to see hugh and betty married. kara, strangely subdued in a costume furnished by betty, hung to nikka's arm and watched the ceremony with amazement.
"do the franks have to do all that to be married?" she commented. "i am more than ever glad i am a tzigane."
"what are you going to do with her, nikka?" asked betty. "send her to school? or let me look after her? i'd love to."
nikka laughed.
"you wouldn't very long. no, i'm not going to curb my wild hawk so drastically. she shall taste of civilization sip by sip, until it savors sweetly on her tongue."
"and you?" cried hugh. "aren't you coming with us?"
"no. i must tame her. and in taming her i shall indulge the craving that has grown in me to sample again the joys of the open road that i have not known since i was a lad. we are going to wander, kara and i. we will go up into the rhodopes with wasso mikali for a while, and then we will take the tzigane's trail through the balkans and over the danube and the carpathians, on, on, wherever we choose."
so, when the slava steamed out of the golden horn that afternoon, hugh and betty, vernon king, watkins and i waved good-by to our comrade. nikka and kara stood on the pier-end as long as we could see them; and after they had dwindled out of sight we turned our gaze on the matchless skyline of stamboul, with its lofty domes and slender minarets and close-packed buildings tumbling down the hillsides to the great cordon of the old byzantine sea-wall.
and on the very edge of the wall was poised the squat bulk of tokalji's weird establishment. we could see it clearly, the fine lines of the house of the married, the plumy tip of a cedar waving from its mysterious hidden courtyard, and the l-shaped mass of the bachelor's quarters opposite. they bulked smaller at this distance than when seen from the bobbing cockpit of the curlew. already it began to seem difficult to believe that within their walls we had witnessed so much of tragedy and devotion.
"see, there is the mouth of the drain!" exclaimed betty, beside hugh.
"d'you recall, jack, how surprised we were when watty popped out of it?" chuckled hugh.
"some day i really must return and follow that up," said king thoughtfully. "achæologically speaking, it was quite the most important discovery that we made."
watkins shook his head sorrowfully.
"i've been thinking, mister jack, sir," he said. "they'll never believe this story in the servants' 'all, 'awkins and mrs. prouty and burbadge and the rest. they'll laugh at me or arsk 'is ludship to 'ave the county council commit me for lunacy."
"they'd believe you if you accepted your share of the treasure," i told him.
"per'aps," he admitted. "but what good would it do me, sir? i've no call for it, what with me valeting and all, and in the end lloyd george would get it, 'im and the hincome-tax collector. they will any'ow, sir! by crickey, mister jack, i 'adn't thought of that!"
and for the first and only time in the course of our acquaintance watkins indulged in a broad grin.
