"Yes," said Frank bitterly; "but it will be months or years before they reach the place, and before then my brother may be dead. Sheikh," said Frank, in a low, hoarse voice that bespoke the emotion from which he suffered "he is a slave, and in chains. I must go to his help at once." "The young Excellency's words are good, and they make the eyes of his servant dark with sorrow; but it will not be freeing his brother from his chains if he goes as a young man would, to rashly throw away his life. It is so easy away out there. Here there is law, and if a man steals or raises his hand against his brother man, there is the wise judge waiting, and the judgment bar. But out yonder they make their own laws, and it is but a thrust with a spear, a stroke with a sharp sword, and the sand is ever athirst to drink up the blood, the jackals and the unclean birds to leave nothing but a few bones. Has the young Excellency thought of all this?" "Yes," said Frank hoarsely, "and I have seen in the darkness of the night when I could not sleep, my brother's hands stretched out to me, and have felt that I could hear his voice calling to me to come and save him." The Sheikh stood silently there beneath the palms, and for some minutes no words came. At last he repeated his former stereotyped expression. "It is good. Yes," he said, "it is good, and God will go before you on such an errand as this, my son. I am growing old now." "And you--" Frank began to utter his thoughts impulsively, but the professor laid a hand sharply upon his arm. "Silence," he said, and the Arab paused for a few moments as if to give way, but as Frank checked himself he went on--