American fiction -- 19th century; Dime novels; Popular literature
The second signal brings a new surprise, for as the heavy curtains
part, a man, who is plainly an American, is seen, leading a veiled
woman. Of course this is Anthony Wayne and the one he believes to be
Miss Dorothy, for Samson Cereal has played his game well, and the party
employed to personate his daughter is one of the shrewdest detectives
in Chicago.
The operator assumes much surprise at sight of his secretary and valet.
“What, you, too, Anthony!” he exclaims, in much the same tone Cæsar
must have employed when he saw Brutus among his assailants.
“Ze company is all here. There is no cause for longer delay. For this
hour I waited; everything comes to him who waits. Listen now, you
wretch, who stole my bride years ago. To pay me, you must even now give
Aroun Scutari your daughter for a wife.”
“It is you who are the wretch. I would sooner see her dead than your
wife. You are many, I am one; but despair never gnawed at my heart.
Let him lay hands on me who dares,” and the speculator of the Chicago
Bourse draws himself up defiantly.
None of them seem to be in any hurry, but perhaps it is because they
are so sure--because they have other means at hand.
“Bah! shout if you will--no one can hear you. It is our turn to
laugh, and we shall enjoy it, I assure you. I have asked for your
daughter--you refuse. Bismillah! she comes to me of her own will.”
He points his trembling forefinger at the veiled figure standing beside
Anthony, and his mocking laugh is enough to make one’s blood run cold.
These old Turks know how to make of their revenge sweetness long drawn
out--they can lacerate their victims’ feelings even as vultures pick
the flesh from the bones of the dead placed in the Towers of Silence.
“Man, behold your child come to fill ze place you made vacant in my
heart when you stole her mother from me. So shall ze revenge of Aroun
Scutari be complete. Look upon her for ze last time, I tell you, for
you go not forth from here again. It is decreed.”
With these last cutting words the Turk steps forward and tears the veil
away. His manner is proud, disdainful. He feels as though he has the
destiny of all present within the grasp of his hand, just as might a
reckless man who holds a dynamite bomb, and looks around upon the men
he hates.
As he does this, he receives the greatest shock of his life. It almost
paralyzes him. He stares like a man demented.
Instead of the lovely features of Dorothy, he sees the face of a man,
and a very homely face it is, to boot. The fellow shuts one eye and
ogles him in a ridiculous fashion. Aroun Scutari is aghast at this
failure of his plan. He turns his gaze upon Wayne.
“Where is she--what have you brought to me--zis _thing_? Speak, you
slave, you dog of an unbeliever!”
Perhaps it is his looks, but more probably the gleaming yataghan he
flashes from its sheath that scares the amazed valet into speech.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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