"But, my dear Doctor," said the swarthy Egyptian, bowing with upturned palms, "you surely do not mean to keep the location of this treasure tomb hidden forever from science. I know that a man of your nature would not care for the money the jewels and trinkets would bring if sold, but I can not see how you can refuse to let scholars view these rare specimens of ancient art. Will you not——"

"I beg you," said the rector in distressed tones, "to speak no more about it. The subject awakens unpleasant memories. I have never before mentioned having seen this treasure tomb. So far as I am concerned the desert sands shall not be moved from over its door. Please, my good friend, do not refer to it again!"

"But," began the Egyptian.

Commodore Barney jerked him to one side. "Look here, Mr. Murad," he said in gruff tones, "Dr. Eccleston lost a wife and child in that exploration. He came to this country to forget his loss. Keep off the subject of those antiques—the chances are that they're not worth the trouble it would take to dig them up!"

"He has a secret that he owes to science," said the Oriental stubbornly. He was a proud, determined man. The black moustache that flowed across his tawny face and the black hair that showed in strings beneath his fez gave an added fierceness to his look. His brilliantly embroidered cloak made him still more commanding in appearance. Commodore Barney, with his stout body and sea legs, cut a poor figure beside him.

"Harken, my friend," the commodore said sharply, "I mean what I say. We're not going to have the rector bothered. We don't know your business in America, and we're not inquiring into it. In return, we ask you to let us mind our own affairs. If you know what's good for you, you'll stop hounding the minister for his secret. Science be blowed! Art be hanged!"

Alexander and I, David Forsyth, listened with eyes popping. Orphans we were, adopted by Dr. Eccleston, our mother's rector. My father—as brave a sailor as ever drew breath, Commodore Barney often assured us—had been killed on board the commodore's schooner Hyder Ally, while protecting the shipping in the Delaware River from British frigates during the Revolutionary War. My mother, while father was at sea, had helped to nurse the sick people of Baltimore, and had herself died of the pestilence. Dr. Eccleston, a widower, assumed the care of Alexander and myself.

Alexander, springing up like Jack's bean-vine, yet growing in brawn and manliness as his height increased, was my elder by a number of years. He was much taller than I, yet I was growing too and had hopes of reaching, by the time I was sixteen, the chalk mark on our wall that showed Alexander to be five feet, ten inches high.

It was on a dock in Baltimore that this talk took place. The Egyptian Murad had come to our city from Washington. What his business was no one could tell. Some said that he was a Turkish diplomat. Others said that he was a spy for the Barbary rulers. He attended services at the rector's church, and had told someone that he was a native of Alexandria, Egypt. He had embraced the Christian religion, he said, and had been so persecuted by the indignant Moslems that he had left Egypt for America. He appeared to have plenty of means, and, because there was such an air of romance about him, the people of Baltimore accepted him without much questioning, and were, indeed, rather proud that they had a man of mystery among them.

Our presence on the pier was due to the arrival of Alexander's ship, The Three Friends, from England. Alexander, after begging Dr. Eccleston in vain to permit him to make a sea voyage, had taken French leave. When news reached our house that The Three Friends had come into port, and that Alexander was one of the crew, we hurried down to greet him. The rector was angry and affectionate. The commodore was proud of the boy. As for me, I regarded Alexander as Ulysses was doubtless regarded by the boys of his home town when he returned from his wanderings.

It was the cargo of The Three Friends that caused the discussion, and that led the rector to open a closed chapter in his life. The ship had brought flower-patterned silken gowns, crimson taffetas, pearl necklaces, and other exquisite articles esteemed by women; and silk stockings, brilliant scarfs, beaver hats and scarlet cloaks for the men. The people welcomed these articles. The men had raised tobacco, caught fish, and gathered furs that they might buy for their families these rare luxuries from Europe. There were also, in the cargo, chairs of Russian leather, damask napkins, superb clocks, silver candlesticks and tankards, and a wealth of treasure of this nature.

Alexander's special gift for the commodore was a pipe. To the rector he gave a curious-shaped little bottle.

"I found it in a curio shop in London," he said. "The proprietor told me that it had been found in an Egyptian tomb."

Dr. Eccleston turned pale. Then, recovering himself, he took the present and held it towards us with what seemed to be real appreciation. I learned later that his pallor was due to the memories the queer little bottle awakened.

"Bless me!" he said, "it's a lacrimatory—a tear-bottle! I found many a one while I was excavating in Egypt. Some say that they are made to hold the tears of mourners, but scholars will tell you that they are after all but receptacles for perfume and ointments."

Murad had approached. The sight of the curious bottle, which did not seem to me to be worth a minute's talk, led him into a discussion of antiquities he had found in Egypt. The rector's eyes kindled. Here was a subject that had once been his chief interest. Suddenly he launched forth into a description of a treasure tomb he had literally stumbled upon in the desert—a tomb upon which a later tomb had been built, so that, while the later tomb had been plundered by Arabs, the earlier tomb had remained a secret until he pried up a stone in the wall and discovered it. The rector who had attended Oxford, and had gone forth from college to explore the ruins of countries along the historic Mediterranean coasts, had made a rough map of the location of this tomb. He now began to tell of the treasures he had found in the chamber: heavy gold masks, and breast-plates that, while barbarous in appearance, yet showed beauty of craftsmanship; bulls' heads wrought in silver with horns of gold; beautiful jugs and cups, wrought in ivory, alabaster and amber; mummies whose brows and wrists were encircled with gems—a hoard of riches priceless both to the scholar and the fortune hunter.

This description fired my imagination. It also stirred Murad. I saw his eyes glow and his fingers tremble. I wondered if his vehement demand that the rector should reveal the location of this cave was created by his interest in science or by pure lust for riches? As for myself, I confess that I thought only of the money into which these buried jewels and trinkets could be turned.

Later, the commodore told us why the rector had been so swift to end his tale of the buried treasure. After he had discovered the tomb, somewhere on the African shore of the Mediterranean, he had covered it up and joined a caravan bound for Tripoli, meaning to organize a special expedition for further searches. His caravan was attacked by a tribe of bandits. A blow from a spear knocked him unconscious. When he regained his senses, his wife and child were gone.

"They were taken as loot," said the commodore. "Women and children are nothing more than baggage to those Arabs!"

The husband wandered for months through the desert searching for his family. At last he was stricken with fever. Travelers found him and placed him aboard a ship bound for England. There he had plunged into religious work to keep from going mad. Blood-stained garments—proof that his wife and daughter had been slain—were sent him by an Arabian sheik. Later he had come to America as a missionary.

He was now rector of Marley Chapel. It is located about nine miles from Baltimore, near the bridge at Marley Creek, which enters into Curtis Creek, a tributary of the Patapsco River. This chapel had been built long before the Revolution. The minister kept his residence within the town limits of Baltimore because it extended his field of helpfulness. The journey to the chapel was made on horseback, and whenever he went to service Alexander and myself followed him on our ponies, through sun, rain, sleet or snow.

On fair-weather days, the church-yard resembled a race-course. The ladies, in gay clothes, had come in carriages. The men, mounted on fine horses and sumptuously arrayed, rode beside them. The carriage wheels rattled. The negro drivers cracked their whips and shouted. The gentlemen loudly admonished the slaves. Over such a tumult the church bell, which was suspended from a tree, rang out to warn the people that the service was about to begin; then a hush fell over the countryside, broken only by the stamping and snorting of the mettlesome horses in the shed, or by the chuckles of the negro boys who tended them.

To bring our story back to the present hour: Alexander had wandered off from our group with some of his shipmates. Suddenly there was an uproar. There were surly fellows in the crew and quarrelsome men in the crowd. Already Alexander had pointed out to me Black Peter, Muldoon, Swansen, and other sailors whom he avowed were the toughest men he had ever met.

These were now confronted by our town rowdies. We had a few men among our citizenship of whom we were heartily ashamed—men who knew how to fight in ways that surpassed for brutality those methods of warfare learned on shipboard. Eye-gouging, for instance; getting a man down; twisting a forefinger in the side-locks of his hair; thrusting, by means of this hold, a thumb into the victim's eye, thereby threatening to force the eyeball from the socket if the sufferer did not cry "King's cruse!" which, I suppose you know, meant "enough!"

The seaman who had been challenged by Steve Dunn, the bully, was Ezra Wilcox, Alexander's chum. He was a stranger in our town and Alexander was eager that he should think favorably of the people of Baltimore, who, everyone knows, are in the main, an open-hearted people. Angered at having his desire thwarted by the rowdy, Alexander rushed between Steve and Ezra, and himself took up Ezra's battle. He and the tough locked arms in a punching and wrestling match, and were soon rolling over each other on the wharf. Steve, finding that he was getting the worst of the tussle, reached his hands towards Alexander's side-locks.

"Look out, Alexander," I cried, dancing over the pair in a frenzy, "he's trying to gouge you, man!"

"Unfair! Unfair! No gouging!" the other sailors shouted, while the rest of the onlookers stood by with their sense of justice absorbed by their interest.

Steve's finger was buried in Alexander's shock of hair, and his thumb crept closer to my brother's eye. I was about to stoop in an attempt to break the brutal grip when Alexander released his hair by a desperate jerk that left a wisp between the ruffian's fingers, rolled Steve over, held him face downward in a grip of iron, and rubbed his nose on the planks of the dock until blood spurted from it. Then, lifting the bully up at arm's length, Alexander cast him against the palings with a force that stunned him. If someone had not grabbed Steve then, he would have rolled over into the river and few would have mourned him if he had sank and never bobbed up again.

Steve's friends advanced, pretending great indignation at Alexander's roughness, but paused as Ezra Wilcox, Black Peter, Muldoon, and Swansen came forward itching to take up the battle.

"Enough of this," cried the rector, roused from his brooding by the tussle, "Steve's dug into my boy's eye and paid for it with his own nose! We'll call the affair quits, and I'll ask you Baltimore folks to show courtesy to the strangers within your gates."

That afternoon we attended a fair on the chapel grounds. I was eager to show Alexander that I too had strength and skill, and at the fair, in a small way, my chance came.

As we approached the grounds we saw that, among other sports, a gilt-laced hat had been placed on a greased pole, to be won by the man or boy who climbed the pole and slid down with the hat on his head. Alexander challenged me to try.

Others had tried and had slid back defeated amidst much laughter. I gave a running leap, however, and clutched the pole a man's height from the ground. My fingers and feet managed to find cracks and crevices. My knees stuck. It may have been that the dirt and sand in which I had taken the precaution to roll before making the attempt enabled my arms and legs to overcome the grease, or perhaps it was because those who had tried first had worn most of it away. From whatever reason, I continued to climb, rubbing the outer part of my sleeve over the pole as I advanced, so that more of the grease was removed from my path. At last, amidst cheers, I reached the peak of the pole, seized the gilt-laced hat, donned it—although it fell down over my ears—and slid to the ground in triumph.

SEA LONGINGS

"If you can climb masts as well as you can climb poles," said Alexander, "there's no doubt that you'll be a fine sailorman!"

"He'll do no mast-climbing!" said Dr. Eccleston. "One sailor in the family is enough. His climbing will be confined to the steps of a pulpit. I am training him for the ministry!"

Alexander looked at me quizzically. I winked at him. He and I had agreed from childhood that ours should be a seafaring life. My brother had boldly carried out his intention to follow father's example, but I, seeing that the rector had set his heart upon my adopting a shore career, had postponed making my declaration. I was immensely fond of the rector; I did not care to be the means of bringing further sadness to him, so I bided my time.

Commodore Barney heard the rector rebuke Alexander and saw my wink. Bless me, behind the minister's back, he winked too. He had told me that, when the United States began to build her navy, he expected to obtain a place for me on a frigate. "America's prosperity on the sea is just beginning," he said. "Don't turn your back on your natural calling. One voyage in a privateer in one of the wars that are on the horizon will make your fortune. I'll take you to sea with me. Let the dominie look elsewhere for his recruits!"

The rector and the commodore were great comrades, but on the subject of a career for me they never agreed.

Commodore Barney had been a hero to Alexander and myself as far back as we could remember. He was a part of our lives from the first—an unofficial second guardian. I have heard him declare that he was on his way to our house to adopt us when he met the rector coming out with one of us clinging to each hand. Dr. Eccleston had told him then, the commodore stated, that a seafaring man was no fit guardian for children.

The commodore was a burly, pink-cheeked, big-hearted man. What a dandy he was! When on shore he wore a cocked hat, a coat with large lace cuffs, and a cape cut low to show his neck-stock of fine linen cambric. His breeches were closely fitted with large buckles. He wore silk stockings and large buckled shoes. No one who saw him sauntering along Market Street would take him to be a sailor, although his tongue betrayed his calling. Nautical terms, strange oaths, shipping topics were forever on his lips. His clothes spoke of the ballroom, but his language had the tang of the ship's deck and the salt wind.

He was fond of the ladies. It often amused us to see him dancing attendance on a maid who minced along in brocade or taffeta, with her skirts ballooning from the hoops underneath, with bright-colored shoes peeping out from beneath her skirts, and with an enormous plume in her big bonnet that waved towards the commodore's cocked hat. The hooped skirts seemed to be trying to keep her escort at a distance, while he struggled manfully to pour his words into her ear.

Murad was still hovering around us. Evidently anxious to appease the commodore, he had begun to talk to him on sea topics. The commodore, in turn, started to draw out the Egyptian as to opportunities American shippers might have to sell cargoes of American goods to Mediterranean cities.

"In Barbary, Egypt and beyond," said Murad, "will lie your country's chief market. The ports of the Mediterranean are eager for your goods. Lads like these——" he fixed glowing eyes on Alexander and myself—"will live to make their fortunes in the Mediterranean."

"I don't know but what you're right," said the commodore, "if someone will kindly sweep those Barbary buccaneers out of the way. Looks as if we'll have to build a squadron to do what the navies of Europe have failed to do through all these centuries. Matters are coming to a head between our country and the pirate nests of Barbary. I've heard reports of American ships being captured by ships sent out by the ruler of Algiers. It may take us a little time to wake up, but in the end we're going to stop that!"

"That," said Murad suavely, "is nothing new. If you lived in the Orient, my dear commodore, you would think little of it. It's merely the way the rulers of the Barbary countries have of notifying your new country that it's America's duty to pay them toll—ships and jewels and gold. All of the nations of Europe pay them for protection, and of course, in justice to themselves and those who pay them tribute, they cannot exempt America. If I were your President, I would send liberal presents every year to the princes of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Morocco. Then, sir, American ships and sailors would have nothing to fear in the Mediterranean."

"Just so!" said the commodore. He cast a long look at the Egyptian, glanced around at us to see how we took this proposition, and chewed his tobacco with fierce energy. Then he exploded:

"I'd blow every one of those pirate nests out of the water before I'd pay one of those bloody Bashaws a sixpence!"

"I'D BLOW EVERY ONE OF THOSE PIRATE NESTS OUT OF
THE WATER BEFORE I'D PAY ONE OF THOSE BLOODY
BASHAWS A SIXPENCE!" SAID THE COMMODORE.

"Then!" said Murad, "I'm afraid American commerce will find itself barred from the Mediterranean! I have no interest in the corsairs. I was merely trying to point out a way by which your skippers could find new markets over there without being attacked or imprisoned."

"Well, just belay that advice when you're talking to a man who has fought for, and still will fight for the honor of his country!" growled the commodore.

We followed the old sailor.

"That fellow's in this land for no good!" the commodore said to the rector. "The last time I attended a session of Congress, I saw him listening to the debates. I reckon he's keeping the rulers of Barbary informed of what's going on over here. Those fellows want to know how rich our country is, so that they can tax us all that our finances can stand. I wouldn't be surprised, either, if Murad's not sending advices of our sailings, so that those pirates can be on the watch for our ships!

"Both England and France want to bar us from the trade of the Orient, and their agents will convey to them there Bashaws any news this sneaking Murad sends them. Christian convert—my aunt! Once a Moslem always a Moslem! A trapper of Christians—that's what I think him!"

Murad went on his way and we went ours. I was to have plenty of occasion to reflect on the commodore's opinion of the Oriental.

Alexander stayed with us for two months after his return from England. Then he hurriedly shipped on a schooner bound for Boston. Its skipper, when he returned to Baltimore, brought us a note from my brother. In it he advised us that he had shipped on board the schooner Marie sailing from Boston for Cadiz. This was in April, 1784. Over a year passed without bringing tidings of my brother. I had begun to fear that his ship had gone down, although the good rector, to comfort me, grumbled that there was a special Providence that took care of fools.