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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Mysterious Arab," Percy Keese Fitzhugh delves into the complex interplay of identity, mystery, and adventure through the lens of young protagonists navigating a world infused with the mystique of Eastern cultures. Set against a backdrop of exotic landscapes and pulsing tensions, the novel is marked by Fitzhugh's characteristic style'Äîrichly descriptive prose that evokes vibrant imagery and cultural nuance. The literary context of the early 20th century, a time rife with exploration and fascination towards non-Western themes, shapes the narrative, providing both depth and intrigue as the characters confront their own biases and preconceptions. Fitzhugh, known for his captivating children's tales, drew on his experiences and observations of diversity in America to craft this narrative. His background in sketching and storytelling fashioned a natural inclination towards exploring the nuanced dimensions of character and culture. Having traveled and engaged with various communities, Fitzhugh sought to break down barriers, fostering understanding and empathy through his writing, especially towards the misunderstood and often misrepresented figures of the time. I highly recommend "The Mysterious Arab" to readers who are interested in a captivating adventure that challenges societal norms and representations of the East. The book invites contemplation on themes of acceptance and the nature of identity, making it not only an engrossing read but also a valuable reflection on cultural encounters.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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The Mysterious Arab
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IPINEY
A sharp cry issued from the black’s throat and he looked into the train compartment appealingly. The effect this had on the native policeman was but to make him the more determined for he lost no time in dragging his prisoner back along the platform and out of sight. The train was pulling slowly out of the station and Hal’s curiosity got the better of him.
He glanced at the broad sunburnt features of his fellow passenger. The man looked inscrutable except for the ghost of a smile which hovered about his small, mild blue eyes. He seemed to be continually glancing backward at something, glancing back mentally, for not once did he turn his small, squat head to look at quaint Mombasa but rather did he tilt his wide chin northwest in which direction they were soon speedily traveling.
Hal stared at the man until he forced him to meet his eyes. Then he smiled winningly. “I—I,” he began, “gosh, I don’t mean to be nosey or anything like that, but I was wondering about that black fellow. Did he—what did the poor devil do?”
The man moved in his seat, raising a slight film of orange dust which had been accumulated in passing through the red clay country. “You didn’t see the little scene then, eh?” he said almost tonelessly. Then: “That’s right; you came along just when the cop was nabbing him.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “There was nothing much to it—the poor devil, as you call him, was just trying to sell me a diamond cheap. Cop had an eye on him I guess.”
“Did he steal it?” Hal asked.
“Sure,” the man answered indifferently. “How else would a nigger get it? Prob’bly escaped from the mines.”
“Not Kimberly?”
“Sure—I guess so. Cops watch for ’em coming up the coast. Most always they get ’em.”
Hal looked out upon the veldt through which they were passing. The scrubby plain gave him a strange sense of desolation that he could not account for. He was thrilled to the fingertips on this, his first trip into Africa! Certainly that had been his first reaction a few hours ago when he was wandering about Mombasa waiting for train time. He had been overjoyed—there was no mistake about that! And now?
He ran his long slim fingers through his red wavy hair. A frown obscured the dazzling blue of his eyes as it always did when he was puzzled. To Hal, being puzzled meant being annoyed, for he had to know the reason for everything. And in this instance he disliked being annoyed when at heart he felt carefree and happy. Suddenly he felt the presence of his fellow passenger and turned away from a hasty perusal of a native fruit and cigarette stand to find that the man was eyeing him curiously.
Hal grinned. “Funny place, Africa,” he said pleasantly. “Much different than what I thought it would be. Most places are, huh? It’s great, though—what I’ve seen of it.” Then: “I get off at Nairobi.”
The man smiled. “So do I. Staying there?”
“Nope,” Hal answered, encouraged. “Going north to Medille—know where it is? Hundreds of miles from nowhere, I understand. Anyway someone’s going to meet me at Nairobi—Dudley Holman, a fellow about my age. His father’s a naturalist and a friend of my uncle’s. Unk’s in England and he’s going to come on in four weeks or so.” He laughed. “Now I’ve told you everything except my name—that’s Hal Keen.”
“You’ll have to go some if you’re going to live up to that name in Africa,” observed the man with a dry laugh, then added: “Especially in the Medille district. I happen to be going there myself—to Holman’s place.”
“By gosh!” Hal exclaimed, pleased. “What a coincidence! They expect you, of course?”
“No,” said the man, “they don’t. That is—they expect somebody sooner or later I guess, but I’d hardly say they expected me. You see I’m going there for a job—I saw an ad of Dr. Holman’s in yesterday’s paper for a man to make himself generally useful in the laboratory, experience not required particularly. So here I am!”
Hal settled himself in the orange-hued dust of his seat and grinned contentedly. Things always came out all right in the talking. Nothing was as perplexing as it seemed. What could be more natural than this man about to apply for a position! Suddenly, however, he bethought himself of something and leaned forward confidentially.
“Just as a little tip, Mr. . . .”
“Pine—Piney, I’m called,” said the man smiling.
“That’s fine—Mr. Piney,” Hal chuckled. “But as I was saying, you most likely don’t know what kind of a—a man you’re going to work for—I mean Dr. Holman?” he added with not a little embarrassment.
“I don’t quite get you.”
Hal flushed. “It’s kind of difficult for me to be telling tales out of school, huh? Still it isn’t exactly that either, because my uncle wrote and told my mother and me that Dr. Holman was known to be peculiar all the way from Mombasa to the Nile. You see, it isn’t as if I was betraying a confidence.”
“Hardly,” Mr. Pine laughed mirthlessly. “Just how is he peculiar? You say he’s a friend of your uncle?”
“They went to college together. Dr. Holman is about four years older than Unk. Anyway, he used to be just crabby in those days, I understand. Afterwards he married and when Dudley was born he got worse. His wife died, that’s the reason. Then he and Dud came here eighteen years ago—poor kid was only two years old, can you imagine? Dr. Holman brought him up, and how! Dud hasn’t had much peace in his young life so far, you can bank on that. Nothing pleases his father, nothing! He’s full of prejudices. Won’t have a native step inside his door—says he can’t stand the smell of ’em. He lets ’em clean up outside but that’s absolutely all.”
“Hmph,” said Piney thoughtfully, “so that accounts for him wanting a white man to help around the laboratory. Well, I guess I can stand for the doc being peculiar. After all, I ain’t contemplating a long stay.”
Hal shook his head ruefully. “I guess you won’t want to. From what Unk’s told us, Dr. Holman hasn’t kept anybody very long. Nobody ever stayed except a chap named Briggs who is his assistant. That poor guy came all the way from the States and he hasn’t any people so I suppose he figures that it’s better to stand for Dr. Holman’s bad disposition than to go back and be alone, huh? Whatever the reason, he stays, and he’s the only one that has.”
Piney contemplated the scrubby country through which they were passing. Then he turned to Hal. “What’s the idea of you coming here if the old man’s such a crab?”
“Dudley,” Hal answered simply. “He wrote to Unk when he found out that he was in England and he begged him to stop over in Africa just as a Christian act and see if he couldn’t make his father a little more human. You see Unk is about the only friend that Dr. Holman has and I guess that’s easily explained. They’ve seen each other twice in the eighteen years and corresponded the rest of the time.”
“And most anybody can get along by mail, eh?” said Mr. Piney facetiously.
“Sure. Dud told Unk that his father’s lately taken to beating people. If he gets mad at an employee, or anyone else for that matter I guess, he forgets that he was born a gentleman. To tell you the truth, it sounds as if he’s nothing short of a maniac on the loose.”
“Well,” said Mr. Piney with a puckered brow, “old Dr. Holman better not let loose on me, ’cause I ain’t the kind to take it. I’m not coming up here because I like it, believe me, and I won’t take any nonsense from that old crab or anyone else!”
Hal was a little startled to see the flashing fire in his companion’s eyes at this declaration. What was more, the man revealed a sort of grim purpose in his speech, a revelation that betokened a nature guided by this same purpose in times past. Piney, Hal was convinced, would stop at nothing.
He blinked his eyes as if he had been dreaming. “I didn’t tell you how I came to be in Africa, Mr. Piney,” he said almost apologetically.
“Oh yes,” Piney said indifferently, “I’d forgotten.” He laughed. “That’s me all over. Go on, Keen, I want to hear all of it. Something tells me that the Holman place is going to be full of action.”
Hal felt not so cheerful again, but he smiled. “Something tells me I’m not terribly crazy about seeing Dr. Holman either. But I was crazy to come to Africa, naturally. Besides, I want to sort of lend my moral support in the cause—it’s Unk’s idea. He got me to come on first and spend a little time before he comes. It’s to kind of let the idea of Dud coming to college in the States, seep into the doctor’s crabby old mind.”
“Some idea. I guess the boy wants to go all right, eh?”
“And how! Gosh, I’m praying right along it works out all right. I’ve never seen Dud, but boy, I’m going to like him just on account of the trouble he’s had all his life, never seeing anything, never going anywhere! Just with his father all the time. He’s never seen a city bigger than Nairobi.”
He was so enthusiastic in his recital of Dudley Holman’s pathetic life that he was not aware they had come into a station. It was Piney’s sudden abstraction that brought him to the realization. The man anxiously scanned the handful of people on the platform; a few whites and the rest, natives clad in dusty looking khaki. There was the usual hustle and bustle about the place and the stir of departure, but that was all. It was difficult to understand just what was Mr. Piney’s obvious interest in the little wayside station.
Hal glanced from his companion to the neat entrance of a restaurant opposite and watched with casual interest some passengers hurrying out of its doors. Then he became aware of someone standing just outside their compartment; a huge, swarthy half-caste with beadlike eyes.
Piney stiffened in his seat and with a swift, cat-like gesture his upraised arm went down to his side. The half-caste’s eyes glittered ever so slightly and a second later there came the cry of “All aboard!” In a flash the great creature had disappeared and before Hal had time to speak, the train was moving on.
“Not much rain around here, buddy,” said Piney a few moments later. His voice fell harsh and grating on Hal’s ears.
“Who was that fellow, Piney?” Hal asked, looking the other straight in the eyes. “You—well, I couldn’t help but see your hand go down to your pocket that time.”
If Mr. Piney was disconcerted there was no way of knowing it for his face was bland and smiling. “A gun is indispensable in Africa, Keen,” he said quietly.
“But I’ve always understood that in Africa a black man seldom attacks a white man even on provocation. He . . .”
“Half-caste is not black, buddy. That fellow was half-caste. There’s quite a difference.”
“Then you knew him, huh?” Hal asked bluntly. “You had some reason to . . .”
“I never saw the man before—never!”
Hal looked out into the gathering night. He felt certain that Piney was a liar.
CHAPTER IIA PROWLER
At Mr. Pine’s request Hal had taken the lower berth instead of an upper and he found himself lying awake a long time. He much preferred an upper berth but, being nothing if not generous, he tossed about uncomplainingly, annoyed by the never-ceasing rumble of the trucks as the train roared its way across the veldt.
Long after midnight he lay with burning, heavy eyelids listening, with not a little envy, to Mr. Piney’s soft snores. To be sure, his restlessness was due in part to his high strung temperament. The contemplated visit to Holmans’, the vastness of Africa, had contributed greatly to his mental activity. He could not relax.
Many thoughts and divers plans roamed through his active mind, particularly a plan he had to go on safari with Dudley and his father. It seemed more than anything else to hold great promise, for he knew that Dr. Holman made an annual trip for the purpose of gathering data about the myriad animal life which roamed the illimitable veldt of British East Africa.
A little later his mind went back to Piney and the talk they had had just before retiring. The more he thought of it, the more he realized that there was something evasive, something secretive, about the man. Despite the long hours they had spent in talking what had the fellow really told about himself? Nothing, absolutely nothing except his name and his age, which he said was about thirty, and the not very enlightening statement that he had spent some time in Canada. He seemed to have no intention of revealing what he had been doing in Africa nor what he intended doing after his probably short stay at Dr. Holman’s was over.
Hal shrugged his broad shoulders, sat up in his berth and proceeded to beat his pillow. He turned it over on the cooler side and lay down with an audible sigh. The heat was pretty bad inside his narrow cell and he determined that he would get up if he did not go to sleep within a very short time.
It was this spirit of resignation that soon helped him to relax and a few moments later he was in that pleasant state of drowsiness where he did not care about Piney’s secretiveness nor anything else. Slumber shut him off from every thought and as the train slowly gained altitude and a cooling breeze blew into the compartment, he snuggled comfortably down under the clean, warm covers.
The train stopped for water but Hal was sleeping blissfully on. Piney, too, from his upper berth was still emitting a series of snores, each one ending in a weird, protracted whistle. From the distance came the chilling roar of a lion which was presently taken up by a mighty chorus of other nocturnal prowlers. Then all became still—ominously still.
Hal’s even breathing did not change a fraction when the door of the compartment softly opened and softly closed. Neither did the powerful bulk of him stir when the stealthy intruder stepped up to his berth and stopped, listening. There was something rhythmical, something fascinating, in the sounds issuing from the sleeper.
He felt the presence of the listening intruder, however, even before he opened his eyes. Instinctively he feigned a snore and turned over on his left side and breathed evenly again. The man did not move an inch but stood like a tall, dark statue, listening, listening. . . .
After what seemed an interminable time, Hal saw him lean forward and reach toward his clothes which he had hung from the rack at the end of the berth. With furtive haste he made a move to wrest them from their position when Hal leaped up with the agility of a cat and wound his long, muscular arms about him, bedclothes and all.
The man grunted and writhed furiously and in a second had slipped out of the slippery sheet that held him and dodged away to the door. Hal was on his feet and got a flashing glimpse of a dark face, but that was all.
The door had closed and by the time he got to it, the train was moving.
Angry, he turned and hobbled back toward his berth only to hear Piney’s voice, ominous and threatening, a Piney’s voice that was different and strange.
“Stand where you are!” he was saying. “Don’t move!”
Hal looked up to see the gleaming barrel of a gun pointed directly at him.
CHAPTER IIIA SUSPICION
“Say, what’s the idea, Piney?”
Piney’s gasp was audible. “Jove—you, Keen?”
“Sure,” Hal answered. “Who did you think it was?”
Piney hesitated and coughed nervously. “Er—I don’t know,” he stammered and let the gun slip back into the darkness at his side. “I couldn’t see who it was . . . I . . . my eyes were all foggy sort of. I didn’t know—I knew it was someone, but not you. Never expected you were even awake.” He switched on his berth light.
“I wasn’t anything else but!” Hal laughed. “Man alive, what a jolt! That fellow was trying to steal something, you know it? He reached for my clothes and then I went into action. If it hadn’t been for that sheet, I’d have had him too. It slipped between us. Why do you suppose he came in here to rob?”
Piney’s face was calm as he leaned over the edge of his berth. “Don’t know—haven’t the least idea,” he said. “Probably some poor beggar taking a desperate chance.”
Hal looked up. “Listen, Piney,” he said. “That poor beggar was the half-caste that gave you such a villainous look back in the station at Mombasa.”
“My dear fellow, how could you see in the dark?” asked Piney, a trifle quizzically.
