e hurried back to their part of the palace, where a leathern
case that had travelled so far on the big camel, and remained unopened,
was rapidly unstrapped, and one by one the carefully packed portions of
some new scientific apparatus were undone and arranged upon one of the
rugs placed for the purpose.

Frank worked hard, and the professor aided him with all the energy he
could throw into the task, first one and then the other uttering a word
or two of satisfaction to find that everything was intact.

"Is this the apparatus with which you experimented at your place?" said
the professor.

They were alone, and Frank answered in a low tone full of excitement--

"Yes," he said; "again and again with perfect success."

"But you are nervous about it now?"

"Yes, there seems to be so much at stake. Suppose we fail?"

"The best thing Lytton ever wrote, Frank, lad," said the professor: "`In
the bright Lexicon of youth, there is no such word as fail.'"

"Then you would try?" whispered Frank.

"Try? Yes, and succeed, my lad. Why should you not?"

"I don't know," sighed the young man, "unless I dread that anything
should go wrong, for Morris's sake."

"And he would be sorry for yours. There, work. Everything seems right:
battery, wires, vacuum tubes--all looking new and perfect."

"Yes," said Frank, whose voice trembled a little; "but if we could put
the experiment off for a while, so as to test it first."

"It might be wiser, but while we are trying the apparatus that man's
life may ebb away."

"Then you would not wait?"

"No. Test it upon the patient. It may save him."

Taking heart as he fully grasped the need for immediate action, Frank
toiled away till he was able to say that he was ready, the Sheikh
looking on in silent wonder and admiration the while.

Before the manipulator of the wondrous adaptation was ready he said a
word or two to the Sheikh, who hurried out and returned with a couple of
his young men, and then in solemn silence and with great care the
apparatus was carried as if in procession to the great tent-like
sick-chamber, where at the first glance Frank's eyes rested upon the
three Mullahs, who had returned during his absence, and once more stood
together silent and scornful, gazing down at the Emir's friend, the
pulsations of whose arteries the Hakim was still feeling, while the Emir
and his son stood hard by watching and waiting for the end.

No word was spoken. The Hakim turned a