Dick Merriwell's Pranks: or, Lively Times in the Orient. Standish Burt L.
said Mustapha, with a gesture toward the boys.
“Come on, professor!” cried Dick. “If this dragoman will not act as guide for us, we can easily secure another.”
Instantly Mustapha hastened to assure them that he would be only too glad to act as their guide; but that they should pay him before visiting the Underground Palace, as they might never return, in which case he would lose his honestly earned due by neglecting to collect ahead.
They agreed to pay him in advance, and soon they set out from the hotel in Pera, eager to see the mysterious place that was said to hold so much of mystery and danger.
In the afternoon sunshine Stamboul was magnificent when seen from a distance. But when they had crossed the Golden Horn and plunged into the city all its impressiveness vanished. At intervals they came upon some splendid mosques, but mosques were far more impressive when seen from the proper distance.
Mustapha knew his business, and he conducted them to the place where they could descend and inspect the Underground Palace, but he declined to enter with them. For that purpose he called another man, with close-set, shifty eyes and a thin-lipped mouth.
“This dragoman, Bayazid,” he said. “He tak’ you.”
“Is he trustworthy?” asked the professor, with a slight show of nervousness.
“You not find one more so, effendi.”
So Bayazid, or “Pigeon,” as he was called in English, was engaged to show them the Underground Palace.
“I haf very good boat, effendi,” he declared.
“Whatever is that?” asked Buckhart. “Do we have to take a boat?”
“You will see,” answered Zenas.
The entrance was somewhat like that of a sewer, but there were stone steps leading down into the darkness of the place. The guide found and lighted two torches, which it seemed were kept for the use of those who wished to visit the Palace.
“Say, this is some boogerish!” said Brad, as they found themselves in a dark and damp cemented passage.
“The old city was built above a huge system of cisterns,” explained the professor. “Their purpose was to guard against a famine of water in time of war. Some of the old cisterns are dry now and are used by silk spinners. We shall visit one that still contains water.”
“But I thought we were going to see a palace,” said Dick, in disappointment.
“You shall see one – so called.”
The passage echoed to their tread, while their voices came back hollowly, as if hidden imps were mocking them.
But the boys were quite unprepared for the spectacle that suddenly met their gaze. They came from the passage into a mighty vaulted chamber, stretching away into an unknown distance and filled with a shadowy maze of marble columns, row on row. The floor of this wonderful place was smooth as a mirror and seemed black as ebony, save where the light of the torches fell on it. There it glittered, and gleamed, and shimmered.
Exclamations of astonishment and wonder broke from the lips of the two lads. The professor grasped them, one with either hand, and stopped them abruptly.
“We can’t go farther on foot,” he said.
“Eh? Why not?” asked the Texan, in surprise. “Look at that floor! Wouldn’t it be great to dance on! It’s smooth as glass and – ”
“You would get your feet wet if you attempted to dance on that,” declared Zenas.
“What? Why – why, it’s water!”
“Exactly.”
“But – but it looks black everywhere except where the light strikes directly on it.”
“Because no other ray of light reaches this place.”
Dick stooped and dipped his hand in the water, which reached to their very feet.
“Well, this is worth seeing!” he declared.
“This was constructed by Constantine more than fifteen hundred years ago,” explained the professor. “Think, boys, what you now behold is the work of man, yet it remains practically the same as when constructed fifteen centuries ago.”
“It looks like a partly submerged cathedral,” murmured Dick. “One can fancy all its worshipers and priests as drowned in that flood of black water. In fancy I seem to see their restless spirits floating above the surface of the lake, away, away yonder in the unknown distance. How large is it, professor?”
“There are three hundred and thirty-six of those marble columns, arranged in twenty-eight rows. I fancy the real reason why Mustapha refused to enter here is because of the many legends and tales told concerning the place. It is said that these vaults often echo to hollow laughter, and that the place is haunted by the ghosts of murdered sultans of past ages, whose places were usurped by the very monsters who intrigued to bring about the murders. Some claim that the spirits of the beautiful women destroyed by jealous sultans are doomed to float forever here above the surface of this buried lake, and that occasionally one of them is seen by a visitor for a single fleeting instant, then goes wailing and sobbing into the black distance.”
“Well, by the great horn spoon, I don’t know that I blame Mustapha for not coming here!” exclaimed Brad. “It’s the most spooky old hole I ever struck.”
At this juncture Bayazid inquired if they wished to take a boat and venture out a short distance on the water.
“Certainly,” answered Dick, at once. “I think it will be a novel experience, and I want to go. If Brad does not – ”
“Hold on, pard!” cried the Texan. “Wherever you go I go, you bet your boots! Mebbe I don’t like it a heap, but I’m with you.”
Bayazid left them and moved a short distance to the right. They watched him and saw the light of his torch fall on a black boat that lay motionless at the edge of the black lake. He stepped into the boat and soon brought it to the shore at their feet.
Dick and Brad followed the professor into the boat, which was large enough to accommodate two more persons, if the party had included them.
Bayazid had placed his torch in a socket that seemed arranged for it. He suggested that the others should extinguish theirs, as too much light close at hand would blind them, instead of making it possible for them to see better.
They accepted his suggestion, and slowly the boat slipped out upon the bosom of the soundless lake.
Suddenly there was a whirring rush through the air, and something brushed past the head of the professor, who uttered a squawk of alarm, struck out wildly with both hands and fell over backward off his seat to flounder in the bottom of the boat.
“Howling tornadoes!” gasped Buckhart. “Whatever was that?”
“A bat, effendi,” answered Bayazid.
Dick laughed.
“Goodness!” palpitated the professor, as he finally struggled up to his seat. “I confess it did frighten me, boys. Made me think of those restless ghosts which are said to wander forever above the bosom of this lake. Hadn’t we better go back?”
“Which way shall we go?” asked Dick.
They looked around. On every hand they saw nothing but marble pillars, shadows, and grim darkness.
“Waugh!” muttered the Texan. “I confess I couldn’t follow the back trail.”
“But Bayazid knows the way, don’t you, Bayazid?” anxiously asked the professor.
“I know it, effendi,” was the assurance. “Trust me.”
“I – I’m very glad you do!” breathed Zenas. “I think we will return at once.”
But Dick urged that they should go on a little farther, as Bayazid was thoroughly familiar with the place and there was no danger that they would become lost.
Brad