CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT BEFELL DOC CLANCY.

It will now be the proper thing for us to follow Doc Clancy and see how the villain fared after his escape from our friends.

The bullet from the rifle of Lank Edwards had not touched him, but, seeing his companion fall, he concluded to do likewise, for fear he might be fired upon again.

When he sprang upon his horse again and dashed away, he did not turn his head to see whether his friend had been killed or not, but galloped away from the spot with all the speed his horse could command.

What the dead man had told our friends about the herd of horses with his dying breath was true.

The two scoundrels had followed the roadway to the massive iron gate, and here discovered the queerly mounted animals waiting to get inside the wall.

They thought it best to leave, and when the herd followed them, Doc Clancy was in high glee.

He thought he would surely best Van and his party now. But the reader knows how well he succeeded.

When the fleeing scoundrel had placed a quarter of a mile between himself and our friends, he turned in the saddle and saw them digging a hole in the ground.

"The poor devil must be dead," he muttered. "Well, I'll have to go it alone now. I suppose I had better make direct for that gate and try and get inside it and make friends with the people who live there. If I can do that, I may be able to set them against that young upstart, Van Vincent, and the rest of his gang. Well, I'll try it, anyhow. Here goes."

Clancy did not halt until he reached the gate, and he was just wondering how he was going to get through, when it opened.

Without any hesitation, the villain rode through, the herd of horses following him.

It was now dark, but he determined to let the horses take him to where they belonged. He had not proceeded very far before he noticed a number of ruined stone buildings, but as the animals did not appear to want to stop at any of these, he kept on.

When he had covered perhaps three miles over the hard, level road, he beheld a city before him--such as he had never beheld before.

We say a city, for though it did not contain over two hundred buildings, yet it was a city as far as its general appearance went. All its buildings were tall and beautiful, and built of stone, while the streets were broad and well paved.

The moment Doc Clancy entered it with the herd of horses at his back, a number of men rushed out to meet him and proceeded to catch the horses.

As the moon was now covered with heavy clouds for the first time that night, Clancy was not observed at all, and his horse was led away with those who had the dummies on their backs.

They were all placed in a large, comfortable stable, and then the men proceeded to remove the figures from their backs.

Doc Clancy now began to grow very uneasy.

He began to think of what would happen when they discovered that one of the animals had a real man on its back.

But the villain was desperate, and determined not be killed or captured.

Watching his opportunity, he slid from his horse's back, and then quickly removed the rude bridle from its head.

"Now," thought he, "I'll lay low till these fellows go out. Then I'll sneak outside myself and see what sort of a place this is."

This was a successful move, the men not noticing the deception at all.

Fifteen minutes later they left the stable. It was now raining, but Doc Clancy determined to go out, just the same.

Pushing his way between the horses, who were now munching their evening meal in a contented manner, he at length reached the door.

"This is a pretty tough night to go out, when you have nice, dry quarters like this to stay in; but I must see what sort of a place I am in, and work a way to make myself welcome," muttered Clancy, as he buttoned his coat about his neck.

The next moment he stepped outside in the storm.

The lights from houses on all sides of him could be seen, and he concluded to approach one of them and look in the window.

Selecting the nearest house for his purpose, he began crawling stealthily toward it.

In less than two minutes he was at the window.

A muffled cry of astonishment escaped the villain's lips as he peered in.

He was gazing into an oblong room, furnished something after the Oriental fashion.

The walls and ceiling seemed to be a glittering mass of gold and silver, and the light from a score of candles, thrust in candlesticks of the same metal, made the scene a dazzling one, to say the least.

Reclining on a divan was a woman, or, rather, a girl, for she could not have been over sixteen years of age.

She, too, looked like one of the dazzling beauties of the Orient, and was robed like the women of Egypt.

As Doc Clancy gazed at the ravishingly beautiful creature, his eyes sparkled.

"By Jove!" he muttered; "if I could only make friends with the people of this place, and then marry that girl, I think I should be as happy as a king. If I only dared, I would open the window. My! what a beautiful creature! I'll do it, anyhow."

Seizing the sash, he thrust it aside, and then sprang into the room with a single bound.

Foolish man! That was the very worst thing he could have done, and if he had only stopped to think he would never have done it.

As Clancy landed upon the floor the girl sprang from the divan and uttered a wild scream of terror.

"Keep still, my girl; I'm not going to harm you," Clancy hastened to exclaim.

But that one scream did the business.

The next instant a curtain was thrown aside and half a dozen men rushed in.

Before Doc Clancy could make a move, he was seized and thrown upon his back on the floor.

A silken cord was wound tightly about his arms and legs, and then in a twinkling of an eye he was whisked from the room.

His captors did not stop until they had descended a flight of stone steps, and Doc Clancy, who was now thoroughly frightened, felt a draught of chilly air blowing upon him.

Along a damp passage he was conducted, the men carrying lighted candles to show them their way.

Suddenly they came to a halt in a large, cellar-like chamber, and deposited their prisoner on the ground.

"I say," pleaded Clancy, "let me go, won't you? I'll get out of your country right away, if you will."

"Silence! you dog of an Englishman," exclaimed one of the men. "You must die! You sealed your death warrant when you dared to enter the private apartment of one of our chiefs' daughters."

"Oh, I know you will save me," whined the wretch. "You can speak my language, and surely you will not see me killed just because I came to your city a stranger and made a mistake."

"It matters not whether I speak your language or not. To-morrow you must be thrown in the lion's den; you must beg him to spare you, not us."

As if to doubly seal Doc Clancy's death sentence, a terrible roar rang out close at hand.

The villain had journeyed far enough through the African wilds to know what caused it.

It was the roar of a hungry lion.

"That is the fellow you will have to meet in the morning," said the man who had before addressed him. "We will place you in this pit next to him. Sleep well!"

Without any further ceremony, a door was opened and Doc Clancy, still bound hand and foot, was tumbled into a pit about twenty feet square.