at it is all
moonshine?"

"We are doing something about it--but it's very difficult." The
stranger spoke guardedly. "The only way is to set a thief to catch a
thief. Gold can be melted, ancient stones can be cut, a hundred
dealers will be eager to run any risk to get them."

A flood of anger coloured Michael's face; it brought out beads of
perspiration on his forehead. He could scarcely contain himself; his
rage tore at his bowels. His long journey, all that he had gone
through--was this the end of it? Could anything be more fiat, more
stale, more unprofitable? What a sudden tumble from the blue to brown
earth! Above all, how maddening to have to hold his tongue, because no
man would believe the story he could tell them, to have meekly to
submit to the conventional etiquette of the moment! He felt anything
but conventional. His anger had driven all finer feelings from his
mind. If he could only find the native who had desecrated the
treasure-trove, he would hang and quarter him without mercy!

"I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," the excavator said.
"But you needn't hurry. Rest here for as long as you like, only don't
think me inhospitable if I leave you. Time's too precious to waste one
moment."

"Thanks very much," Michael said. "But I'm quite fit. You've been
awfully kind. It's time I was on my way."

"Where are you going to?"

"Back to my camp."

"Back to your camp? where did you leave it?"

Michael told him.

"Then did you come on here on purpose to visit this dig? Had you heard
of it before you saw the _Omdeh_ in the underground village?"

"I'd rather not answer your question at present, if you don't mind.
All that I know about it, Lampton also knows. . . . Some day, I hope,
if we meet again, I will tell you the whole thing. It's an odd story,
even for Egypt."

The man looked annoyed. "You can't tell me anything more? Have you
any information that could help us? We have our suspicions that things
aren't straight. If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels,
there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there
were valuable antiques."

"I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man
in his normal senses would pay any attention to--that was Lampton's
verdict."

Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes.

"Yet you believe in what you heard? You believed enough to bring you
across the desert to find