d regret into the surrounding depths of night. Patrick Moore,
with a grave face, cleaned his gun in a deeper silence than usual,
proceeding with an occupation that was his joy on many evenings,
whether the gun needed cleaning or not, rather as if it eased his mind
to have his hands busy.

"I wonder if the Major will come through to-night?" he remarked, as if
the silence were growing over-oppressive.

"Sure to," laconically. "The moon will be up directly, and he can't be
very far away."

"I suppose he won't have heard?"

"Not likely to have done. Gad! I feel as if I'd give anything to have
had a chance to stand three hours in that queue. It will hit him hard.
If it's bad for us, who have at least known all along, it will be
worse for him, hearing it suddenly at this late hour. Those newspapers
to-day have made me feel like a kid on his first day at
boarding-school. I'd like to cry if I weren't ashamed to."

"I liked that professor," said Moore, changing the subject. "Decent
old Johnny, wasn't he? Jolly nice of him to bring all those papers in
case he came across anyone glad of them."

"Quite a good old bird. That's a rum theory of his about the corpses
in the temple being buried deeper than anyone has yet dug, and hung
with valuable ornaments. Wouldn't it be a jolly lark to dig down for
one and have a look at it!..."

He gave a low, half-hearted chuckle over his gruesome suggestion, and
lazily getting to his feet, selected another tune for his gramophone.

Moore, busy still with his gun, gave a corresponding chuckle, and
remarked:

"Begorra, lad!... if we could get a few out one at a time on moonlight
nights, and fill up the blooming holes again, we shouldn't want any
blasted machinery for our gold mine, except a pickaxe and a shovel."

"We'd want a bit of pluck, though. The ghosts of the corpses might
come dancing round to have their say in the matter."

"We'd chance the ghosties. Shure! if they've been hanging round for
three or four thousand years, they'd maybe like a new sensation by
this time."

Stanley put on "The Stars and Stripes," wound up the gramophone, and
slid into his lounge chair again.

Moore glanced up as the music started.

"What!... that thing again!... I'm beginning to feel like those old
ghosts about it. The same moth-eaten tune for three or four thousand
years. I'd like a new sensation."

"It can't be much staler than cleaning that old gun."

"Shure, she's a daisy." The Irishman