any
of her people, requested me to accompany her to the mine.

At the mouth of the tunnel she met Oliver, as probably she had arranged
to do, and after he had reported progress to her, wandered away with him
as usual, each of them carrying a lamp, into some recess of the buried
city. I followed them at a distance, not from curiosity, or because I
wished to see more of the wonders of that city whereof I was heartily
sick, but because I suspected that they were being spied upon.

The pair vanished round a corner that I knew ended in a _cul-de-sac_, so
extinguishing my lamp, I sat down on a fallen column and waited till I
should see their light reappear, when I proposed to effect my retreat.
Whilst I sat thus, thinking on many things and, to tell the truth, very
depressed in mind, I heard a sound as of some one moving and instantly
struck a match. The light of it fell full upon the face of a man whom
I recognized at once as a body-servant of the prince Joshua, though
whether he was passing me toward the pair or returning from their
direction I could not be sure.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"What is that to you, Physician?" he answered.

Then the match burnt out, and before I could light another he had
vanished, like a snake into a stone wall.

My first impulse was to warn Maqueda and Oliver that they were being
watched, but reflecting that the business was awkward, and that the spy
would doubtless have given over his task for this day, I left it alone,
and went down to the Tomb of the Kings to help Higgs. Just afterwards
Quick came on duty, long before his time, the fact being that he had no
confidence in the Professor as a director of mining operations. When he
appeared Higgs and I retreated from that close and filthy tunnel,
and, by way of recreation, put in an hour or so at the cataloguing and
archaeological research in which his soul delighted.

"If only we could get all this lot out of Mur," he said, with a sweep of
his hand, "we should be the most famous men in Europe for at least three
days, and rich into the bargain."

"Ptolemy," I answered, "we shall be fortunate if we get ourselves alive
out of Mur, let alone these bones and ancient treasures," and I told him
what I had seen that evening.

His fat and kindly face grew anxious.

"Ah!" he said. "Well, I don't blame him; should probably do the same
myself if I got the chance, and so would you--if you were twenty years
younger. No, I don't blam