irate or a highwayman, because on shipboard or horse-back I can
do tolerable service. But the good dame never built me to be a footpad.
So if this old pyramid place is to be looted, you must go and do it
yourself."

"But, my good fellow, think what there is at stake. Dash it all, man,
how do you know I shan't collar the thing and make a clean bolt with
it?"

Haigh grinned. "I'll take my chance of that."

"You'd better not. I've never set up for being obtrusively honest."

"Oh, go to Aden."

"But really, I'd take it as a favour if you would come."

"Well, if you make a point of it, I suppose I must, though I fail to
see the necessity for a pair of us making ourselves uncomfortable. Look
out of window. The sky's Prussian blue, and there isn't a breath of
wind. It's going to be a broiling day. However, dear boy, at your
behest I'll make a martyr of myself; and if transport is to be procured
on tick, I'll overhaul you. Only understand clearly that neither for
you nor any one else can I do a physical impossibility. It is
absolutely out of the question for me to walk."

That was all I could get out of him, and so I set off, very uncertain
as to whether or no he would follow.

I walked out through the clean uneven streets just as the townspeople
were beginning to stir, passed under the massive towered gateway in the
old walls, and got on to the level road which reaches half-way across
the island. The waking hour was earlier here. The hawks and eagles were
patrolling the morning air with diligent sweeps. The country-folk were
bringing in loads of farm-produce on big brown donkeys and little gray
donkeys. These last all gave a courteous "Bon di tenga,"[1] and I
noticed that most of them stared at me somewhat curiously. It was not
my dress that they looked at--it was my face that drew their stares;
and after a mile or so's pacing it was borne in upon me that anxious
thoughts had caused my forehead to knit and my mouth to pucker. I made
the discovery with some contempt. Haigh had told me more than once that
I should never make a gambler, and he was right. In principle I
accepted the theory that "what was written was written," but in
practice I couldn't help imagining that a ready-penned Fate might be
partly erased by much rubbing.

[1] The common salutation throughout the Balearic Islands is
_Bon di tenga_ from an inferior to a superior, to which the reply
would be _Bon di_. Frequently, however, the fi