tly. Bean diverted his stare
to the professor and seemed about to speak, but the other silenced him
with a commanding forefinger.

"Not a word! I see it all. You impose your tremendous will upon me."

He took the chair facing Bean and began swiftly:

"I see the path over the desert. I stop beside a temple. Sand is all
about. Beneath that temple is a stone sarcophagus. Within it lies the
body of King Tam-rah--"

"Ram-tah!" corrected Bean gently.

"Did I not say Ram-tah?" pursued the seer. "There it has lain sealed for
centuries, while all about it the tombs of other kings have been
despoiled by curiosity hunters looking for objects of interest to place
in their cabinets. But Ram-tah, last king of the pre-dynastic period,
though others will tell you differently, but that's because he never got
into history much, by reason of his uniformly gentlemanly conduct. He
rests there to-day precisely as he was put. I see it all; I penetrate
the heaped sands. At this moment the moon shines upon the spot, and a
night bird is calling to its mate in the mulberry tree near the
northeast corner of the temple. I see it all. I am there! What is this?
What is this I get from you, my young friend?"

The professor seemed to cock a psychic ear toward Bean.

"You want--ah, yes, I see what you want, but that, of course, humanly,
would be impossible. Oh, quite impossible, quite, quite!"

"_Why_, if you're sure it's there?"

"My dear sir, you descend to the material world. I will talk to you now
as one practical man to another. Simply because it would take more money
than you can afford. The thing is practicable but too expensive."

"How do you know?"

"It is true, I do not know. My control warned me when I came here that
your circumstances had been suddenly bettered. I withdraw the words. I
do not know, but--you will pardon the bluntness--_can_ you afford it?"

"What'd it cost? That's what I want to know."

"Hum!" said the professor. He was unable to achieve more for a little
time. He hum'd again.

"There's the labour and the risk," he ventured at last. "Of course my
agents at Cairo--I have secret agents in every city on the globe--could
proceed to the spot from my carefully worded directions. They could do
the work of excavating. So far, so good! But they would have to work
quietly and would be punished if discovered. Of course here and there
they could bribe. Naturally, they would have to bribe, and that, as you
are doubtless a