“What did you think about all the time?” asked Oliver curiously.

“Think about?  I didn’t think much, was in too great a fright.  I just wondered whether St. Paul had the same sensations when he was let down in a basket; wondered what the early Christian martyrs felt like in the arena; wondered whether Barung, with whom my parting was quite affectionate, would come in the morning and look for me as Darius did for Daniel and how much he would find if he did; hoped that my specs would give one of those brutes appendicitis, and so forth.  My word! it was sickening, especially that kind of school-treat swing and bump at the end.  I never could bear swinging.  Still, it was all for the best, as I shouldn’t have gone a yard along that sphinx’s tail without tumbling off, tight-rope walking not being in my line; and I’ll tell you what, you are just the best three fellows in the whole world.  Don’t you think I forget that because I haven’t said much.  And now let’s have your yarn, for I want to hear how things stand, which I never expected to do this side of Judgment-day.”

So we told him all, while he listened open-mouthed.  When we came to the description of the Tomb of the Kings his excitement could scarcely be restrained.

“You haven’t touched them,” he almost screamed; “don’t say you have been vandals enough to touch them, for every article must be catalogued in situ and drawings must be made.  If possible, specimen groups with their surrounding offerings should be moved so that they can be set up again in museums.  Why, there’s six months’ work before me, at least.  And to think that if it hadn’t been for you, by now I should be in process of digestion by a lion, a stinking, mangy, sacred lion!”

Next morning I was awakened by Higgs limping into my room in some weird sleeping-suit that he had contrived with the help of Quick.

“I say, old fellow,” he said, “tell me some more about that girl, Walda Nagasta.  What a sweet face she’s got, and what pluck!  Of course, such things ain’t in my line, never looked at a woman these twenty years past, hard enough to remember her next morning, but, by Jingo! the eyes of that one made me feel quite queer here,” and he hit the sleeping-suit somewhere in the middle, “though perhaps it was only because she was such a contrast to the lions.”

“Ptolemy,” I answered in a solemn voice, “let me tell you that she is more dangerous to meddle with than any lion, and what’s more, if you don’t want to further complicate matters with a flaming row, you had better keep to your old habits and leave her eyes alone.  I mean that Oliver is in love with her.”

“Of course he is.  I never expected anything else, but what’s that got to do with it?  Why shouldn’t I be in love with her too?  Though I admit,” he added sadly, contemplating his rotund form, “the chances are in his favour, especially as he’s got the start.”

“They are, Ptolemy, for she’s in love with him,” and I told him what we had seen in the Tomb of Kings.