“Oh!” I answered, laughing, “the usual thing, of course.  I bought it from a donkey-boy in Cairo for about thirty shillings.”

“Indeed,” he replied suspiciously.  “I should have thought the stone in it was worth more than that, although, of course, it may be nothing but glass.  The engraving, too, is first-rate.  Adams,” he added with severity, “you are trying to hoax us, but let me tell you what I thought you knew by this time—­that you can’t take in Ptolemy Higgs.  This ring is a shameless swindle; but who did the Hebrew on it?  He’s a good scholar, anyway.”

“Don’t know,” I answered; “wasn’t aware till now that it was Hebrew.  To tell you the truth, I thought it was old Egyptian.  All I do know is that it was given, or rather lent, to me by a lady whose title is Walda Nagasta, and who is supposed to be a descendant of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.”

Higgs took up the ring and looked at it again; then, as though in a fit of abstraction, slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

“I don’t want to be rude, therefore I will not contradict you,” he answered with a kind of groan, “or, indeed, say anything except that if any one else had spun me that yarn I should have told him he was a common liar.  But, of course, as every schoolboy knows, Walda Nagasta—­that is, Child of Kings in Ethiopic—­is much the same as Bath-Melachim—­that is, Daughter of Kings in Hebrew.”

Here Captain Orme burst out laughing, and remarked, “It is easy to see why you are not altogether popular in the antiquarian world, Higgs.  Your methods of controversy are those of a savage with a stone axe.”

“If you only open your mouth to show your ignorance, Oliver, you had better keep it shut.  The men who carried stone axes had advanced far beyond the state of savagery.  But I suggest that you had better give Doctor Adams a chance of telling his story, after which you can criticize.”

“Perhaps Captain Orme does not wish to be bored with it,” I said, whereon he answered at once: 

“On the contrary, I should like to hear it very much—­that is, if you are willing to confide in me as well as in Higgs.”

I reflected a moment, since, to tell the truth, for sundry reasons, my intention had been to trust no one except the Professor, whom I knew to be as faithful as he is rough.  Yet some instinct prompted me to make an exception in favour of this Captain Orme.  I liked the man; there was something about those brown eyes of his that appealed to me.  Also it struck me as odd that he should happen to be present on this occasion, for I have always held that there is nothing casual or accidental in the world; that even the most trivial circumstances are either ordained, or the result of the workings of some inexorable law whereof the end is known by whatever power may direct our steps, though it be not yet declared.

“Certainly I am willing,” I answered; “your face and your friendship with the Professor are passport enough for me.  Only I must ask you to give me your word of honour that without my leave you will repeat nothing of what I am about to tell you.”