“I wish you joy,” replied Braddock, bending over the mummy.  “Look, Hope, at the wonderful color of this wool.  There are some arts we have lost completely—­dyeing of this surprising beauty is one.  Humph!” mused the archaeologist, “I wonder why this particular mummy is dyed green, or rather why it is wrapped in green bandages.  Yellow was the royal color of the ancient Peruvian monarchs.  Vicuna wool dyed yellow.  What do you think, Hope?  It is strange.”

Archie shrugged his shoulders.

“I can say nothing, because I know nothing,” he said sharply.  “All I do know is that I wish this precious mummy had never been brought here.  It has caused trouble ever since its arrival.”

“Well,” said Braddock, surveying the dead with some disfavor, “I must say that I shall be glad to see the last of it myself.  I know now all that I wanted to know!  Humph!  I wonder if Don Pedro will allow me to strip the mummy?  Of course!  It is mine not his.  I shall unswathe it entirely,” and Braddock was about to lay sacrilegious hands on the dead, when Cockatoo entered breathlessly.  He had been so quick that he must have run to the Fort and back again.

“I knock at door,” said the Kanaka, delivering his message, “and I hear no voice.  I go in and find no one, so I put the letter on the table.  I come down and ask, and a soldier tells me, sir, his master is coming back in half an hour.”

“You should have waited,” said Braddock, waving Cockatoo aside.  “Come along with me to the Fort, Hope.”

“But Random will come here as soon as he returns.”

“Very likely, but I can’t wait.  I am anxious to hear what he has to say in his defense.  Come, Cockatoo, my coat, my hat, my gloves.  Stir yourself, you scoundrel!”

Archie was not unwilling to go, since he was anxious also to hear what Random would say to the absurd accusation brought against him by the Yankee.  In a few minutes the two men were walking smartly down the road through the village, the Professor striving to keep up with Hope’s longer legs by trotting as hard as he could.  Halfway down the village they met a trap, and in it Captain Hervey being driven to the Jessum railway station.

“Have you seen Don Pedro?” asked the Professor, stopping the vehicle.

“I reckon not,” answered Hervey stolidly.  “He’s gone into Pierside to see the police.  I’m off there also.”

“You had better come with us,” said Archie sternly;—­“we are going to see Sir Frank Random.”

“Give him my respects,” said the skipper cold-bloodedly, “and say that he’s worth one hundred pounds to me,” he waved his hand and the trap moved away, but he looked back with a wry smile.  “Say I’ll square the matter for double the money and command of his yacht.”

Braddock and Archie looked after the trap in disgust.

“What a scoundrel the man is!” said the Professor pettishly; “he’d sell his father for what he could get.”