“I do not doubt your truth,” answered the Professor in the same language.

De Gayangos wheeled and faced his host, much surprised.

“You speak my tongue, senor?” he demanded.

Braddock nodded.

“I have been in Spain, and I have been in Peru,” he answered dryly, “therefore I know classical Spanish and its colonial dialects.  As to being in Lima, I was there, and I do not wish to go there again, as I had quite enough of those uncivilized parts thirty years ago, when the country was much disturbed after your civil war.”

“You were in Lima thirty years ago,” echoed Don Pedro; “then you were there when Vasa stole this mummy.”

“I don’t know who stole it, or even if it was stolen,” said the Professor obstinately, “and I don’t know the name of Vasa.  Ah! now I remember.  Young Hope did say something about the Swedish sailor who you said stole the mummy.”

“Vasa did, and brought it to Europe to sell—­probably to that man in Paris, who afterwards sold it to your Malteses collector.”

“No doubt,” rejoined Braddock calmly; “but what has all this to do with me, Don Pedro?”

“I want my mummy,” raged the other, and looked dangerous.

“Then you won’t get it,” retorted Braddock, adopting a pugnacious attitude and quite composed.  “This mummy has caused one death, Don Pedro, and from your looks I should think you would like it to cause another.”

“Will you not be honest?”

“I’ll knock your head off if you bring my honesty into question,” cried the Professor, standing on tip-toe like a bantam.  “The best thing to do will be to take the matter into court.  Then the law can decide, and I have little doubt but what it will decide in my favor.”

The Englishman and the Peruvian glared at one another, and Cockatoo, who was crouching on the floor, glanced from one angry face to another.  He guessed that the white men were quarreling and perhaps would come to blows.  It was at this moment that a knock came to the door, and a minute later Archie entered.  Braddock glanced at him, and took a sudden resolution as he stepped forward.

“Hope, you are just in time,” he declared.  “Don Pedro states that the mummy belongs to him, and I assert that I have bought it.  We shall make you umpire.  He wants it:  I want it.  What is to be done?”

“The mummy is my own flesh and blood, Mr. Hope,” said Don Pedro.

“Precious little of either about it,” said Braddock contemptuously.

Archie twisted a chair round and straddled his long legs across it, with his arms resting on its back.  His quick brain had rapidly comprehended the situation, and, being acquainted with both sides of the question, it was not difficult to come to a decision.  If it was hard that Don Pedro should lose his ancestor’s mummy, it was equally hard that Braddock—­or rather himself—­should lose the purchase money, seeing that it had been paid in good faith to the seller in Malta for a presumably righteously acquired object.  On these premises the young Solon proceeded to deliver judgment.