Saturday, the eventful day, or the day of the eventful evening, was fine and clear.  At noon an unexpected event, the first of several, occurred; Zacheus, bringing the mail from the post office, brought a large and heavy letter addressed to Galusha Bangs, Esq., and stamped in the upper left-hand corner with the name of the National Institute of Washington.  Galusha opened it in his room alone.  It was the “plan,” the long-ago announced and long-expected plan in all its details.  An expedition was to be fitted out, more completely and more elaborately than any yet equipped by the Institute, and was to go to the Nile basin for extended and careful research lasting two years at least.  And he was offered the command of that expedition, to direct its labors and to be its scientific head.  Whatever it accomplished, he would have accomplished; the rewards—­the understanding gratitude of his fellow archaeologists the world over would be his, and his alone.

He sat there in his room and read and reread the letter.  The terms in which the offer had been made were gratifying in the extreme.  The confidence in his ability and scientific knowledge were expressed without stint.  But, and more than this, between the lines he could read the affection of his associates there at the Institute and their pride in him.  His own affection and pride were touched.  A letter like this and an offer and opportunity like these were wonderful.  The pride he felt was a very humble pride.  He was unworthy of such trust, but he was proud to know they believed him worthy.

He sat there, the many sheets of the letter between his fingers, looking out through the window at the brown, windswept hollows and little hills and the cold gray-green sea beyond.  He saw none of these.  What he did see was the long stretch of ridged sand, heaving to the horizon, the brilliant blue of the African sky, the line of camels trudging on, on.  He saw the dahabeah slowly making its way up the winding river, the flat banks on either side, the palm trees in silhouetted clusters against the sunset, the shattered cornice of the ruins he was to explore just coming into view.  He saw and heard the shrieking, chattering laborers digging, half naked, amid the scattered blocks of sculptured stone and, before and beneath them, the upper edge of the doorway which they were uncovering, the door behind which he was to find—­who knew what treasures.

“Mr. Bangs,” called Martha from the foot of the stairs, “dinner’s ready.”

Galusha was far away, somewhere beyond the Libyan desert, but he heard the summons.

“Eh?” he exclaimed.  “Oh, yes, yes, Miss Martha, I am coming.”

As he descended the stairs, it occurred to him that the voices calling him to dinner across the sands or beneath the palms would be quite different from this one, they would be masculine and strange and without the pleasant, cheerful cordiality to which he had become accustomed.  Martha Phipps called one to a meal as if she really enjoyed having him there.  There was a welcome in her tones, a homelike quality, a . . . yes, indeed, very much so.