"Well," said Edwards, after I had given him the sheik's account of the mysterious girdle, "what is your programme now? We cannot with any respectability go on sponging off Faris much longer. Besides, I am not a free man like yourself; I only obtained a month's leave, and three weeks of it have already gone. In fact, I am beginning to be nervous about the prospects of my being able to reach Baghdad before my leave is up."
"Never mind about your leave," I replied. "Forget the wretched fact that you are tied down to time. Think of the honour and the glory of running the Golden Girdle to earth. We are on the scent, man. It is breast high. With any luck, we shall kill in the open. So take a bit more leave, and risk it."
Edwards laughed.
"All right," he said, at last, "I suppose I cannot help myself. But I was beginning to have visions of being able to slip off with this money belt of yours, which I think is more likely to be useful than the other golden one that you are worrying about."
He took off the belt and threw it across the tent to me; as I caught it, some money dropped out of the pockets; and in picking up the gold coins, I noticed that two of them were not English sovereigns, but 10-mark pieces.
"That is curious," I remarked; "I wonder where these came from. I am perfectly certain my gold was all English. I suppose the thief had found a German wandering about the desert at some time or other."
I then examined all the pockets carefully, and found all my own money where it had always been; but there were two pockets at the back which I had not used, and in these I discovered, to my astonishment, eight more 10-mark pieces, and a sheet of paper on which something was written in German.
"Can you read German?" I asked.
"Yes, a bit," said Edwards.
"Then come along," said I, "and let us see what it is all about."