“That we do not know.… His MS. ends abruptly, and…”
“Like Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym, eh, old Girlie? It is a way narrators of adventure have.”
“His is not a narration; he set out to verify certain facts. He verified them. We do not know what caused him to turn back in sight of goal.”
“Hm! that turning back in sight of goal does not carry conviction to the mind of an obstinate Britisher.”
“No!… Nothing would deter us, Mark, old chap, would it?” he said calmly. “We will not turn back.”
“We?”
I jumped up in bewildered amazement, the object of Hugh’s excitement, of his patient explanations to my dull intellect, suddenly dawning on me. I gave a long whistle, buried my hands in my pockets, fixed Hugh with my most professional eye, and said:
“You are absolutely and unmistakably cracked, Girlie!”
He came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and looked at me. I have said it before, he was a man of boundless influence over his fellow-creatures, whenever he chose to exert it.
“Come and look at the papyrus,” he said.