"Richard doesn't know. He only believes in it; and says nearly every one thinks he's insane. But you must have heard—I thought every one had heard the old legend about a Lost Oasis—lost for thousands of years?"
"I'm afraid not. I haven't any desert lore." As Max made this answer, last night's dream came back, rising for an instant before his eyes like a shimmering picture, a monochrome of ochre-yellow. Then it faded, and he saw again the silver sky behind darkening pines, plumed date-palms, the delicate fringe of pepper trees, and black columns of towering cypress.
"All mine has come from Sir Knight: stories he's told me and books he's given me. Long ago he talked about the Lost Oasis. I thought of it as a thrilling fairy story. But he believes it may exist, somewhere far, far east, beyond walls of mountains and shifting sand-dunes, between the Sahara and the Libyan deserts."
"Wouldn't other explorers have found it, if it were there?"
"Lots have tried, and been lost themselves: or else they've given up hope, after terrible privations, and have struggled back to their starting-place. But Richard says he has pledged himself to succeed where the rest have failed, or else to die. It was awful to hear him say that—and to see the look in his eyes."
"He's done some wonderful things," Max said, trying to speak with enthusiasm.
"Yes; but this seems different, and more terrifying than any of his other adventures, because in them he had men for his worst enemies. This time his enemy will be nature. And its venturing into the unknown—almost like trying to find the way to another world. Everybody knew there was a Thibet and a Central Africa, and what the dangers would be like there; but no one knows anything of this place—if it is a place."
"What's the story that makes Mr. Stanton feel the thing is worth risking?" Max asked.
"The story is, that there's a blank in Egyptian history which could be filled up and accounted for, if a great mass of people had moved away and begun a new civilization somewhere, safe from all the enemies who had disturbed them and stolen their treasure."
"Splendid story! But it sounds as much of a fable as any other myth, doesn't it?"