“You don’t mean to tell me that you were mixed up in the Nilkaya affair?” he exclaimed. “You’re not one of the Englishmen who looted the place?”
“I’ve got one of the Images here, anyway,” Gregory admitted.
“There was a report that you were both dead.”
“My pal is, although he was taking on what we thought the simplest part of the job. They got me, a dozen of those priests. Fought like furies, the fellows did! I was to have been food for the alligators but I was rescued on the river by a trader from the coast.”
The doctor looked at his companion with amazement.
“No wonder you’ve got nerves,” he observed. “You’ve been through something.”
“I’ve been through hell,” Gregory admitted. “The fight wasn’t so bad, but I was two days strapped up on that pirate ship with not a mouthful to eat, in a foul atmosphere, and expecting to be thrown overboard at any moment. I had a certain amount of luck. I got clear, as you see, and I’ve got one of the Images. It is supposed to be chock full of jewels, and yet I’m half inclined to chuck the damned thing overboard.”
The doctor smiled reassuringly.
“I won’t say anything of the morality of the enterprise,” he declared, “but you had a fine, plucky adventure, and when you talk about throwing the Image overboard, you’re talking like an ass. Set your heel upon all this superstitious nonsense, Ballaston, and go on as usual. Believe me, you’ll be none the worse for possessing that piece of wood. You create the evil in yourself when you allow yourself to believe that the thing’s likely to do you harm. The world’s old enough for us to realise the nature of most of its organic forces. The malice of nine hundred years ago may have been carved into that Image, but it can’t come out again.”
Gregory drew a little sigh of relief.