There were the remains, too, of an aqueduct, showing a few broken arches here and there, and plainly teaching that the water to supply the place had been mainly brought from some cold spring high up in the mountains.
And all the time, go where they would, the travellers were followed by the little crowd which gaped and stared, and of which some member or another kept drawing Yussuf aside, and offering him a handsome present if he would confess the secret that he must have learned—how the Frankish infidels knew where treasure lay hid.
They seemed disappointed that the professor contented himself by merely making drawings and copying fragments of inscriptions; but at last they all uttered a grunt of satisfaction, rubbed their hands, gathered closely round, and seated themselves upon the earth or upon stones.
For the professor had stopped short at the end of what, as far as could be traced, seemed to be one end of a small temple whose columns and walls lay scattered as they had fallen.
Here he deliberately took a small bright trowel from a sheath in his belt, where he carried it as if it had been a dagger, and, stooping down, began to dig.
That was what they were waiting for. He had come at last upon the treasure spot, and though the trowel seemed to be a ridiculously small tool to work with, they felt perfectly satisfied that it was one of the wonderful engines invented by the giaours, and that it would soon clear away the stones and soil with which the treasure was covered.
“What are you doing?” said the old lawyer, as Lawrence helped the professor by dragging out pieces of stone. “Going to find anything there?”
“I cannot say,” replied the professor, who was digging away energetically, and dislodging ants, a centipede or two, and a great many other insects. “This is evidently where the altar must have stood, and most likely we shall find here either a bronze figure of the deity in whose honour the temple was erected, or its fragments in marble.”
“Humph! I see,” cried the old lawyer, growing interested; “but I beg to remark that the evening is drawing near, and I don’t think it will be prudent to make a journey here in the dark.”
“No,” said the professor; “it would be a pity. Mind, Lawrence, my lad; what have you there?”