"Mr. Forrester," said Pharos, after we had been alone together for a few moments, "I am going to make a proposition to you which I shall be very much honoured if you can see your way to accept."
"I shall be better able to tell you when I know what it is," I answered.
"It is eminently simple," he continued. "It is neither more nor less than this. I am the possessor of a steam-yacht—a comfortable craft, my friends tell me—and in her my ward and I start to-morrow for Port Said, en route for Cairo."
"For Cairo?" I cried in amazement.
"For Cairo," he answered, with a smile. "And why not? Cairo is a most delightful place, and I have important business in Egypt. Perhaps you can guess what that business is."
"The mummy?" I answered at a hazard.
"Exactly," he replied, nodding his head; "the mummy. It is my intention to restore it to the tomb from which your father sto—from which, shall we say, your father removed it."
"And your proposition?"
"Is that you accompany us. The opportunity is one you should not let slip. You will have a chance of seeing the land of the Pharaohs under the most favourable auspices, and the hints you should derive for future work should be invaluable to you. What do you say?"
To tell the truth I did not know what answer to give. I had all my life long had a craving to visit that mysterious country, and, as I have said elsewhere, I had quite made up my mind to do so at the end of the year. Now an opportunity was afforded me of carrying out my intentions, and in a most luxurious fashion. I remembered the extraordinary interest Pharos had lent to the ruins of Pompeii that afternoon, and I felt sure that in Egypt, since it was his native country, he would be able to do much more. But it was not the prospect of what I should learn from him so much as the knowledge that I should be for some weeks in the company of Valerie de Vocxqal that tempted me. The thought that I should be with her on board the yacht, and that I should be able to enjoy her society uninterruptedly in the mystic land which had played such an important part in my career, thrilled me to the centre of my being. That her life was a far from happy one I was quite convinced, and it was just possible, if I went with them, that I might be able to discover the seat of the trouble and perhaps be in a position to assist her.