Jenson babbled something, Baumgardner boomed out a stolid assent, and Hammer had a sudden conviction that if he took another glass of champagne he was going to be very very drunk indeed, whereupon he removed his shoes and climbed inside the doctor's mosquito shelter.
In the morning he realized that that extra glass would have been entirely superfluous, to judge from his head. It was after nine, but he had a tub and a cup of coffee and felt considerably improved, and, finding from the boys that everyone was at work on the hill, he donned his new sun-helmet and started for the ruins above.
Each of the German sailors had charge of a gang of fifteen or twenty natives, and trenches were being laid out between the lines of the old walls, under the supervision of Krausz, who sat beneath a grass-thatched shelter at a table with Jenson. The doctor greeted him with a cordial grin, though for some reason—probably the heat—the ribbon of muscle in his temple was throbbing noticeably.
"And the fräulein—she will dine with us this evening?"
"Huh?"
Hammer stared, astonished, until the wager was brought slowly to his recollection. Then he looked around in some dismay, but the lady professor had not left her tent and the doctor failed to assign any reason thereto.
"Then I guess she won't leave for me," and Hammer ruefully related the incident of the note he had received the evening before, at which the doctor laughed uproariously, and even Jenson cracked a sly smile. Krausz explained that Professor Helmuth was an expert in Semitic languages, and also that the bet was off.
"Your beastly champagne did it," said Hammer irritably.
"But listen!" Earnestness swept into the doctor's heavy black eyes and his hand went to the American's arm. "If you will do it, yess, I will pay one hundred dollars——"
"You'll—what?" Hammer stared at him a moment, then flung off the hand as he turned away. "Been hitting up the booze again this morning, have you? I'll thank you to get that launch ready for me to get back to Melindi in. As for your she-professor, I'll have her over to dine this evening just to show you what a blooming fool you are, doctor. Then I'll start back in the launch after dark. I've had enough of this place."