So we told him all, while he listened open-mouthed. When we came to the description of the Tomb of the Kings his excitement could scarcely be restrained.
“You haven’t touched them,” he almost screamed; “don’t say you have been vandals enough to touch them, for every article must be catalogued in situ and drawings must be made. If possible, specimen groups with their surrounding offerings should be moved so that they can be set up again in museums. Why, there’s six months’ work before me, at least. And to think that if it hadn’t been for you, by now I should be in process of digestion by a lion, a stinking, mangy, sacred lion!”
Next morning I was awakened by Higgs limping into my room in some weird sleeping-suit that he had contrived with the help of Quick.
“I say, old fellow,” he said, “tell me some more about that girl, Walda Nagasta. What a sweet face she’s got, and what pluck! Of course, such things ain’t in my line, never looked at a woman these twenty years past, hard enough to remember her next morning, but, by Jingo! the eyes of that one made me feel quite queer here,” and he hit the sleeping-suit somewhere in the middle, “though perhaps it was only because she was such a contrast to the lions.”
“Ptolemy,” I answered in a solemn voice, “let me tell you that she is more dangerous to meddle with than any lion, and what’s more, if you don’t want to further complicate matters with a flaming row, you had better keep to your old habits and leave her eyes alone. I mean that Oliver is in love with her.”
“Of course he is. I never expected anything else, but what’s that got to do with it? Why shouldn’t I be in love with her too? Though I admit,” he added sadly, contemplating his rotund form, “the chances are in his favour, especially as he’s got the start.”
“They are, Ptolemy, for she’s in love with him,” and I told him what we had seen in the Tomb of Kings.
First he roared with laughter, then on second thoughts grew exceedingly indignant.
“I call it scandalous of Oliver, compromising us all in this way—the lucky dog! These selfish, amorous adventures will let us in for no end of trouble. It is even probable, Adams, that you and I may come to a miserable end, solely because of this young man’s erotic tendencies. Just fancy neglecting business in order to run after a pretty, round-faced Jewess, that is if she is a Jewess, which I doubt, as the blood must have got considerably mixed by now, and the first Queen of Sheba, if she ever existed, was an Ethiopian. As a friend almost old enough to be his father, I shall speak to him very seriously.”
“All right,” I called after him as he hobbled off to take his bath, “only if you are wise, you won’t speak to Maqueda, for she might misinterpret your motives if you go on staring at her as you did yesterday.”