“What vandalism!” exclaimed Higgs, indignant even in his misery. “Why wouldn’t you let me move the things when I wanted to, Orme?”
“Because they would have thought that we were stealing them, old fellow. Also those Mountaineers were superstitious, and I did not want them to desert. But what does it matter, anyway? If you had, they would have been burned in the palace.”
By this time we had reached that end of the vast tomb where the hunchbacked king used to sit, and saw at once that our quest was vain. The tunnel which we had dug beyond was utterly choked with masses of fallen rock that we could never hope to move, even with the aid of explosives, of which we had none left.
So we returned, our last hope gone.
Also another trouble stared us in the face; our supply of the crude mineral oil which the Abati used for lighting purposes was beginning to run low. Measurement of what remained of the store laid up for our use while the mine was being made, revealed the fact that there was only enough left to supply four lamps for about three days and nights: one for Maqueda, one for ourselves, one for the watchman near the tunnel mouth, and one for general purposes.
This general-purpose lamp, as a matter of fact, was mostly made use of by Higgs. Truly, he furnished a striking instance of the ruling passion strong in death. All through those days of starvation and utter misery, until he grew too weak and the oil gave out, he trudged backward and forward between the old temple and the Tomb of Kings carrying a large basket on his arm. Going out with this basket empty, he would bring it back filled with gold cups and other precious objects that he had collected from among the bones and scattered rubbish in the Tomb. These objects he laboriously catalogued in his pocket-book at night, and afterwards packed away in empty cases that had contained our supplies of explosive and other goods, carefully nailing them down when filled.
“What on earth are you doing that for, Higgs?” I asked petulantly, as he finished off another case, I think it was his twentieth.
“I don’t know, Doctor,” he answered in a thin voice, for like the rest of us he was growing feeble on a water-diet. “I suppose it amuses me to think how jolly it would be to open all these boxes in my rooms in London after a first-rate dinner of fried sole and steak cut thick,” and he smacked his poor, hungry lips. “Yes, yes,” he went on, “to take them out one by one and show them to —— and ——,” and he mentioned by name officials of sundry great museums with whom he was at war, “and see them tear their hair with rage and jealousy, while they wondered in their hearts if they could not manage to seize the lot for the Crown as treasure-trove, or do me out of them somehow,” and he laughed a little in his old, pleasant fashion.
“Of course I never shall,” he added sadly, “but perhaps one day some other fellow will find them here and get them to Europe, and if he is a decent chap, publish my notes and descriptions, of which I have put a duplicate in each box, and so make my name immortal. Well, I’m off again. There are four more cases to fill before the oil gives out, and I must get that great gold head into one of them, though it is an awful job to carry it far at a time. Doctor, what disease is it that makes your legs suddenly give way beneath you, so that you find yourself sitting in a heap on the floor without knowing how you came there? You don’t know? Well, no more do I, but I’ve got it bad. I tell you I’m downright sore behind from continual and unexpected contact with the rock.”
Poor old Higgs! I did not like to tell him that his disease was starvation.