"Oh, excellent Doctor!" murmured Wallion. "I'll give you an opportunity to keep your promise. Let us go into the smoking-room, Tom."
On the upper deck the Greek antiquary passed close to them and then disappeared like a shadow into the darkness.
CHAPTER X
RICARDO FERAIL
The next day after dinner Wallion and Tom were quietly sitting in their cabin. The latter in a miserable frame of mind, for Elaine and her people had not appeared at table. He had sent an attendant with his visiting card to inquire after Elaine's health, and was waiting impatiently for an answer. Wallion smoked in silence, casting an occasional glance at his friend.
"Alaska," he suddenly said as though following up a train of thought. "Why shouldn't 'King Solomon' have been the name of a mine?"
"Why not, indeed?" remarked Tom starting up. "But, if so, why did the Dreyels or Robertson not go back there?" he said, hesitatingly. "A mine can't disappear entirely from the face of the earth."
"No, but it can be exhausted, and the booty purloined ... There are all sorts of possibilities in connection with Alaska. I wish we were on land, we might glean some information from the papers of 1902 as to whether there was any catastrophe there at that time, how news of it was conveyed to Mrs. Robertson, what became of Sandy MacCormick, and who Sanderson, and Russel were—to say nothing of the wooden dolls?"
Tom looked uneasily at Wallion, who continued to envelop himself in a cloud of smoke and asked in a low tone:
"What do you think about her story?"