“I could answer that question more positively if I knew the mind of Mai Lo better,” returned the Prince, more gravely than was his wont. Then he brightened and said:
“I am much interested in your friends Archie and Joe, who were so loyal and brave in your Egyptian adventures, which you related to me yesterday. Did you not say they were still your comrades?”
“Yes, indeed, Prince. Both are now aboard the Seagull.”
“May I see them? Will you bring them here to see me?” he asked, eagerly.
“They will be greatly pleased,” I replied. “When?”
“At once. You remember the doctor’s warning.”
“I’ll get them,” said I, rising.
“Send Mai Lo,” suggested the Prince. I did so, asking the attendant, who stood stiffly outside the door, to summon my friends to an audience with Kai Lun Pu.
In a few minutes Joe and Archie arrived, as eager as I knew they would be to make the acquaintance of our interesting passenger.
The Prince conversed with them upon various subjects for fully an hour, pressing them for details of our former adventures and shrewdly drawing out the characteristics of both the boys without their suspecting it in the least. I felt quite proud of my friends, for although each in his own way was odd to the verge of eccentricity, two more manly, truer hearted fellows did not exist—or at least that was my opinion of them.