"Oh!" The stranger's voice at once became cordial and intimate. "I didn't know that I was speaking to a fellow-digger. How's Lampton?"
"I wasn't actually digging—I was doing some painting for him, and inking the pottery drawings. His latest discovery has developed amazing theories."
"So I've heard. But you look a bit done up. Come inside and have a drink." Before entering the tent, the stranger looked round. "Who's your man? Is he all right?"
"He's one of Lampton's men—absolutely trustworthy. He's been more than a servant to me for some weeks now." Michael paused, and then said abruptly, "Who told the Government of this site? What do you expect to find?"
"Will you first tell me where you got your information? Did you know we were here?"
"The Omdeh in the subterranean village spoke of it. He told me that the natives had discovered a hidden treasure, a sort of King Solomon's Mine, and that they were wading knee-deep in jewels and falling over crocks stuffed with Nubian gold—a desert fairytale, I suppose?"
"Absolutely! If there ever was any gold, it was not here when we arrived, and as for the jewels. . . !" He laughed. "Hallo! Are you feeling queer?"
Michael had managed to get inside the tent, but it was the limit of what his legs and head were fit for. He collapsed on to a lounge, made of wooden boxes covered with some rugs.
The stranger unfastened the padlock of a similar box to one of those upon which he was sitting with a key which hung from a chain at his side. He raised the lid; it had been converted into a wine-cellar.
"Hold hard," he said, in a kindly voice. "I'll give you a drink."