"I'd rather not answer your question at present, if you don't mind. All that I know about it, Lampton also knows. . . . Some day, I hope, if we meet again, I will tell you the whole thing. It's an odd story, even for Egypt."
The man looked annoyed. "You can't tell me anything more? Have you any information that could help us? We have our suspicions that things aren't straight. If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels, there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there were valuable antiques."
"I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man in his normal senses would pay any attention to—that was Lampton's verdict."
Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes.
"Yet you believe in what you heard? You believed enough to bring you across the desert to find it?"
"If you ask Lampton, he'll tell you that I'm not quite in my normal senses—that I frequently walk on my head."
"Lampton's a sound man."
"Well, that's his opinion."
"You're a rum chap," the stranger said, as he noticed that a glint of humour had for the moment driven the expression of exhaustion from Michael's eyes. "Anyhow, I hope you'll not feel too knocked up when you arrive in camp, and that we'll meet again."
"I feel as if I could sleep for a year."