Suddenly Webb grasped his companion's arm.
"Hist!" he whispered.
His trained ear had caught the faint cackle of a wireless apparatus.
For some moments the chums stood motionless. The sounds came from an apartment either built in the thick walls or else in a raised outbuilding. Presently the message ended, and the two men began to engage in conversation, speaking in Arabic—a language of which both Webb and Osborne knew but a few words, acquired during their brief stay in Port Said and Alexandria.
Both officers drew their revolvers. Clearly this was a time for action. The ruins were not a Government telegraphic post. Since the Western Egyptian Frontier campaign that ended in the defeat of the somewhat formidable Senussi rising, a quantity of wireless gear, known to have been smuggled ashore with other warlike stores for the use of the enemy, had been unaccounted for. So thorough had been the methods adopted by the Turks and their German taskmasters, that even the nomad Arabs of the Tripolitan hinterland had been instructed in the use of the most modern form of telegraphy.
When sufficiently accustomed to the gloom, Osborne advanced cautiously, Webb following at his heels. Guided by the sounds of conversation they crossed the floor, where the dust of years lay ankle-deep, until they came to a flight of stone steps, flanked on either side by gigantic stone images representing two grotesque Egyptian divinities, seated with their hands resting on their knees and their orbless eyes staring blankly. So smooth were the carvings that they might have been chiselled yesterday, instead of several centuries before the Christian era.
Up the flight of stairs the two officers crept. The illicit operators, still engaged in an animated conversation, were unaware of their presence until with a bound Osborne entered a small room on a level with the roof of the portico, and covered them with his revolver.
Even as he did so he recognized one of the men as Georgeos Hymettus, the Greek spy, who in the disguise of Alfonzo y Guzman Perez had furnished the U-boat officers with information concerning the movements of shipping at Gibraltar, and who had so nearly been laid by the heels by Osborne and Webb during their adventurous trip to Algeciras.
"The world is small, my festive Hymettus," observed Osborne suavely. "Now, kindly put your hands up and give no trouble."