She bounded out of bed and, a half hour later, sprang from their car to greet the cold, gray dawn.
“Sunshine, fountains, flowers, and now this. All a part of life,” she thought with a shudder.
After switching on the plane’s lights she crowded her way back through the cabin. She examined each well-bound package with care, counted them and then, in one fleeting thought, asked herself what their contents might be. For the time, the roll of papyrus was forgotten. Only one thing mattered now—their cargo.
Finding everything ship-shape she worked her way back to the cabin door to stand there polishing her glasses.
Suddenly she found herself staring at the square of white with which the polishing was being done.
“That’s not my handkerchief,” she exclaimed. “It has embroidery in the corners, a date palm in one corner and a flying bird in the other.”
“You must have picked it up somewhere,” her father suggested.
Digging into her purse for her own handkerchief, she pulled out one more of the same pattern.
“This,” she exclaimed, “is getting funny.” Then: “Oh! I remember. There was that strange bag last night, you know? I needed a handkerchief. My bag was gone.”
“So you took those, and you have them still. Well, you got something out of that adventure,” he laughed good-naturedly.