The boys were next afforded a view of two men, plotting aboard a sampan near the island of Honam. One was tall and had a dark face and sinister eyes. He wore a solar hat with a pugree. The other had on sailor clothes, had a fringe of mutton-chop whiskers about his jaws and a green patch over his right eye. McGlory grabbed Matt's arm in a convulsive grip.
"What do you think of that?" demanded the cowboy, in a husky whisper. "The tinhorn in the sun hat is Grattan, and the webfoot is Bunce. Am I in a trance, or what?"
"Watch!" returned Matt, fully as mystified as was his chum.
The next picture was labeled, "The Egyptian Balls—view of excavations at Karnak, on the Upper Nile."
Ponderous ruins were brought into view, showing Egyptian fellahs digging in a subterranean chamber. An urn was lifted up and uncovered. From this urn the wondering workmen removed a number of crystalline spheres. One of the spheres dropped from an awkward hand, crashed to fragments on the floor of the chamber, and instantly all the workmen staggered, flung their hands to their faces, and fell sprawling, lying on the stones prone and silent.
Two men stole in upon them, covered with flowing Arab robes, and their faces masked in white. Swiftly they gathered up some of the balls, and the camera followed them as they left the chamber and stood under the broken columns of the ancient temple of Karnak. The robes were flung away, and the masks removed. Grattan and Bunce, the sampan plotters, stood revealed.
"I've got the blind staggers, I reckon!" mumbled McGlory, rubbing his eyes. "It was in Egypt Grattan got his dope balls—the glass spheres filled with the knock-out fumes. This—this—sufferin' brain twisters! It's more'n I can savvy."
After Grattan and Bunce had gone through a pantomime expressive of their wild delight on securing the balls, the films entered into another series, entitled, "The Theft of the Great Ruby from the Honam Joss House, near Canton, China."
The walls outside the temple were shown, and an avenue bordered with banyan trees, with rooks flapping among the branches. Grattan and Bunce were seen making their way along the avenue, entering the temple court, and coming into the chamber which had been flashed on the screen at the beginning.
Here was the huge idol again, and the yellow-robed priests moving about. For a space, Grattan and Bunce stood and gazed; then, suddenly, Grattan pulled a hand from his coat, held one of the glass balls over his head for a space, then sent it crashing among the priests. The priests started up in amazement, recovered their wits, and rushed toward the foreign devils. But the priests were suddenly stricken before Grattan and Bunce could be roughly dealt with.