Next day the dealer went to the village, and found that his informant was out, collecting rents for his land, and some time elapsed before he came back, carrying in his hands an inkpot and some papers to show how busy he had been. The dealer asked where the farmer was who had found the antiquities. The man replied, “I have sent for him, but he has not yet come.”
“Where does he live?” asked the dealer.
The man pointed to a collection of huts in the distance behind a ruin.
“Come, let us take donkeys and ride there,” said the dealer, “I cannot stay here all day.”
Donkeys were procured and they set off. On arrival, they found the farmer working his land. When he came in answer to their call he refused to admit that he had ever seen any gold antiquities, and vowed that he had none. When pressed, he swore by all the Prophets and their beards that he was innocent of finding anything; but, in an aside, he muttered that he thought the dealer was a member of the secret police, who had come to take all he had got.
Then the dealer swore to him by all the most sacred oaths that he was not a member of the police force, so the old man took courage, and produced one piece—a leaf of gold with two oxen engaged in a fight stamped upon it. The dealer asked if this was all. The farmer replied, “Well, you buy this, and when I know how you value it I will go and get you another.”
Then the dealer, doubting if the specimen was really genuine, asked the farmer if he had found it, or whether any one had given it to him to sell. The man swore by the divorce—the talak bi talata—that he had found the things himself, and had dug them up out of the ground.
The dealer thereupon bought some stamped leaves of gold to the value of £30, and the farmer told him to come again in two days and perhaps he would show him some more. Then the man who had lured the dealer there said, “Oh, I have seen in this man’s house a gold sword and a gold belt, and lots of coins, and if you can get five thousand pounds you can buy them from him.”
When the dealer got back to Cairo with his purchases, he showed them to an authority on the subject, who offered to buy them for £250, but the dealer refused, saying that he wished to wait until he could buy the rest of the find. Then the prospective purchaser said that, as he had not time to wait, he would ask a friend to come and buy for him.
The friend came and in the end bought the gold leaves for £250, and asked the dealer to go and get the rest of the things. Thinking that he was going to make a good season’s work, the dealer took £300 with him and went back to the place. This was, in itself, a risky proceeding, as he might have been murdered and the money stolen; needless to say, he did not sleep that night.