“But see, Uncle Frank! Uncle Amos!” cried Don. “Here’s father! Don’t you recognize him? I’ve found my father!”
The scene that took place for the next few minutes beggared description. There were sounds of delight, grasps of the hand, slaps on the back, incoherent questions tumbling over one another. Hardly any one knew what he was doing or saying, but all knew that they were supremely, overwhelmingly happy.
“We’ve found you, Dick, old man; we’ve found you!” jubilated the captain. “And, oh, the luck of it! We’ve found you in the Tombs of Gold!”
CHAPTER XXIII
Riches beyond Price
It was a long time before the members of the party could settle down to a narration of their respective adventures. A torch was secured from the débris in the room of Horum-Aleb, and by its light they sat in a group, so that they could see each other’s features as they talked.
“How lucky it was that you decided to take a shot at the ghost—or whatever it is,” remarked Don. “If it hadn’t been for that, we might never have got together.”
“I suppose the chief reason I shot at it, was to relieve my feelings,” answered the captain, with a grin. “If it were anything human, it deserved to be shot. If it were anything mechanical, I thought I might disable the mechanism. We hadn’t seen the thing before to-night, but we’d heard it, and I had judged just about where we’d find it, and my guess was good. I’ll take a look around in the morning.”
Don had snatched an opportunity to reveal to his uncles what he had already told his father, and they acted with great tact and judgment in evading risky subjects and yet including him in their expedition, as if he knew all about it.
The elders listened avidly, too, to the boys’ narration of what had happened since they had been separated, and also to their story of the gold objects they had found that morning.
“Those alone would richly repay us for our trip,” observed the professor exultantly, while the face of Phalos flushed with pleasure. “If now we can add to them the things undoubtedly in the tomb of Ras-Ameses—”