She looked at them gratefully through her tears.
“It would not be so bad,” she resumed, “if he went by his right name or if he even knew his name. Then it might be easy to trace him. But all we have to go by is a description of him, and that might so easily apply to many others that you can’t place much reliance on it.
“It’s all been like a hideous nightmare since the Mercury went down,” she resumed. “Richard’s head was hurt by a block that struck him in the confusion of getting off into the boat. The wound healed, however, and for the first few days he seemed to be all right. It was only after we had been landed at Bahia in Brazil and had started on our trip overland to Martin Clifton’s house, from which we expected to sail for the United States in the private yacht he offered to place at our disposal, that I began to notice something queer about him. His mind seemed to be dwelling more and more on Egypt. You know he spent a good deal of time exploring there before the war.”
“Yes, I know,” said the professor, and the captain nodded in assent.
“He kept talking about the Valley of the Kings in Egypt,” went on Mrs. Sturdy. “At first I’d try to change the subject and get him to talk of other things. But he always came back to the one thing that engrossed his mind. Then he would talk half to himself about figures and measurements. He had a tape measure and would go about the rooms in Mr. Clifton’s house and get their length and breadth and height. Then he would put them down on a piece of paper and after studying them would mutter. ‘That isn’t it. Must try further.’”
“Just the very thing you found scribbled on those bits of paper among his memoranda, Uncle Amos!” ejaculated Don. “He was looking for some special thing, something of which he already had the measurements.”
“I’m sure it was a tomb of some kind he had in mind,” said Don’s mother. “Again and again he would break out with something about the Tombs of Gold—”
“The Tombs of Gold!” exclaimed Don, with a start. “Why, that is what those fellows were trying to get information about from that old Egyptian!”
“The old Egyptian?” repeated Mrs. Sturdy inquiringly.
“A man we met on the boat coming here,” explained Don. “A man named Phalos. I’ll tell you all about him later. But go on, mother.”