“That they’ll be up to mischief right away,” replied Phalos. “The experience they’ve been through won’t change the intentions of such calloused scoundrels. They’ll simply attribute that to bad luck and try again.”
“It’s too bad that they have such a grudge against you,” remarked Don.
“It isn’t a grudge,” explained the old Egyptian. “I’ve never done them any harm, and their feeling toward me isn’t prompted by revenge. They simply know that I have a valuable secret, and they are trying to extort it from me.”
There was a dead silence in the group that was in itself a question that all were too polite to ask.
Phalos pondered long before he spoke.
“I have never revealed the secret to a living soul,” he said at last. “But there is something about you that invites my confidence and assures me that it will not be betrayed. Besides I owe you something on the score of gratitude.”
They waved that aside with a gesture of their hands.
“It concerns the tombs of a certain royal family of an old dynasty of the Pharaohs,” Zeta Phalos began, while all listened intently. “I have reason to believe that they exist in the vicinity of the Valley of the Kings and have never been discovered or uncovered.”
“The Valley of the Kings!” exclaimed Don. “Why, that’s where we’re going in search of my father.”
“Exactly,” replied Phalos. “And where I’m going, too, if you are good enough to let me form one of your party.”