CHAPTER XIX.

LOVELACE PASHA.

The treasure was taken from the panniers and, still snugly packed in the canvas sacks which Van Dorn had so carefully sealed, carried to my stateroom and dumped unceremoniously into a huge chest.

After a brief conference we had decided to leave it untouched until after we had passed through the Suez Canal and, free from the shores of Egypt, were safe on the broad waters of the Mediterranean. Then we would open the sacks, sort and examine the treasure, and divide it in ways still to be agreed upon. Our contract with Van Dorn, you will remember, gave us his share in case of his death.

And now, while we sailed up the long branch of the Red Sea which is called the Arabian Gulf, I examined with some curiosity the things Ned had taken from the Professor’s dead body.

His note book had been a sort of diary, but from it several leaves had been torn, as if he had recorded events which he afterward feared might compromise him, and had thus destroyed their written evidence. From what remained I gathered that the man was no “professor” at all, but a wandering adventurer attracted to Egypt by the recent valuable discoveries there. Falling in with Lovelace, he had hired his services to that savant to assist his search, and from scattered notations in the