CHAPTER XXIX.

A PROPHECY FULFILLED.

It was not long before my uncle made known to me the real reason for his journey to the East. The description that I had sent home of the Temple of Sophana had, as he told me, caused the smouldering fire within him to break into flame, and he decided that he was not too old to do something in the world of discovery. The report of my death, however, was a great shock to him, and extinguished the flame of his ambitions. Then, when he heard of my success, he no longer hesitated, but persuaded my father to accompany him, and set out at once. It was therefore, I found, not so much the Golden Girdle that had impelled him to come to Baghdad, as his craving to visit the ruins of Katib, and see with his own eyes what no other European, except myself, had seen. That I should wish to go with him was only natural; but it was not to be, as Edwards declared that I was wholly unfit for such an undertaking.

In due course all arrangements were made; and, at my suggestion, Faris was communicated with, and asked to conduct my father and uncle to the ruins. But it was nearly a month before everything was settled. In the end, Faris agreed to meet the party at the Birs Nimroud on a certain day, and to bring with him a sufficient escort of Aeniza. There he was to receive from my uncle the much coveted shoe of Shahzadi, and he promised to be responsible for the safety of the relatives of his "brother the magician" until he brought them back again to the Birs Nimroud. In my opinion, no expedition ever started under more favourable circumstances, and it was with many heart-burnings that, after seeing the two adventurers and their zaptiehs a few miles on the road, I turned back, and returned with Edwards to Baghdad.

"It is rather sickening," said I, "to be out of this. I must say I should have liked to have had a look at the temple in cold blood."

"Be content," said Edwards, "with what you have already seen and done. Your constitution has been pretty well undermined as it is, and if you are not ever so careful, you will shatter it altogether."

"It will be a trifle dull," said I, "idling about this place until they come back."

"They will not be very long, I fancy," said Edwards. "The professor promised to waste no time, as he is most anxious to get home with the Girdle. I am to go on six months' leave by the same boat, so we will have merry times. In the meanwhile, I have got a job for you, and if you undertake it, you will not be bored by idleness."

"What is it?" I asked. "Nothing very exciting, I expect."

"Perhaps not quite up to your standard of excitement," said my friend, "but I told your father that I would do my level best to persuade you to carry out his wishes. All you have to do is to take pen, ink, and paper, and put together the story of your wanderings in search of the Golden Girdle."

"How deadly uninteresting," said I, with a groan.

Yet, as the time went on, and I found myself unable to do much riding or take other hard exercise, I began to jot down notes and headings on the paper which Edwards, each day, thrust obtrusively before me; and, at length, I came to the conclusion that such a treasure as the Golden Girdle was indeed worthy of having its history put on record. So I set to work with a will, full of misgivings of my ability to describe the queer things that I had seen and heard in the desert; and, each morning, sitting at my window, overlooking the mighty waters of the Tigris, I added a few sheets to the fast-growing pile.

While thus engaged, I received the first news of the wanderers, contained in a long letter from my father. It was written at Hillah, and finished as the camp was being struck at the Birs Nimroud. Edwards and I read it with intense interest, and both of us blushed when we came to passages dealing with the good names which we had left behind us; for many were the nice things that my father told me he had heard, not only from the Aeniza, but also from the Turkish officials at Hillah. There he had met the cheery old Commandant, who had recently returned from reinstating Ali Khan at Adiba. In the eyes of Ali Khan and his people, we were, the Commandant affirmed, the greatest heroes that Arabia had yet known, and if ever we revisited Adiba, our welcome would be magnificent. At the Birs Nimroud, Faris, Sedjur, two hundred horsemen, and many camels were found waiting, and immediately on his arrival, my uncle presented the sheik, in the presence of his men, with the shoe of Shahzadi, the Aeniza displaying extraordinary enthusiasm on the occasion. "We are just off," concluded my father, "and Sheik Faris is capering around on little Kushki, with the prized shoe dangling from her neck--the two of them as proud as peacocks."

After this, we received no further news for some time. Then came the first letter from the ruins, my uncle having arranged that his zaptiehs, whom he had left at Hillah, should act as despatch riders, the Aeniza carrying his letters from Katib to a small village on the Sea of Njef, whence the zaptiehs rode on with them to Hillah and Baghdad. When this first letter was written, the party had been only three days in camp near the ruins, and the temple itself had not then been explored, although my uncle had looked down into it from the gap in the roof. The whole time had been occupied in a thorough examination of the outer chamber, with its ramification of passages, of which my father had made several elaborate plan-drawings. Faris and I had been right in thinking that there was only the one chamber, and that the various passages always led back to it, except, of course, the one by which we had originally entered, by way of the steps. Apparently, this form of building was not unknown to my uncle, who, however, had never actually seen anything of the kind, and was delighted with what he had now observed. With the drawings were numerous rubbings from glazed bricks, paper mouldings from carvings, copies of inscriptions, and a few photographic films, which I was to develop. All such things I had been instructed to place in the great safe with the treasured Girdle, and before long the collection began to swell to vast proportions.

Soon, the desert despatches came in regularly once a week, and each one was more bulky than the last, until the safe would hold no more, and cupboards had to be set apart to receive the accumulating mass of papers. Knowing what I did of my uncle's life at the British Museum, I trembled to think of what he was laying up for his old age. Neither did I relish the idea that he would probably persuade me to assist him in unravelling the threads of all his discoveries.

With considerable impatience I awaited the letter which should tell me that the explorers had reached the temple of the queen-goddess, and, when it came, I was relieved to learn that my uncle was in no way disappointed. In fact, it was evident that he was in the seventh heaven of joy, and had no intention of leaving the place until he had overhauled every nook and corner. They had entered the temple, as Faris and I had done, by the tunnelled way, and had found everything just as we had left it. Our tower of escape still stood against the side wall; Raspul's corpse, shrivelled and dried up, lay on the bench on which we had placed it, and the image, or statue, of Sophana looked down serenely on the debris scattered around her feet. No man had been near the place since that awful night, for Faris said that the tribes had become aware of the murder of the seer in his temple, and knowing that his corpse still remained unburied, feared to visit the spot. Even his own Aeniza refused to pitch their camp nearer than a mile from the ruins. The rosary of the seer had been found, but beyond saying that the beads composing it were highly interesting, my uncle did not enter into details.

In thus describing the events of my last days in the City of the Caliphs, I have found it impossible to refrain from mentioning the great things that my father and uncle were doing, whilst I remained, an unwilling prisoner, at the base of operations. These matters, however, are so intimately connected with my quest of the Golden Girdle, that I do not think that any apology for their introduction into my story is needed. Still, I hesitate to forestall my uncle's own account of his wonderful discoveries, which, I have little doubt, when made known to the world, will be found to rival those of the early Babylonian explorers; and with the exception of quoting from one more of his letters, I shall throw no further light on his doings.

The letter in question arrived after I had been without news for a fortnight, and just as I had made up my mind that something was amiss. I had, indeed, gone so far as to suggest to Edwards that he and I should start off for Hillah, and thence try to reach Katib. Many were the papers which accompanied my uncle's letter, which, though written in great haste, was of considerable length. It opened with instructions about the new bundle of papers, and more particularly about the negatives sent for development; then it disclosed information which made my heart thump and my fingers twitch with nervous excitement. The contents of his letter, said my uncle, were on no account whatever to be revealed to anyone, except to Edwards, and to him only on the condition that he swore to keep the secret. This is what he wrote:--

"I could not send in news last week, as we were much too busy to think of anything beyond the work in hand. How sorry we are that you were not with us to share our triumph; for triumph it assuredly is! We have had, Walter, the most astounding stroke of luck. The temple itself and its extraordinary surroundings have given me the greatest joy, and had the beautiful statue of the goddess been the only thing that I could remove, I should have been more than satisfied. Yet we have found other things, and your father, whose greed is terrible, is in ecstasies over our undreamt-of success.

"You will remember the small chamber, into which, as Sheik Faris tells me, the Seer retired to change his clothes. That was his private dwelling-room, and we found little of interest in it until, about ten days ago, on sounding the walls, I thought that one of them rang hollow. I examined it more carefully, and after a while I discovered a tiny metal knob, similar to the one on the wall door by which we had gained access to the temple. I held my finger on it, and the wall began to move. Then in my eagerness I pushed it with my shoulder, to find myself at the entrance to a large and dark dungeon. I have no time now to describe fully what that dungeon contained, and I cannot say whether it was the store-house of Raspul, or of many generations of priests. But whoever amassed the wealth that lay therein cannot have acquired it honestly in one lifetime, nor yet in twenty, and for what purpose it should have been kept there is incomprehensible. There were wooden boxes filled with gold mohurs, Turkish gold coins, English sovereigns, and even 'spade' guineas; the wood of the boxes in many instances crumbled away with age, and the coins trickling through. Of silver coins there were pagodas, kerans, rupees, and money from almost every country, piled in great heaps in the corners of the chamber. Not a little rare and antique jewellery also, and gems cut, uncut, and engraved; besides pearls representing the produce of Bahrein for a decade or more. I do not attempt to estimate the value of our find, though your father talks of six figures. The intrinsic value is to me nothing. I have as much of this world's goods as I wish for. Your father will, of course, take his share; my share will be divided equally between yourself and your friend the doctor; while the share which belongs by right to Sheik Faris, he refuses to take, and he desires me to say that he gives it all to his 'brother the magician,' to whom it will be of greater use than to himself.

"Ever since we made this wondrous discovery, we have been engaged day and night in packing the treasure, only our three selves and Sedjur being in the secret. The Aeniza, who refused to enter the ruins, are aware that we intend to remove portions of the temple and other parts of the ruins, and so that they shall not suspect the nature of the loads which the camels will take away, we have sewn up the gold and other valuables in small pieces of camel cloth, binding fragments of stones around each package. The statue of the goddess we hope to bring away also; but it is doubtful if there are sufficient camels to carry all the silver. However, we can well spare some of it.

"Sheik Faris has arranged that, in order to avoid all difficulties with the Turkish authorities, he will convey everything across the desert, to a certain small bay in the Gulf, not far from Kuwait, where, he tells me, we shall be able to hire large boats used for shipping smuggled horses, and so get the goods on board our steamer, without any trouble. He and a hundred and fifty horsemen start with the camels to-morrow night; and we, accompanied by Sedjur and fifty men, return at the same time towards Hillah, where we shall pick up the zaptiehs, and ere many days we shall be with you again in Baghdad.

"We must leave Bussorah in the steamer which departs next Monday three weeks, so that we may be off the appointed place at the time at which Faris calculates to arrive there. He assures me that there can be no possibility of failure on his part; for he says that the man who carries Shahzadi's shoe can never fail!

"I can write no more now, as there are still many things to be seen to. It would be well if you were to prepare to leave Baghdad shortly after our arrival. I have every confidence in the noble and generous Faris, whom I hold in the highest esteem. He is now seated in my tent, and bids me remind you of the prophecy of Raspul: _Wealth untold cometh to the man whose mare shall carry the iron with which Shahzadi was shod!_"

"And also," said Edwards, "to the man who recovered the Golden Girdle of the Great Queen."