“I shall dispute your claim,” cried De Gayangos, losing his calmness.
Braddock waved his hand with supreme content.
“I can give you the address of my lawyers,” he retorted; “any steps you choose to take will only result in loss, and from what you hint I should not think that you had much money to spend on litigation.”
Don Pedro bit his lip, and saw that it was indeed a more difficult task than he had anticipated to make Braddock yield up his prize.
“If you were in Lima,” he muttered, speaking Spanish in his excitement, “you would then learn that I speak truly.”
“I do not doubt your truth,” answered the Professor in the same language.
De Gayangos wheeled and faced his host, much surprised.
“You speak my tongue, señor?” he demanded.
Braddock nodded.
“I have been in Spain, and I have been in Peru,” he answered dryly, “therefore I know classical Spanish and its colonial dialects. As to being in Lima, I was there, and I do not wish to go there again, as I had quite enough of those uncivilized parts thirty years ago, when the country was much disturbed after your civil war.”
“You were in Lima thirty years ago,” echoed Don Pedro; “then you were there when Vasa stole this mummy.”
“I don’t know who stole it, or even if it was stolen,” said the Professor obstinately, “and I don’t know the name of Vasa. Ah! now I remember. Young Hope did say something about the Swedish sailor who you said stole the mummy.”
“Vasa did, and brought it to Europe to sell—probably to that man in Paris, who afterwards sold it to your Malteses collector.”
“No doubt,” rejoined Braddock calmly; “but what has all this to do with me, Don Pedro?”
“I want my mummy,” raged the other, and looked dangerous.
“Then you won’t get it,” retorted Braddock, adopting a pugnacious attitude and quite composed. “This mummy has caused one death, Don Pedro, and from your looks I should think you would like it to cause another.”
“Will you not be honest?”
“I’ll knock your head off if you bring my honesty into question,” cried the Professor, standing on tiptoe like a bantam. “The best thing to do will be to take the matter into court. Then the law can decide, and I have little doubt but what it will decide in my favor.”
The Englishman and the Peruvian glared at one another, and Cockatoo, who was crouching on the floor, glanced from one angry face to another. He guessed that the white men were quarreling and perhaps would come to blows. It was at this moment that a knock came to the door, and a minute later Archie entered. Braddock glanced at him, and took a sudden resolution as he stepped forward.
“Hope, you are just in time,” he declared. “Don Pedro states that the mummy belongs to him, and I assert that I have bought it. We shall make you umpire. He wants it: I want it. What is to be done?”
“The mummy is my own flesh and blood, Mr. Hope,” said Don Pedro.
“Precious little of either about it,” said Braddock contemptuously.
Archie twisted a chair round and straddled his long legs across it, with his arms resting on its back. His quick brain had rapidly comprehended the situation, and, being acquainted with both sides of the question, it was not difficult to come to a decision. If it was hard that Don Pedro should lose his ancestor’s mummy, it was equally hard that Braddock—or rather himself—should lose the purchase money, seeing that it had been paid in good faith to the seller in Malta for a presumably righteously acquired object. On these premises the young Solon proceeded to deliver judgment.
“I understand,” said he judiciously, “that Don Pedro had the mummy stolen from him thirty years ago, and that you, Professor, bought it under the impression that the Maltese owner had a right to possess it.”
“Yes,” snapped Braddock, “and I daresay the Maltese owner thought so too, since he bought it from that collector in Paris.”
Hope nodded.
“And if Vasa sold it to the man in Paris,” said he calmly, “he certainly would not tell the purchaser that he had looted the mummy in Lima, and the poor man would not know that he was receiving stolen goods. Is that right, Don Pedro?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Peruvian, who had recovered his temper and his gravity; “but I declare solemnly that the mummy was stolen from my father and should belong to me.”
“No one disputes that,” said Archie cheerfully; “but it ought to belong to the Professor also, since he has bought it. Now, as it can’t possibly belong to two people, we must split the difference. You, Professor, must sell back the mummy to Don Pedro for the price you paid for it, and then, Don Pedro, you must recompense Professor Braddock for his loss.”
“I have not much money,” said Don Pedro gravely; “still, I am willing to do as you say.”
“I don’t know that I am,” protested Braddock noisily. “There are the two emeralds which are of immense value, as Don Pedro says, and they belong to me, since the mummy is my property.”
“Professor,” said Archie solemnly, “you must do right, even if you lose by it. I believe the story of Señor De Gayangos; and the mummy with its jewels belongs to him. Besides, you only wish to see the way in which the Inca race embalmed their dead. Well, then, unpack the mummy here in the presence of Don Pedro. When you have satisfied your curiosity, and when Señor De Gayangos signs a check for one thousand pounds, he can take away the corpse. You have had so much trouble over it, that I wonder your are not anxious to see the last of it.”
“But the emeralds would sell for much money and would defray the expenses of my expedition into Egypt to search for that Queen’s tomb.”
“I understood from Lucy that Mrs. Jasher intended to finance that
