All the way along we had displayed a keen (and not altogether fictitious) interest in archæology, employing our various halts in visiting old ruins, and here and there buying small antique or pseudo-antique relics. As a consequence we had no difficulty in making people believe our story, and in any case there was no reason for them to think that we were mad enough to want to strike straight into the unknown and pathless desert to the north. We had not told either the Punjabis or Sadiq what our real destination was, lest they should give it out to all and sundry. Our final departure was fixed for the 1st October, and we intended to make an early start and carry out as long a march as possible. We had everything except the barest necessities packed up the night before ready for loading, and held a final inspection of water-tanks and stores before it got dark. After we had finished our evening meal and the two Punjabis were packing up the last oddments, we three sat out at the entrance of our little tent muffled up in _poshtins_, for the nights were by now pretty cold. “We’ve reached the jumping-off line, and zero hour’s pretty near,” said Forsyth. “I wonder what we shall find at the far end?” “Water, I trust,” said Wrexham, the ever practical; “for if we don’t we shall have to turn about and scuttle back double time.” “I wasn’t thinking of water, you unromantic materialist. I want to know the kind of people we’re going to find. Think of finding a bit of the ancient world still in being. Lord, think of the yarns one would have to tell when one got back home! I’d make a few stuffy professors I know sit up some,” replied the doctor. “If the local inhabitants are as pleasant-looking as the lady Euphrosine of the picture, I should think you could make even the driest of old inhabitants sit up,” said I. “I wonder whether your passion for ethnology in general would blind you to a keener interest in specific living specimens in that case.” Our stay in Calcutta had proved to me that Forsyth was far from being averse to the society of fair maidens; in fact, at one time I had serious fears lest the attractions of certain damsels might not prove more potent than that of mythical Greek relics in the heart of Asia. “Oh, dry up, Harry. You can never get away from your innuendoes about frocks and frills, merely because when I’m in civilization I like to enjoy it.” “I didn’t make any innuendoes. Your guilty conscience betrays you. Did you leave any address in Calcutta, or leave touching messages about how your thoughts would travel from far sand-buried Khotan, or how sweet certain memories would seem in forgotten Lop Nor?” I ducked the tobacco-pouch he threw at me, and while he was looking for it resumed in a more serious vein: “Have you ever worked out, Wrexham, how that fellow you found could have got so far across the desert without water?”