"I will pass over the various specimens of antiquity, a Saracen castle, a Norman basilica, itself built between the limbs of a Temple of Juno. We have arrived. Behold us in a desert at the foot of stony moraines coming down from the mountains. In the distance a glittering sword blade rests on this desert: the sea. Cast your eyes down. Hardly had my brother taken possession of the property this summer, than for want of something better to do he reopened some Punic works six weeks ago, which were abandoned twenty-two centuries before. And what do you think happened? He discovered what are possibly the richest sulphur and rock salt deposits in the whole of Sicily. So far everything has been kept very quiet. My brother has only prospected the ground and taken a few preliminary precautions. Naturally he cannot develop the place himself. He quite realizes that to go into partnership spells failure, as would also leasing it; to say nothing of capital being tied up, even if he could find any. So he wants to sell outright." Behind the hearse and the smell of the lilac wreaths surrounding the procession with a false sense of springtime, Pastafina drew a resinous looking object from the pocket of his pitch-black Raglan overcoat. "The sample is amazingly rich; it will catch fire a yard away, and burns with a beautiful blue flame. What a find, caro mio! I have got an eight days' option. I was just off to London when I saw you." Lewis whistled softly to himself for a minute or two, wondering whether he could find out whether any subsidiary ores were present. Then he said abruptly: "Any trace of mercury?" "I don't think so." "Any barytes." "Yes." "What do you want for your option?" "A thousand pounds sterling." "When do you want to know by?" "Now, at once. Otherwise I start at three o'clock for London by aeroplane." Pastafina plucked out his words one by one as though they were the strings of a guitar. Lewis took his fountain pen from his pocket and, still walking along, signed a cheque on his silk hat. "And now," he said, "let's break the ranks as one used to at school, and go and have a vermouth without anyone seeing us." III