Having escorted him to where a servant waited with two horses, Danbazzar threw a stump of cigar upon the sand and selected a fresh one from several which he kept loose in the breast pocket of his white shirt. He bit off the end and spat it out reflectively, standing, a huge, picturesque figure, staring after the horsemen. When presently he rejoined Professor Blackwell: “How much?” the latter asked, standing up to greet him. “Ten thousand piastres for the first week,” Danbazzar replied calmly, and critically surveyed the end of his lighted cigar, which he extracted from between his teeth apparently for no other purpose; “twenty thousand piastres for the second week; forty thousand piastres if we stay over into a third, and so on. In other words, if we stayed for three months we’d need to send an SOS to Mr. Rockefeller! That’s our rent, and we’ve got to pay it!” “Quite, quite!” the Professor murmured. “Five hundred dollars for the first week, a thousand dollars for the second, and two thousand dollars for the third, or any part of the third, during which we remain here. Is that the figure?” “You said it.” “And suppose John Cumberland declines to submit to this extortion?” “Let’s suppose.” Danbazzar dropped down upon a small packing case which sometimes served as a chair. “In the first place, we’d be raided to-night by some scurvy bunch of Arabs in the pay of Tawwab. If we came out smiling, from to-morrow onward we’d be watched so closely the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. He would then threaten official interference. And if we kept right on smiling, there’d be another raid--and they’d take our shirts! They’d also take our excavation and every damn thing they could find in it! The real shape of our job in the valley shown up, Mr. Tawwab would next suggest, say a hundred thousand piastres to let us go home to America. Alternative--send us to Cairo for trial! Professor”--he extended his palms in an extravagant imitation of Ahmed Tawwab’s favourite gesture--“he has walked away with my check on the National Bank of Egypt for ten thousand piastres. We’ve got a clear week.” “Do you think he will stick to his bargain?” “Certainly not!” roared Danbazzar, and brought his hand down with a resounding bang on the side of the box, so that it emitted a drumlike note. “If we were ready to move in three days, it would make no difference. He’d want at least another fifty thousand piastres to let us leave Luxor.” “It is expensive,” the Professor murmured. “It _would be_,” Danbazzar returned, “if we paid it.” CHAPTER XVIII. THE LOTUS SARCOPHAGUS The sun was casting its last shafts of gold across the fringe of the Libyan Desert when Barry Cumberland stepped over the threshold and entered the tomb of Zalithea. He had pleaded for this privilege, and it had been granted to him. Danbazzar and John Cumberland followed, Professor Blackwell hard upon their heels; and Hassan es-Sugra, smiling in gentle triumph, brought up the rear.