n," 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 tip-toe 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 o