"It wasn't
material things. It was adventure. Well--you and I have had that, at
all events. And they had it too. They and we--all of us--we changed
the course of history for more than two hundred million human beings.
And as for you and me--"

He turned, looking at the map. Then he got up from the table, went to
that map and laid a hand on the vast, blank expanse across which was
printed only "Ruba el Khali"--the Empty Abodes.

"It would wreck the whole structure of civilization if we told," said
he. The woman put back the incense-stick into its holder, got up and
came to stand beside him. "Imagine the horrible, vulture-like scramble
of capitalism to exploit that dyke of gold! There'd be expeditions,
pools, combines, wars--we'd have the blood of uncounted thousands on
our heads!

"It's not the treacherous El Barr people I'm thinking of. If they
perished, as they would to the last man defending their gold, all well
and good. But in case any of our men are still alive there, _they'd_
be butchered. And then, the destruction of gold as a medium of
exchange, by its gross plenty, would wreck the world with panics. And
the greatest catastrophe of history would lie on our shoulders. That
is why--"

"Why the secret must remain here," she said, touching her breast.

"_But_!" he exclaimed, and turned and took a pencil from the table.

In a bold hand he wrote, across the blank white spaces of the map,
these characters in Arabic:

[Illustration]

"_Nac'hna arivna_!" he exclaimed. "'_We know!_'"

A long silence followed. Both, with deep memories, were peering at
those words, as the light slowly faded in the west over the Palisades.
The man was first to speak.

"This secret is ours," said he. "I have another, that even you don't
know!"

"You have kept something from--_me_?"

"Only until I have quite dared tell you."

"Dared?"

"It isn't the mere, simple thing itself. It's the symbolism back of
it. Maybe even now I'm premature in telling you. But, somehow--"

He hesitated. This man of action, hard, determined, strong, seemed
afraid.

"Somehow," he added, "you and I-have come so near to each other-and
tonight, here in this room where it all started, we have seemed to
understand each other so well, through the revocation of the past,
that--yes, I'll show you--"

He thrust a hand into his breast-pocket and brought out a small
leather sack. Startled, she looked at it as he drew open the cord. He
took from the sack