that Sergeant Samuel Quick was to receive five
per cent. of the total profits, if any, provided that he behaved himself
and obeyed orders. Then he also signed the agreement, and was furnished
with a glass of whisky and water to drink to its good health.

"Now, gentlemen," he said, declining the chair which Higgs offered
to him, apparently because, from long custom, he preferred his
wooden-soldier attitude against the wall, "as a humble five-per-cent.
private in this very adventurous company I'll ask permission to say a
word."

Permission was given accordingly, and the Sergeant proceeded to inquire
what weight of rock it was wished to remove.

I told him that I did not know, as I had never seen the Fung idol, but
I understood that its size was enormous, probably as large as St. Paul's
Cathedral.

"Which, if solid, would take some stirring," remarked the Sergeant.
"Dynamite might do it, but it is too bulky to be carried across the
desert on camels in that quantity. Captain, how about them picrates? You
remember those new Boer shells that blew a lot of us to kingdom come,
and poisoned the rest?"

"Yes," answered Orme; "I remember; but now they have stronger
stuffs--azo-imides, I think they call them--terrific new compounds of
nitrogen. We will inquire to-morrow, Sergeant."

"Yes, Captain," he answered; "but the point is, who'll pay? You can't
buy hell-fire in bulk for nothing. I calculate that, allowing for
the purchase of the explosives and, say, fifty military rifles with
ammunition and all other necessaries, not including camels, the outfit
of this expedition can't come to less than L1,500."

"I think I have that amount in gold," I answered, "of which the lady of
the Abati gave me as much as I could carry in comfort."

"If not," said Orme, "although I am a poor man now, I could find L500
or so in a pinch. So don't let us bother about the money. The question
is--Are we all agreed that we will undertake this expedition and see it
through to the end, whatever that may be?"

We answered that we were.

"Then has anybody anything more to say?"

"Yes," I replied; "I forgot to tell you that if we should ever get to
Mur, none of you must make love to the Walda Nagasta. She is a kind of
holy person, who can only marry into her own family, and to do so might
mean that our throats would be cut."

"Do you hear that, Oliver?" said the Professor. "I suppose that the
Doctor's warning is meant for you, as the rest of us a