n the old temple and the Tomb of Kings carrying a large
basket on his arm. Going out with this basket empty, he would bring
it back filled with gold cups and other precious objects that he had
collected from among the bones and scattered rubbish in the Tomb. These
objects he laboriously catalogued in his pocket-book at night, and
afterwards packed away in empty cases that had contained our supplies of
explosive and other goods, carefully nailing them down when filled.

"What on earth are you doing that for, Higgs?" I asked petulantly, as he
finished off another case, I think it was his twentieth.

"I don't know, Doctor," he answered in a thin voice, for like the rest
of us he was growing feeble on a water-diet. "I suppose it amuses me
to think how jolly it would be to open all these boxes in my rooms in
London after a first-rate dinner of fried sole and steak cut thick," and
he smacked his poor, hungry lips. "Yes, yes," he went on, "to take them
out one by one and show them to ---- and ----," and he mentioned by name
officials of sundry great museums with whom he was at war, "and see them
tear their hair with rage and jealousy, while they wondered in their
hearts if they could not manage to seize the lot for the Crown as
treasure-trove, or do me out of them somehow," and he laughed a little
in his old, pleasant fashion.

"Of course I never shall," he added sadly, "but perhaps one day some
other fellow will find them here and get them to Europe, and if he is
a decent chap, publish my notes and descriptions, of which I have put
a duplicate in each box, and so make my name immortal. Well, I'm off
again. There are four more cases to fill before the oil gives out, and
I must get that great gold head into one of them, though it is an awful
job to carry it far at a time. Doctor, what disease is it that makes
your legs suddenly give way beneath you, so that you find yourself
sitting in a heap on the floor without knowing how you came there? You
don't know? Well, no more do I, but I've got it bad. I tell you I'm
downright sore behind from continual and unexpected contact with the
rock."

Poor old Higgs! I did not like to tell him that his disease was
starvation.

Well, he went on with his fetching and carrying and cataloguing and
packing. I remember that the last load he brought in was the golden head
he had spoken of, the wonderful likeness of some prehistoric king which
has since excited so much interest throughout the wo