go where they would, the travellers were followed by
the little crowd which gaped and stared, and of which some member or
another kept drawing Yussuf aside, and offering him a handsome present
if he would confess the secret that he must have learned--how the
Frankish infidels knew where treasure lay hid.

They seemed disappointed that the professor contented himself by merely
making drawings and copying fragments of inscriptions; but at last they
all uttered a grunt of satisfaction, rubbed their hands, gathered
closely round, and seated themselves upon the earth or upon stones.

For the professor had stopped short at the end of what, as far as could
be traced, seemed to be one end of a small temple whose columns and
walls lay scattered as they had fallen.

Here he deliberately took a small bright trowel from a sheath in his
belt, where he carried it as if it had been a dagger, and, stooping
down, began to dig.

That was what they were waiting for. He had come at last upon the
treasure spot, and though the trowel seemed to be a ridiculously small
tool to work with, they felt perfectly satisfied that it was one of the
wonderful engines invented by the giaours, and that it would soon clear
away the stones and soil with which the treasure was covered.

"What are you doing?" said the old lawyer, as Lawrence helped the
professor by dragging out pieces of stone. "Going to find anything
there?"

"I cannot say," replied the professor, who was digging away
energetically, and dislodging ants, a centipede or two, and a great many
other insects. "This is evidently where the altar must have stood, and
most likely we shall find here either a bronze figure of the deity in
whose honour the temple was erected, or its fragments in marble."

"Humph! I see," cried the old lawyer, growing interested; "but I beg to
remark that the evening is drawing near, and I don't think it will be
prudent to make a journey here in the dark."

"No," said the professor; "it would be a pity. Mind, Lawrence, my lad;
what have you there?"

"Piece of stone," said the lad, dragging out a rounded fragment.

"Piece of stone! Yes, boy, but it is a portion of a broken statue--the
folds of a robe."

"Humph!" muttered the old lawyer. "Might be anything. Not going to
carry it away I suppose?"

"That depends," said the professor labouring away.

"Humph!" ejaculated Mr Burne.

"How is it that such a grand city as this should have been so completel