the mountains, as go on somewhere else. My
word, though, what a shame it seems that these pigs of people should
have such a glorious country to live in, while we have nothing better
than poor old England, with its fogs and cold east winds."

"But this peace is not perfect," said the professor. "And now, look
here; we had better go back to our last night's lodgings. We can get a
good meal there and rest."

"The very thing I was going to propose," said Mr Burne quickly.
"Depend upon it that man will give us a pilaf for supper."

"And without Yussuf's stick," said the professor smiling. "But come
along. Let's look at the horses."

The horses were in good plight, for Yussuf and Hamed had watered them,
and they had made a good meal off the grass and shoots which grew
amongst the ruins.

They were now busily finishing a few handfuls of barley which had been
poured for them in an old ruined trough, close to some half dozen broken
pillars and a piece of stone wall that had been beautifully built; and,
as soon as the patient beasts had finished, they were bridled and led
out to where the professor and his friends were standing looking
wonderingly round at the peculiar glare over the landscape.

"Just look at those people," cried Lawrence suddenly; and the scene
below them caught their eye. For, no sooner had the professor and his
companions left the coast clear than these people made a rush for the
hole, which they seemed to have looked upon as a veritable gold mine,
and in and about this they were digging and tearing out the earth,
quarrelling, pushing and lighting one with the other for the best
places.

"How absurd!" exclaimed the professor. "I did not think of that. I
ought to have paid them, and made them with their tools do all the work,
while I looked on and examined all they turned up."

"It would have been useless, effendi," said Yussuf. "Unless you had
brought an order to the pasha of the district, and these people had been
forced to work, they would not have stirred. Ah!"

Yussuf uttered a peculiar cry, and the men who were digging below them
gave vent to a shrill howl, and leaped out of the pit they were digging
to run shrieking back towards the village on the other slope.

For all at once it seemed to Lawrence that he was back on shipboard,
with the vessel rising beneath his feet and the first symptoms of
sea-sickness coming on.

Then close at hand, where the horses had so short a time before