All of this treasure was collected finally, after indemnifying the government, and carefully exported to England, where it rests today in the care of the Society of Geographical Research.20

They never forgot that sunset over the ancient capital of Ethiopia at the close of the first day spent on the city’s site, in the Desert. The awe-inspiring Pyramids throwing shadows that reminded one of the geometrical problems of his student days; the backsheesh-loving Arabs, in the most picturesque habiliments and attitudes; the patient camels, the tawny sands, and the burnished coppery sunlight! They had brought tents with them, leaving the most of the outfit on the opposite bank under the care of Jim Titus, whom Reuel had desired the professor to detail for that duty. Somehow since his adventure in the ruins with the leopard, and the mysterious letter-reading, he had felt a deep-seated mistrust of the docile servant. He concluded not to keep him any nearer his person than circumstances demanded. In this resolve Charlie Vance concurred; the two friends resolved to keep an eye on Titus, and Ababdis was sent for the mail.

Reuel Briggs had changed much. Harassed by anxieties which arose from his wife’s silence, at the end of two months he was fast becoming a misanthrope. Charlie felt anxious as he looked at him walking restlessly up and down in the pale moonlight, with fiery eyes fixed on space. Charlie suppressed his own feelings over the silence of his father and sister to comfort Reuel.

“You ought not, my dear Briggs,” he would say. “Come, for heaven’s sake shake off that sadness which may make an end of you before you are aware.” Then he would add, jestingly, “Decidedly, you regret the leopard’s claws!”

On this night the excitement of new scenes had distracted the thoughts of both men from their homes, and they lay smoking in their hammocks before the parted curtains of the tent lazily watching Ababdis advancing with a bundle in his hand. It was the long expected mail!

18 Constantin-François Volney’s The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires and the Law of Nature (commonly known as Ruin of Empires) (1791) is one of the books read by the Creature in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818).

19 This scene is copied from an 1884 article by N. Robinson on “The Colossal Statues of Egypt and Asia.”

20 A fictional body—likely, the Royal Geographical Society.

CHAPTER XIV