For a moment, as the three parties stood together in the ancient temple, in the glare of many torches, no one spoke. Then Professor Bumper found his voice.
“We are glad to see you,” he said to his rival. “That is glad to see you alive, for we saw the landslide bury you. And we were coming to dig you out. We thought this cave — the cave of the buried city — would lead us to you easier than by digging through the slide. We have just discovered this idol,” and he put his hand on the grim golden image.
“Oh, you have discovered it, have you?” asked Professor Beecher, and his voice was bitter.
“Yes, not ten minutes ago. The natives have
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kindly acknowledged my right to it under the law of priority. I am sorry but — — ”
With a look of disgust and chagrined disappointment on his face, Professor Beecher turned to the other scientists and said:
“Let us go. We are too late. He has what I came after.”
“Well, it is the fortune of war — and discovery,” put in Mr. Hardy, one of the party who seemed the least ill-natured. “Your luck might have been ours, Professor Bumper. I congratulate you.”
“Thank you! Are you sure your party is all right — not in need of assistance? How did you get out of the place you were buried?”
“Thank you! We do not require any help. It was good of you to think of us. But we got out the way we came in. We did not enter the tunnel as you did, but came in through another entrance which was not closed by the landslide. Then we made a turn through a gateway in a tunnel connecting with ours — a gateway which seems to have been opened by the earthquake — and we came here, just now.