“WELL OF GOLD”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 8 December 1937, Page 7

“WELL OF GOLD”

They loitered round the well, picking up pieces -of stone and putting them in the sack; and then at last they both walked back to the tent. There, in its stifling shelter, they examined their find; something acid in the water which had crept into the hole in which they had lain for so long, had corroded the surface of the cups, but Julian scraped the blackened metal with the blade of his knife, and showed Lynne the dull gleam of the gold. They set the cup in a row and looked at them. Lynne was conscious of her grimed face and stained hands, of her dishevelled hair full of the white dust of the desert; it was only when she noticed the jubilation in her step-brother’s face, the wild triumph, and the gleam of greed in his eyes, that she realised that she too, no doubt, had much the same expression as she sat and gazed in wonder at their find. The fancied sound of a step outside brought Julian to his senses with. a start; and in a moment, with sweeping hands, he was gathering up the cups and tumbling them into the sack again. He crouched there, clutching it, watching the flap of the tent, with such a desperate look that Lynne laughed. "We are a pair of conspirators!” she said. "There’s no one there —and if there were, it wouldn’t matter! Guthrie can’t take the cups from us now—we’ve found them, and they’re ours!” "No, no—of course not!” s'aid'Julian, echoing her laugh in an old mirthless way. He pulled the sack over to the campbed, pushed it underneath, dropping the blanket so as to hide it, and sat down on the bed. "Phew! What a day!” he said, mopping his brow. "And we haven’t by any means finished. What we have to do is to get the things packed up without the Hyats seeing them; and then we ’ll get a camel convoy from Memshi, and, take them down to Kathan. I’ll get them delivered, as geological specimens, to some agents I know there—the Parker Jarvis Company—and then sent on by air to Enzili. Once we get them there, there ’ll be no more trouble of getting them to England.” "But why to Enzili?” asked Lynne. "Couldn’t we take them to Tehran—and take them back with us to Londoii ourselves?”

Julian paused with a far-away look in In's eyes, as though' he had hardly heard what she said, before he replied: "Take them to England with us—you say? No, my dear Lynne, that would never do. Once we go down to Tehran taking this load with us, Guthrie will be sure that we’ve found something. He’ll be hard on our heels, he’ll probably get to London by air days before we do, and let the Press have his own version of the finding of the cups before we even arrive. I’m not going to give him a chance to have anything to say about the business at all! It’s going to be my find, and I shall spring it on the world. I’m going to get the cups to London before he even knows that this is really Praemnon and not Diala!”

Lynne had nothing to say against this. She had no doubt that he was right. She remained in the tent, lying on the camp-bed, tense with her consciousness fof 1 the contents of the sack underneath. What a glamour and romance there was about those aged treasures, brought out. all dripping and black as the darkness itself, into the light of day! Empires had arise and fallen, nations come into being and vanished, and history had told such a long, long story, since- the stones had been lowered over the hiding place of the cups, to shut them away from the sun.

She did not care, as Julian seemed to care, about getting them away to London. That the cups were found was .enough. She did not want to go on quarrelling with Guthrie over the matter; whatever else she might think of him, she did believe that he would truly appreciate the finding of this treasure for itself.

However, when later on, Julian began making arrangements to smuggle them away, she was infected by his desire to conceal their discovery until it could be sprung upon the world as theirs. —and theirs alone. There was an excitement about the secrecy of bis preparations. He sent five of the men down to Shasti to the camels; while the remaining two he despatched to Memshi with a request to the headman of the village to prepare to send a caravan to Kashan at daybreak next morning. The Ilyats left, and as soon as they were out of sight, he and Lynne .set to work. They brought a box of wet clay into the tent, and sitting in its shelter, took the precious cups out of the sack. With the wet clay they coated each cup until it was hidden in a solid cylinder of clay. These they set to dry in a row in the scorching afternoon sun outside the tent; and while Julian kept a careful watch over them, Lynne went collecting the dry, straw-like brush of the dead hoa-scrub.

By the time nightfall came, and with it the Ilyats back from the wells at Shasti, the cups in their clay cylinders were neatly packed between layers of dry brush into four ammunition boxes; "trailing th'e lids'flown oh ’the boxes was not yet done, and Julian purposely summoned Zoani to do this. A few chips and pieces from the blocks of the excavated well deposited in the boxes with the lumps of clay, were calculated to convince the Ilyats that here was nothing but those stones for which archaeologists had their ludicrous enthusiasm. I i . ;

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

BY BENTLEY RIDGE.

They might then be better trusted, Julian thought, not to spread tales to the contrary in the locality.

After this was done they remained in camp for the night at Praemnon; and soon after sunrise the camel convoy came up from Memshi. They were three days’ journey from Kashan. The ammunition boxes, which were exceedingly heavy, were placed one on each saddle of the pack camels. Meanwhile, Julian gave minute instructions to Zoani and the other Ilyats about clearing and sorting the debris of the .excavated well; he strictly forbade any further removal of the remaining three sides of the well; and leaving the men at work to act as blind should anyone from Guthrie’s camp come to investigate, he and Lynne set oft’ with the camel drivers from Memshi. CHAPTER XVin. In the clear morning they rode out across the wide, bright wastes of the undulating country; they made a slight detour so as not to pass within sight of Kel-el-abir, where Guthrie was encamped; and the slow progress .of the camels, winding along the valleys and over the slopes took them out of familiar country. On one occasion, when they came to the summit of a ridge and saw below them a great plain of salt, Lynne cried,out in astonishment at its blaing whiteness. They crossed it; the camels licked the crystalline brilliance as they passed. All the time as they rode slowly ..on under the clear, blue sky, Lynne saw ahead of her, ai«i» ahead of Julian, who rode in front of her, the swaying loads on the backs of the four pack camels, bearing the treasure which even now it seemed like a dream to have found. Sometimes as she rode, she thought about Philip Guthrie. Now they had beaten him, she felt much better towards him; but she felt that it was very unlikely that he would find it in his heart to forgive herself and Julian for having won! The day wore on, and soon it was afternoon; the slow but ruthless motion of the camel began to be a torture to Lynne; and she began to long for nightfall, when they were due to arrive at the wells which were the first of the regular stopping places of the caravans to Kashan.

Meanwhile, behind them at Praemnon where Zoani and his men were still working at- the well, Julian’s convoy had not been gone an hour, before Haffi rode into the camp. He looked at what they were doing to the well. Zoani, who regarded his master’s enemies as, temporarily, at any rate, his own, warned him away; Haffi retreated, with contemptuous words. The Ilyat whom he particularly wanted to see, followed him, and under the curious eye of Zoani, they had a short conversation. The Ilyat told Haffi the route the camel drivers' from Memshi were going to take to the border, and in answer to Haffi’s questions was able to give a detailed description of the four ammunition boxes that the Englishman and his sister had taken with them. "They had much stone in them,” said the Ilyat. "And they were very heavy. Two men were needed to lift each one.”

"Did you see inside them?” asked Haffi.

"I did, for I brought Zoani the nails to nail the lids. They had stones, and lumps of clay, and many dried bunches of the hoa, ” replied the man. "You have done very 17611,” said Haffi. "I will not pay you here, for the pig over there is watching. But I will see you to-morrow at the well in Shasti!” He turned his camel rounit t and moved away as Zoani approached. "What does he want?” asked Zoani of the Ilyat. "Of what are you talking?” "I sold him a saddle, oh master,’’ replied the Ilyat. "And we were talking of that.” < Haffi, mean-while, turned his camel’s head towards Kel-el-abir, and an hour’s trotting brought him into Guthrie’s camp. Guthrie and Cartwright talked to him in the mess-tent. "Well?” said Guthrie impatiently.

"Yes,” said Haffi. "They have gone—they are 'on their way down to Kashan with camels from Memshi, and the men are still working at the well at Diala.” He told them about the four ammunition boxes, and the Ilyat’s description of them. "Stones and lumps of clay!” said Cartwright to Guthrie. "They may be just ordinary specimens after all!” " Is it likely that Ormond would send ordinary specimens to Kashan?” said Guthrie. "We know that Ormond is not an archaeologist, and has no interest in archaeology! No, Cartwright, there’s more in it —more in the boxes, in fact —than that!” He asked Haffi exact details of the caravan route to Kashan; Haffi told him, and '.explained: "To-niglit they will stop at the wells at Magas. ’ ’ "Is there a village there?” < ( jSTo—ho people. It is just a valley with water in it.”

Guthrie went outside the tent, and Cartwright followed him. Guthrie was frowning, but after a moment’s thought he turned to his companion with an air of resolution. “Well—Jim, my lad —we’re going to see inside those boxes! Ammunition boxes! He would use Shaley’s way of packing his specimens! Thank goodness we have some! Get four out of the store tent, and tell the men to take the tarpaulins off the tractor and fill her up ready to start. And wait! Get a box of Verey lights from the store tent! ” (To be Continued).