Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/156

138 Well, they struck a shaft obviously of many feet deep, which might either have belonged to a disused and buried well, or, as I dare say the 'cutest of the party suspected, might lead to a rock-hewn tomb. Ahmed volunteered to descend and explore it. He was lowered by a rope, and at the bottom found himself facing a passage, which he entered and followed—not, I dare say, as far as it has since been found to lead, but far enough to make Ahmed Abd-er-Rasûl's heart beat and perhaps his mouth water. There was enough to show him that he had struck a vast mortuary full of the costly death-gifts of the great. It is immensely to his credit as a man of coolness and resource that he was not so overcome by his extraordinary discovery as to be unable to conceal it from his companions. Calm and alert of judgment even in the presence of all this buried wealth, he instantly conceived a dodge for doing his brother and his 'pal' out of their share. He hurried back to the bottom of the shaft and