merriment.


[Illustration]


CHAPTER X

A MIDNIGHT ALARM

I think that Professor Herndon was the only person in the company who
was quite contented with the day's doings on that evening when we camped
near the table of stone. The polished slide and the ledge along which we
had passed to the cavern stirred his imagination concerning the wonders
that were before him, and he convinced himself that he had the god of
his ambition by the heel. The fat notebook was made the repository of
countless surmises regarding the period at which the ledge was in active
use as a test for courage, and the stone structure that loomed up
immediately beside the camp was tagged with countless suppositions
regarding its uses and its probable date of construction. Soma gathered
in some easily earned shillings by raking his mind in search of
traditions and retailing them to the scientist by the light of the fire.
He made magazine prices for tales that he spun from his fertile brain,
and the Professor could hardly write fast enough in the excitement
brought about by the discovery of so much historical knowledge.

"It is wonderful!" he cried, pausing for a moment to polish the thick
lenses of his glasses upon the end of his silk coat. "The chance of
enlightening the world upon this subject is one that I would not have
missed for a million dollars."