"Will you sell it to Don Pedro?" asked Hope.
"After I have done with it, not before," snapped Braddock,
hovering round his treasure. "I shall want a percentage on my
bargain also."
Archie thought privately that if Braddock unswathed the mummy, he
would find the emeralds and would probably stick to them, so that
his expedition to Egypt might be financed. It that case Don
Pedro would no longer wish to buy the corpse of his ancestor.
But while he debated as to the advisability of telling the
Professor of the existence of the emeralds, Cockatoo returned
with the hand-cart.
"You have lost Mrs. Jasher," said Hope, while he, assisted the
Professor to hoist the mummy on to the cart.
"Never mind! never mind!" Braddock patted the coffin. "I have
found something much more to my mind: something ever so much
better. Ha! ha!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
In spite of newspapers and letters and tape-machines and
telegrams and such like aids to the speedy diffusion of news, the
same travels quicker in villages than in cities. Word of mouth
can spread gossip with marvelous rapidity in sparsely inhabited
communities, since it is obvious that in such places every person
knows the other--as the saying goes--inside out.
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