He guessed that the white men were quarreling
and perhaps would come to blows. It was at this moment that a
knock came to the door, and a minute later Archie entered.
Braddock glanced at him, and took a sudden resolution as he
stepped forward.
"Hope, you are just in time," he declared. "Don Pedro states
that the mummy belongs to him, and I assert that I have bought
it. We shall make you umpire. He wants it: I want it. What is
to be done?"
"The mummy is my own flesh and blood, Mr. Hope," said Don Pedro.
"Precious little of either about it," said Braddock
contemptuously.
Archie twisted a chair round and straddled his long legs across
it, with his arms resting on its back. His quick brain had
rapidly comprehended the situation, and, being acquainted with
both sides of the question, it was not difficult to come to a
decision. If it was hard that Don Pedro should lose his
ancestor's mummy, it was equally hard that Braddock--or rather
himself--should lose the purchase money, seeing that it had been
paid in good faith to the seller in Malta for a presumably
righteously acquired object. On these premises the young Solon
proceeded to deliver judgment.
"I understand," said he judiciously, "that Don Pedro had the
mummy stolen from him thirty years ago, and that you, Professor,
bought it under the impression that the Maltese owner had a right
to possess it.
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