"Do you intend to accuse me?" questioned the young man with a
slight laugh. "I assure you, Professor, that I was ignorant of
what had been buried with the corpse, until Don Pedro related his
story the other night to myself and Random, and the ladies."
Braddock turned impatiently to De Gayangos, as he did not approve
of Archie's apparent flippancy.
"Does any one else know of the contents of this manuscript?" he
demanded irritably.
Don Pedro nursed his chin and looked musingly on the ground.
"It is just possible that Vasa may."
"Vasa? Vasa? Oh yes, the sailor who stole the mummy thirty
years ago from your father in Lima. Pooh! pooh! pooh! You tell
me that this manuscript is written in Latin, and evidently in
monkish Latin at that, which is of the worst. Your sailor could
not read it, and would not know the value of the manuscript. If
he had, he would have carried it off."
"Senor," said the Peruvian politely, "I have an idea that my
father made a translation of this manuscript, or at all events a
copy."
"But I understood," put in Hope, still astride of his chair,
"that you did not find the original manuscript until your father
died."
"That is quite true, sir," assented the other readily, "but I
did not tell you everything the other night.
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