The Romance of Golden Star | Page 5

be quite candid with you, I don't care two pins what
you think on that subject. I have been called mad too many times for
that. Now, suppose, just for argument's sake, that I were
Mephistopheles, and staked my diabolic reputation on the statement
that in that thing you possess a possible key to those lost treasures of
the Incas, which ten generations of men have hunted for in vain, what
kind of a bargain would you be inclined to make with me on the
strength of it? Half the rest of your life, I think you said, and as that
wouldn't be very much good to me, suppose we say the half of any
treasures we may discover by the help of our silent friend there?
Eh?--will that suit you?'
'Are you really serious, Djama, or are you only dreaming another of
these wild scientific dreams of yours?' exclaimed the professor, taking
a couple of quick strides towards him. 'What connection can there
possibly be between a mummy, about four centuries years old, and the
lost treasures of the Incas?'
'This man was an Inca, wasn't he?' said the doctor, abruptly, 'and one of
the highest rank, too, from what you have said. He lived just about the
time of the Conquest, didn't he--the time when the priests stripped their
temples, and the nobles emptied their palaces of their treasures to save
them from the Spaniards? Is it not likely that he would know where, at
anyrate, a great part of them was buried? Nay, may he not even have
known the localities of the lost mines that the Incas got their
hundredweights of gold from, and of the emerald mines which no one
has ever been able to find? Why, Lamson, if these dead lips could
speak, I believe they could make you and me millionaires in an hour.
And why shouldn't they speak?'
'Don't talk like that, Djama, for Heaven's sake! It is too serious a thing
to joke about,' said the professor, with a half-frightened glance in his
set and shining eyes. 'I should have thought you, of all men, knew

enough of the facts of life and death not to talk such nonsense as that.'
'Nonsense!' said the physiologist, interrupting him almost angrily; 'may
I not know enough of the facts of life and death, as you call them, to
know that that is not nonsense? But there, it's no use arguing about
things like this. Will you allow this mummy of yours to be made the
subject of--well, we will say, an experiment in physiology?'
'What! the finest and most unique huaca that was ever brought to
Europe--'
'It would only be made finer still by the experiment, even if it failed. I
know what you are going to say, and I will give you my word of
honour, and, if you like, I'll pledge you my professional reputation, that
not a hair of its head shall be injured. Let me take it to my laboratory,
and I promise you solemnly that in a week you shall have it back, not
as it is now, but either the body of your Inca, as perfect as it was the
day he died, or--'
He stopped, and looked hard at his friend, as if wondering what the
effects of his next words would be upon him.
'Or what?' asked the professor, almost in a whisper.
'Your Inca prince, roused from his three-hundred-year sleep, and able
to answer your questions and guide us to his lost mines and treasure
houses.'
'Are you in earnest, Djama?' the professor whispered, catching him by
the arm and looking round at the mummy as though he half thought
that the silent witness in the packing-case might be listening to the
words which, if it could have heard, would have had such a terrible
significance for it. 'Do you really mean to say in sober earnest that there
is the remotest chance of your science being able to work such a
miracle as that?'
'A chance, yes,' replied Djama, steadily. 'It is not a certainty, of course,
but I believe it to be possible. Will you let me try?'

'Yes, you shall try,' answered the professor in a voice nothing like as
steady as his. 'If any other man but you had even hinted at such a thing,
I would have seen him--well, in a lunatic asylum first. But there, I will
trust my Inca to you. It seems a fearful thing even to attempt, and yet,
after all, if it fails there will be no harm done, and if it succeeds--ah,
yes, if it succeeds--it will mean--'
'Endless fame for you, my friend, as the recreator of a lost society, and
for both of us wealth, perhaps beyond counting. But stop a
moment--granted