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"Where's Holloway?" he inquired.

"He took his camera early this afternoon and said he was going to get some views of what we've uncovered of the North Temple," Deane replied. "Seems to me we ought to find more tablets in there somewhere—well-preserved ones. This place is modern compared with some of the sites of other cities we've come across."

He eyed the excavations with interest, eager to probe the depths of their ancient mystery. Also he wished that Holloway would return. Holloway was young and ardently imaginative, and one could talk to him about the spell of fascination which this mighty grave held for one, the thoughts of greatness risen and passed away and lost which it conjured up. One could not easily talk to Merritt thus, be cause Merritt was an old hand at the business, eminently practical and hard as rocks, and matter-of-fact to his finger-ends, apt to confuse sentiment with sentimentality and consequently despise it.

The sun sank below the horizon and swiftly the world grew dark. From the men's camp came a mournful chant, subdued, and heard as from far away, and the measured thump of a drum. At intervals a donkey raised his voice, after the manner of a saw-shrieking its way through wood. With the darkness came the stars, leaping into the black arch of heaven, great and of a number beyond all counting; the night-wind turned the heat of the day to sudden coolness, sweeping softly among the ruins. The mounds of earth, softened in outline by the darkness, loomed vast and shadowlike, melting into the sombre mystery of the night. Mingled with the chant of the natives and the occasional hee-haw of the donkeys was the fretful bleating of goats, destined for the masters' food. Around the jutting earthwork a faint gleam of light shone from the overseer's fire. Over all the night brooded, swallowing sound and motion in its immensity.

"Those brutes would work like cattle all day and sing like bullfrogs all night," Merritt said suddenly. He heaved himself on an elbow and shouted for Ibraheem. Soon this one came stalking from his fire, a blot against the night.