The Green Mummy - Page 130/191

"You!" Don Pedro swung round in great astonishment, but the Professor

faced him with all the consciousness of innocence.

"Yes," he remarked quietly, "as I told you, I was in Peru thirty years

ago. I was then hunting for specimens of Inca mummies. Vasa--this man

now called Hervey--told me that he could obtain a splendid specimen of

a mummy, and I arranged to give him one hundred pounds to procure what

I wanted. But I swear to you, De Gayangos," continued the little man

earnestly, "that I did not know he proposed to steal the mummy from

you."

"You knew it was the green mummy?" asked Don Pedro sharply.

"No, I only knew that it was a mummy."

"Did Vasa get it for you?"

"I guess not," said the gentleman who confessed to that name. "The

Professor went to Cuzco and got into trouble--"

"I was carried off to the mountains by some Indians," interpolated the

Professor, "and only escaped after a year's captivity. I did not mind

that, as it gave me the opportunity of studying a decaying civilization.

But when I returned a free man to Lima, I found that Vasa had left the

country with the mummy."

"That's so," assented Hervey, waving his hand. "I got a berth as second

mate on a wind-jammer sailing to Europe, and as the country wasn't

healthy for me since I'd looted the green mummy, I took it abroad and

yanked it to Paris, where I sold it for a couple of hundred pounds. With

that, I changed my name and had a high old time. I never heard of the

blamed thing again until the Professor here turned up with Mr. Bolton

at Pierside, asking me to bring it in The Diver from Malta. It was what

you'd call a coincidence, I reckon," added Hervey lazily; "but I did cry

small when I heard the Professor here had paid nine hundred for a thing

I'd let slip for two hundred. Had I known of those infernal emeralds,

I'd have ripped open the case on board and would have recouped myself.

But I knew nothing, and Bolton never told me."

"How could he," asked Braddock quietly, "when he did not know that any

jewels were buried with the dead? I did not know either. And I have

explained why I wanted the mummy. But it never struck me until I hear

what you say now, that this mummy," he nodded towards the green case,

"was the one which you had stolen at Lima from De Gayangos. But you

must do me the justice, Captain Hervey, to tell Don Pedro that I never

countenanced the theft."

"No! you were square enough, I guess. The sin is on my own blessed

shoulders, and I don't ask it to be shifted."