CHAPTER III

THE PROFESSOR GOES OUT SHOOTING

Of all our tremendous journey across the desert until we had passed the
forest and reached the plains which surrounded the mountains of Mur,
there are, I think, but few incidents with which the reader need be
troubled. The first of these was at Assouan, where a letter and various
telegrams overtook Captain Orme, which, as by this time we had become
intimate, he showed to me. They informed him that the clandestine infant
whom his uncle left behind him had suddenly sickened and died of some
childish ailment, so that he was once again heir to the large property
which he thought he had lost, since the widow only took a life interest
in some of the personalty. I congratulated him and said I supposed this
meant that we should not have the pleasure of his company to Mur.

"Why not?" he asked. "I said I was going and I mean to go; indeed, I
signed a document to that effect."

"I daresay," I answered, "but circumstances alter cases. If I might say
so, an adventure that perhaps was good enough for a young and well-born
man of spirit and enterprise without any particular resources, is no
longer good enough for one who has the ball at his feet. Think what a
ball it is to a man of your birth, intelligence, record, and now,
great fortune come to you in youth. Why, with these advantages there
is absolutely nothing that you cannot do in England. You can go into
Parliament and rule the country; if you like you can become a peer.
You can marry any one who isn't of the blood royal; in short, with
uncommonly little effort of your own, your career is made for you. Don't
throw away a silver spoon like that in order, perhaps, to die of thirst