The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a little child broke over his face like sunshine in the morning.

“Half the good my books do would be instantly destroyed,” he said sadly; “they would say that I wrote with my tongue in my cheek.  But wait,” he added significantly; “wait till I find these Tablets of the Gods!  Wait till I hold the solutions of the old world-problems in my hands!  Wait till the light of this new revelation breaks upon confused humanity, and it wakes to find its bravest hopes justified!  Ah, then, my dear Laidlaw—­”

He broke off suddenly; but the doctor, cleverly guessing the thought in his mind, caught him up immediately.

“Perhaps this very summer,” he said, trying hard to make the suggestion keep pace with honesty; “in your explorations in Assyria—­your digging in the remote civilization of what was once Chaldea, you may find—­what you dream of—­”

The professor held up his hand, and the smile of a fine old face.

“Perhaps,” he murmured softly, “perhaps!”

And the young doctor, thanking the gods of science that his leader’s aberrations were of so harmless a character, went home strong in the certitude of his knowledge of externals, proud that he was able to refer his visions to self-suggestion, and wondering complaisantly whether in his old age he might not after all suffer himself from visitations of the very kind that afflicted his respected chief.

And as he got into bed and thought again of his master’s rugged face, and finely shaped head, and the deep lines traced by years of work and self-discipline, he turned over on his pillow and fell asleep with a sigh that was half of wonder, half of regret.

2

It was in February, nine months later, when Dr. Laidlaw made his way to Charing Cross to meet his chief after his long absence of travel and exploration.  The vision about the so-called Tablets of the Gods had meanwhile passed almost entirely from his memory.

There were few people in the train, for the stream of traffic was now running the other way, and he had no difficulty in finding the man he had come to meet.  The shock of white hair beneath the low-crowned felt hat was alone enough to distinguish him by easily.

“Here I am at last!” exclaimed the professor, somewhat wearily, clasping his friend’s hand as he listened to the young doctor’s warm greetings and questions.  “Here I am—­a little older, and much dirtier than when you last saw me!” He glanced down laughingly at his travel-stained garments.

“And much wiser,” said Laidlaw, with a smile, as he bustled about the platform for porters and gave his chief the latest scientific news.

At last they came down to practical considerations.

“And your luggage—­where is that?  You must have tons of it, I suppose?” said Laidlaw.

“Hardly anything,” Professor Ebor answered.  “Nothing, in fact, but what you see.”