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Page 88
As to Dr. Aloysius Lana, he returned to the village from which
he had made so dramatic a disappearance, and a complete
reconciliation was effected between him and the young squire, the
latter having acknowledged that he had entirely misunderstood the
other's motives in withdrawing from his engagement. That another
reconciliation followed may be judged from a notice extracted from
a prominent column in the Morning Post:
"A marriage was solemnized upon September 19th, by the Rev.
Stephen Johnson, at the parish church of Bishop's Crossing, between
Aloysius Xavier Lana, son of Don Alfredo Lana, formerly Foreign
Minister of the Argentine Republic, and Frances Morton, only
daughter of the late James Morton, J.P., of Leigh Hall, Bishop's
Crossing, Lancashire."
The Jew's Breastplate
My particular friend, Ward Mortimer, was one of the best men of
his day at everything connected with Oriental archaeology. He
had written largely upon the subject, he had lived two years in a
tomb at Thebes, while he excavated in the Valley of the Kings,
and finally he had created a considerable sensation by his
exhumation of the alleged mummy of Cleopatra in the inner room of
the Temple of Horus, at Philae. With such a record at the age of
thirty-one, it was felt that a considerable career lay before
him, and no one was surprised when he was elected to the
curatorship of the Belmore Street Museum, which carries with it
the lectureship at the Oriental College, and an income which has
sunk with the fall in land, but which still remains at that ideal
sum which is large enough to encourage an investigator, but not
so large as to enervate him.
There was only one reason which made Ward Mortimer's position
a little difficult at the Belmore Street Museum, and that was the
extreme eminence of the man whom he had to succeed. Professor
Andreas was a profound scholar and a man of European reputation.
His lectures were frequented by students from every part of the
world, and his admirable management of the collection intrusted to
his care was a commonplace in all learned societies. There was,
therefore, considerable surprise when, at the age of fifty-five, he
suddenly resigned his position and retired from those duties which
had been both his livelihood and his pleasure. He and his daughter
left the comfortable suite of rooms which had formed his official
residence in connection with the museum, and my friend, Mortimer,
who was a bachelor, took up his quarters there.
On hearing of Mortimer's appointment Professor Andreas had
written him a very kindly and flattering congratulatory letter. I
was actually present at their first meeting, and I went with
Mortimer round the museum when the Professor showed us the
admirable collection which he had cherished so long. The
Professor's beautiful daughter and a young man, Captain Wilson, who
was, as I understood, soon to be her husband, accompanied us in our
inspection. There were fifteen rooms, but the Babylonian, the
Syrian, and the central hall, which contained the Jewish and
Egyptian collection, were the finest of all. Professor Andreas was
a quiet, dry, elderly man, with a clean-shaven face and an
impassive manner, but his dark eyes sparkled and his features
quickened into enthusiastic life as he pointed out to us the rarity
and the beauty of some of his specimens. His hand lingered so
fondly over them, that one could read his pride in them and the
grief in his heart now that they were passing from his care into
that of another.
He had shown us in turn his mummies, his papyri, his rare
scarabs, his inscriptions, his Jewish relics, and his duplication
of the famous seven-branched candlestick of the Temple, which was
brought to Rome by Titus, and which is supposed by some to be lying
at this instant in the bed of the Tiber. Then he approached a case
which stood in the very centre of the hall, and he looked down
through the glass with reverence in his attitude and manner.
"This is no novelty to an expert like yourself, Mr. Mortimer,"
said he; "but I daresay that your friend, Mr. Jackson, will be
interested to see it."
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