Explore "The Boy Fortune Hunters in Egypt" by L. Frank Baum on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Professor gave a cry of positive terror, and before it was well out of his throat Ned Britton had made a leap and pinioned the chief to the ground with the weight of his huge form.
We were all greatly startled; and dismayed, as well, for it seemed that in spite of all our precautions Gege-Merak had spied upon us and the secret of the treasure now extended to him-the most uncomfortable confederate, from our standpoint, we could possibly have gained. Already an enemy, and more powerful in this country, his own, than we were; animated by the unscrupulous cupidity of his race and reckless-as his people are-of any consequences that follow lawless acts, Gege-Merak was the last person we would have chosen to share our important secret. The worst feature of the whole matter was that we ourselves were defying the laws of Egypt in stealthily removing this vast hoard, hidden by Egyptian priests long before the present rulers had ever set foot in the land. If the government suspected our act we should all be summarily imprisoned.