Three days later David reached the ruins where his comrades were working, and was hailed with delight by the Professor.
'I began to get really nervous about you,' he declared, 'especially when the snowstorm broke over the country. Come and tell me all that has happened to you.'
'And now let me hear something about the work here, Professor,' asked David when he had told him about the discovery of the hollow during the snowstorm, and the attack of the wolves. 'How are you progressing?'
'Splendidly; couldn't be better,' exclaimed the Professor, rubbing his hands together with energy. 'We seem to have dropped upon the very part which your poor father excavated. Of course, he did not go very far; that we know, for Chang and his ruffians so soon interrupted him. However, he removed a mass of debris, which has made our work all the lighter. We have already made discoveries. We have opened up some wonderful inscriptions, and Dick hit upon a buried bronze bowl which is unique I should say, and will find a place in the British Museum. The only contretemps we have experienced was two days after the snowstorm. A band of most villainous-looking fellows came this way and demanded provisions. They were from Manchuria, from the plague-infested area, and, of course, my workers would have nothing to do with them. They moved off soon afterwards, though there is little doubt that had they been in greater strength they would hardly have let us off so lightly. Come in, and see what we have been doing.'
For three weeks David worked with the excavators, finding the task of the greatest interest. For the diggers had come upon a covered way, built in stone, and absolutely perfect, and from this, as the debris was cleared away, it was possible to enter houses, the roofs of which were just visible above the all-pervading sand, while the interiors were often almost free of that material. And in them was found abundance of food for reflection--domestic articles in great numbers left by those ancient residents, tiled ways which could not be improved upon by the later Romans; and bronze vases and receptacles of every shape and design, some so elegant, in fact, that the Professor, who was a connoisseur in such matters, declared that the form was similar to that found in ancient Grecian vases, and that this old Mongolian civilization had undoubtedly sent its artistic wares broadcast, till they reached the far west, and were copied by a race less ancient than these Mongolians, but ancient for all that.