ABSTRACT
The world's press seized upon Vansittart's suggestion with avidity. News was slack just then. The boom in North Africa had again knocked the bottom out of the South African market, a time-honoured operation on the Stock Exchange. In England the Daily Telegraph found excellent reason in a leading article for comparing him with Archimedes and Galileo. The Saturday Review dubbed him the 'Jules Verne of finance', whilst the Daily Mail was so tickled by his notion that it announced that all future messages from its wondrous Vienna correspondent would be heliographed, weather permitting. Vansittart, Pompier, and Colonel le Breton went for a ride to inspect some curious carved rocks they had discovered on the banks of a dried-up river at some little distance. Jerome and the sailor each carried a pair of six-chambered revolvers, but the colonel of chasseurs happened to be unarmed.
