The building was known as the "Research Museum."
Hands and his assistants had gathered a valuable collection of ancient curiosities.
Here were hundreds of drawings and photographs of various excavations. Accurate measurements of tombs, buried houses, ancient churches were entered in great books.
In glass cases were fragments of ancient pottery, old Hebrew seals, scarabs, antique fragments of jewellery—all the varied objects from which high scholarship and expert training was gradually, year by year, providing a luminous and entirely fresh commentary on Holy Writ.
Here, in short, were the tools of what is known as the "Higher Criticism."
Attached to the museum was a library and drawing office, a photographic dark room, apartments for the curator and his wife. A man who engaged the native labour required for the excavations superintended the work of the men and acted as general agent and intermediary between the European officials and all Easterns with whom they came in contact.
This man was well known in the city—a character in his way. In the reports of the Exploring Society he was often referred to as an invaluable assistant. But a year ago his portrait had been published in the annual statement of the fund, and the face of the Greek Ionides in his turban lay upon the study tables of many a quiet English vicarage.
Spence entered the courtyard of the building. It was quiet and deserted; some pigeons were feeding there.
He turned under a stone archway to the right, pushed open a door, and entered the museum.
There was a babel of voices.
A small group of people stood by a wooden pedestal
