He could no longer sleep. Every sound in the camp, every voice in the distance startled him. Reiner commented he was not looking well and worried his friend would fall ill, but Philip assured him it was nothing a little rest would not cure, and he asked Humann to allow him some leave to recuperate, saying he would go into town, consult a physician, and stay for a few days. Obviously, he had no intention of doing any of this, but he needed an excuse to leave the site in search of something to satisfy Demir. He did not have enough time to go far, but he covered as much ground as he could on horseback, combing village after village and buying whatever antiquities he could find from the locals. His spoils lacked the panache he believed would be necessary to impress Demir. He had two small but adequately decorated red figure pots, a badly damaged sculpture a foot and a half high that might have been Artemis, a handful of prehistoric spearheads, and a tiny but lovely bronze of Hephaestus. No one would believe any of them, except perhaps the last, worthy of stealing, but he hoped that, if presented in the right way, they might convince Demir that he was at least trying to do what the man wanted.
