You feel excited anticipation as you imagine the stir when you unveil the breastplate to the American media and the envy and grudging respect your amazing discovery will enkindle in the breasts of your colleagues and rivals. You'll also get a bit of cash from the Tulane antiquities museum for your trouble.
And so, the following afternoon, after Esme and Abdul have departed for Damascus, you pack the breastplate carefully into a suitcase and take a horse-drawn carriage out to Amman's airfield. You slip the customs official a bit of baksheesh to avoid his looking too closely at your luggage, and you get aboard the first airship out of here.
That same afternoon, you and Sam are seated on a plush leather sofa aboard an airship bound for Paris, the Holy Land disappearing in your stately wake and the azure Mediterranean twinkling below. You have got out. This crazy adventure is over, and it looks like you're set for a return to your normal life—a life of teaching, reading, writing, and digging in the summers, of routine and safety. How do you feel about this?