"I'm awfully glad, anyway, Meg. Mike's a lucky chap and you're a lucky girl. You know, I think the world of Mike!"
"We aren't engaged, Freddy."
"Oh, aren't you?" He looked at her with laughing eyes. "What do you call it, then? An understanding? Or are you just 'walking out' like 'Arry and 'Arriet?"
Meg laughed happily. "We love each other—we've not got beyond that yet. I suppose we're just 'walking out.'"
"You've told each other about the loving?" Freddy's kindness was bringing something like tears to Margaret's eyes.
"Yes. Michael didn't mean to—it . . ." she paused.
"Oh, I know! The usual thing. Things seem to be going on all right."He laughed. "It mustn't run too smoothly."
"Don't laugh, Freddy. Michael thought you would think it cheek—he won't allow me to consider myself bound to him." She laughed deliriously. "The dear boy wants me to feel free to change my mind, because he's 'a drifter,' because he thinks he isn't a good enough match for your sister. Your sister, Freddy, comes right above mere Meg."
"I see," Freddy said. "Then I'm not to speak about it yet, am I? Just tell me what you want and I'll do it."
"Not yet, Freddy—not while that odious woman is here, at any rate."
"All right, I'll wait. Only I'd rather like to see her face when I congratulated Mike."
"Ought you to congratulate Mike? I'm your sister—isn't it the other way on? Shouldn't you congratulate me?"
They were close to the door of the hut; Meg lingered.
"He's the luckiest man I know. I wish he had a sister just like you.Of course he's to be congratulated! And now I must go and make myselfbeautiful." His eyes smiled their brightest. "I bet you I could cutMike out with the fair Millicent if I set my mind to it."
In the sunlight Freddy looked irresistible, with his violet eyes, shaded by his thick lashes, his crisp hair, as sunny and fair as a boy's. Meg knew that he was a much better-looking man than Mike—indeed, he would have been too good-looking if his figure had not been all that it was, if there had been the slightest touch of the feminine about him. There was not. Yet in spite of his good looks and astonishing colouring, Meg was right in her consciousness that for women there was more magnetic attraction in Mike's mobile plainness, in his sensitive, irregular features. When the two men were talking together, the senses and eyes of women would be drawn to the plain man.
During lunch Millicent Mervill was very good. She was interested in hearing about the tomb and, Freddy thought, wonderfully intelligent upon the subject. She was, as he expressed it, as clever as a monkey. What little knowledge she had she used to the utmost advantage, to its extreme limit. All her intellectual goods she displayed in her shop window. She had a telling way of saying, "I am completely ignorant upon this or that subject," suggestive of the fact that she really did know a great deal about many other things. She seldom "gave herself away."
Freddy came to the conclusion that she was so quick that it was quite impossible to discover what she really did or did not know or grasp, and, as he said to Mike afterwards, "What she did not know, she will set about knowing when she gets home. That brain won't rest still under ignorance, or let Meg know what it doesn't know."
The description of the fine effigy of the queen thrilled her; her appetite for details was insatiable. There was plenty to talk about, so conversation did not flag and personal topics were avoided.
Freddy thought that she was nicer than she had ever been before and even prettier. He enjoyed his lunch; it certainly was a change to have a beautiful woman, who was not his sister, and who did her best to make herself attractive, lunching with them in their desert home. After his tremendous efforts of the last three or four days her presence was pleasing. Even the modern clothes and aggressively-manicured finger-nails gave him healthy sensations. His manhood enjoyed her super-femininity.
The little room palpitated with life, the antagonism of the two women was a thing he could feel. He felt it as surely as he had felt the hot air of the tomb. Freddy enjoyed looking at his sister; her combative mood vitalized her.
Her dark hair, so soft and abundant, looked tempting to touch, after the dragged and matted "something" which clung to the skull of the mummy.
Nothing in the room was intrinsically worth a couple of shillings. The seat on which Michael was sitting had been made out of empty boxes; they had been converted into a very presentable armchair by the ingenuity of Mohammed Ali. Yet the atmosphere of the hut was human and domesticated, the two women sweet and fragrant.
And so it was not difficult for Freddy to respond to his fair guest's pleasant chatter. She made him laugh heartily more than once, and he was ready for a good laugh. He was braced by her quick wit and humorous way of looking at things.
Meg was doing her best to appear happy; she was really getting angrier and angrier every minute with the woman who was so thoroughly enjoying herself; angry because Freddy, like all other men, was being deceived by her, because he was obviously thinking her very excellent company—which she was. He was no doubt already wondering why she, Meg, hated her so whole-heartedly. Freddy had seldom mentioned Millicent to his sister; he had kept his own counsel. The Lamptons were silent men, whose appreciation of women like Millicent never led them astray in the choosing of their wives.
Michael had given Millicent his first vivid impressions of the tomb in a very "Mik-ish" manner. He described Freddy, strikingly distinguishable in his white flannels, greedily picking up jewels and gold and bits of blue faience and stowing them away into boxes by the light of an electric torch.
"A tomb burglar if ever you saw one! I shall never forget the sight."
"There's lots of work for you, Meg, to-night," Freddy said. "There's an awful lot of things to sort and clean—beautiful things."
"How exciting!" Millicent said. "Can you keep any of the small things?They'd stick to my fingers, I feel sure."
"No," Freddy said. "Not unless you are a thief. They aren't ours—I'm only entrusted with the finding of them."
Millicent made a face of dissatisfaction, as she felt for something which she wore fastened to the long gold chain which was hanging from her neck.
"I wonder if you will pronounce this genuine or a fake? Do you remember, Mike, our buying it?" She ran her fingers along the chain. The genuine antique or fake was not on it; it was missing. She felt again. No; there was nothing on the chain.
"Oh, I've lost it!" she said. "My precious eye of Horus, Mike. I wouldn't have lost it for the world!" Her tone conveyed his understanding of the personal value which she attached to the amulet.
"What was it?" Freddy said. "Can't we get another? If you bought it, it was probably a fake."
"A new one would never be the same—Mike gave me the one I've lost"—she purposely used Michael's intimate name—"while we were staying at Luxor. It has been my 'heaven-sent gift'"—(the ancients' name for the amulet, which represented the right eye of Horus).
They all looked to see if the amulet had been dropped in the room, if it was under the table. But it was nowhere to be found; the eye of Horus was concealing itself.
"It was probably only a fake," Freddy said, "if you bought it in Luxor. I'll try and get a genuine one for you—for ages and ages they were the commonest of all amulets, judging by the number we find. Almost every ancient Egyptian must have worn one. It was the all-seeing eye, the protecting light."
"The moon was the left eye of Horus and the sun was the right—isn't that so?" Millicent asked.
"Roughly speaking, but the eye of Horus is a complicated subject. It's not just the evil or good eye of Italy, by any means. The eye of Horus is the eye of Heaven, Shakespeare's 'Heaven's eye,' but it's when it gets identified with Ra that the complication comes in. Thesacredeye is the eye of Heaven, or Ra. Poets, ancient and modern, have sung of it, from the time of Job to the days of Shakespeare. But there was also the evil eye, the one we hear so much about in Southern Italy."
"Tell me about that. I always like the naughty stories. I've never grown up in that respect. The evil eye is more interesting to me than the eye of Heaven. I knew a woman in Italy who was selling lace; she let a friend of mine buy all she wanted from her at the most absurdly cheap prices you can imagine. When the lady of the house we were staying in, who had allowed the woman to call and bring her lace, asked her why she had sold the lace to a stranger at a price for which she had refused to part with it to her, she simply threw up her eyes and said, 'Ma, Signora, what could I do? She had the evil eye—if I had not given it to her, what terrible misfortunes she could have brought to me!'"
"I remember seeing a crowded tramcar in Rome empty itself in a moment when a well-known Prince, who was supposed to have the evil eye, got into it," Michael said.
"A common expression for a woman in ancient Egypt wasstav-ar-ban, which meant 'she who turns away the evil eye,'" Freddy said.
"Then the Egyptians believed in the evil eye, as apart from the sacred eye of Ra?" Millicent said. "What a universal belief it seems to have been! One meets with it all over the world."
"Wasn't there a book found in the ancient library of the temple of Dendereh which told all about the turning away of the evil eye?" Mike asked.
"I believe so," Freddy said. "But I've never seen it."
Millicent was still fingering her empty chain. "I feel lost without my eye," she said to Mike, who had answered her persistent gaze. "You bought it for me after that long, long day we spent together in the desert behind Karnak. Do you remember that Coptic convent"—she made a face of disgust—"and the amusement of the nuns at my blue eyes, and all the dreadful dogs? You bought the eye from the old man who looked as if he had lived inside a pyramid all his life." She turned to Margaret. "It was a wonderful day, and we behaved like children in the desert, didn't we, Mike?"
Meg managed to hide her annoyance, but something hurt inside her—probably her bowels of wrath.
"It was a lovely day, I remember. The Coptic convent looked like a collection of beehives huddled together in the desert. You wouldn't go inside it because you were afraid of the fleas, and I wasn't allowed to go in because I was a man."
"I'd had enough of Coptic churches. Have you ever been in the earlyChristian churches in Cairo?" she asked Margaret.
"No, but I've heard about them."
"Well, I have, and all I can say is that if the early Christians inRome were as dirty as the survivors of the Church of St. Mark are inCairo, I don't wonder at the pagans. I wasn't going to risk themonastery after the appalling filth of their churches, dirty pigs!"
At that precise moment Mohammed Ali brought in the coffee. It was served in the native fashion, in small enamelled brass bowls, on a brass tray. When he handed the tray to Mrs. Mervill he pointed to a small object lying beside her cup.
"Lady, I findantikaall safe."
Millicent's heart beat more quickly; a little deeper rose warmed her cheeks. She picked up the eye of blue faience from the brass tray with well-assumed delight. Margaret's dark eyes were resting on her. She felt them.
"Thank you," she said to Mohammed Ali. "I'm so glad." Her hand shook a little as she lifted her cup. "Heaven's eye is not withdrawn," she said gaily to Michael.
"Where did you find it, Mohammed?" Michael asked the question innocently.
Mohammed Ali's eyes met Mrs. Mervill's. In them he saw the promise of a handsomebaksheesh.
"When lady get off donkey, chain it catch on the saddle."
A slight sigh escaped from Millicent's lips; Mohammed was worthy of his race.
"Oh, yes! How stupid of me not to remember! I quite forgot that my chain caught as I dismounted. I never thought of looking to see if I had lost anything."
Meg knew that Millicent Mervill was lying and she knew that Mohammed knew that she was lying. She also knew Mohammed well enough to know that if she chose, she could buy him back again from Millicent. Mohammed handled the truth very carelessly; it was still his unshakable policy to secure as much money as he could and give as much pleasure as he could to the person who gave him the most. His Eastern knowledge of human nature told him that Margaret would not be likely to seek to buy his secret. He might, perhaps, tell her the truth when Mrs. Mervill had gone away, because he sincerely liked her, but as far as bribery or corruption was concerned, he must rest content with what Mrs. Mervill thought a sufficient reward for his intelligence and silence.
Margaret had felt pretty certain that Millicent's curiosity had not remained contented with the inspection of the public sitting-room. As she watched her trembling hand and noted the blush on her cheeks, she felt that her suspicions were not unjust. Instinctively her mind flew to her diary; it was lying on a table in her room. She had kept it very faithfully over since her arrival in the valley. It was an intensely intimate, human document. It was a record of all her impressions and of her life in the valley, and of every incident which had happened in relation to her friendship with Michael. If Millicent had read any of it, she must have seen into her very soul. Margaret's whole being writhed at the thought of the thing. She had taken the precaution to write it in French so that she could leave the book unlocked in her bedroom. None of the house "boys" could read French; Millicent, of course, both spoke and read it fluently.
As Meg thought of this, the cruel laying bare of her inner woman to the woman she hated, a hot blush dyed her cheeks; she felt giddy.
Millicent noticed the blush. Her eyes rested upon Meg's until Meg was compelled to raise hers. Then the two women looked into each other's souls. Their unspoken thoughts were plainly read by each other.
It was Millicent who triumphed. No shame made her eyes drop; no fear weakened their challenge. They boldly said, "You see, I know, I have learnt. You are not all that you look. I have discovered the other woman."
With extraordinary clearness Margaret visualized Millicent's delicate fingers turning over the pages of her diary. She could see her eyes gloating over its secret passages. She could feel Millicent's beautiful presence filling her plain little bedroom, which would never be the same again. Her delicate fragrance, which was no stronger than the subtle perfume of English wild flowers, was probably lingering in it still. Meg felt herself clumsily big and masculine beside her, for Millicent never allowed you to forget that, above all things, she was a woman, that in her companionship with men she was not of the same sex.
When the eye of Horus was once more, with Freddy's assistance, securely fastened on to the gold chain, and the coffee had been drunk and cigarettes were being indulged in, Mrs. Mervill's American friend appeared at the hut.
He was a very agreeable and cultured man. His chief interest in things Egyptian was centred in the subject of ancient festivals. When he was smoking with the party, a really interesting discussion took place between the three men. Mr. Harben, the newcomer, had been particularly interested in the "intoxication festivals" held in honour of the goddess Hathor at Dendereh.
Michael naturally had read more upon the subject of the festival of Isis. At her festival the "Songs of Isis" were sung in the temples of Osiris by two virgins. These festivals were held for five days at the sowing season every year. These "songs of Isis," of course, related to the destruction of Osiris by Set and the eventual reconstruction of his body by his wife Isis and her sister goddess Nephthys. In other words, it was the festival of the triumph of light over darkness, the power of righteousness over evil, the oldest of all battles.
During the discussion Millicent Mervill was at her best. She was intellectually curious and excitable. The festival of Isis bored her; she did not care for or believe in the inevitable triumph of light over darkness. With her evil flourished like a green bay-tree, while righteousness was its own reward—and a very dull one. She was religious, after the conventional fashion of the people with whom she consorted; she enjoyed going to a church where there was good music or an audacious preacher to be heard. But she never wanted to be better than she was; her wants were for the further satisfaction of her material enjoyments on this earth.
But the Bacchanalian festivals of Hathor had interested her and aroused her curiosity, from the very first time that she had seen the figures of the dancing-girls, so realistically carved on the walls of the temple of Dendereh. She had read all that she could lay her hands on relating to the subject, which consisted only of such portions of the papyrus as the translators have seen fit to give to the general public. Her American friend had gone further. He was not only interested in the Bacchanalian dances, but in Egyptian festivals generally.
Both Margaret and Millicent became silent as the discussion proceeded and for the time being their animosity was forgotten; they found themselves for once sympathetic listeners and good companions. Michael was pleased.
As the discussion gradually soared above their understanding, they talked of things between themselves.
Time flew pleasantly, so much so that Margaret felt a little regret when at last Millicent and her friend said good-bye. She had almost forgotten her ugly suspicions about Millicent, who had been very charming and simple. She wished that she had not spoken so hastily to Freddy about her. Her conscience pricked her.
Later on, as the trio, Michael, Freddy, and Margaret, watched their two guests depart, very different thoughts filled their minds. Michael was hoping that a new phase in the acquaintance between the two women had begun, that Meg would now hold out a helping hand of sympathy to Millicent. Meg was wondering if Freddy thought that she had been unjust and horrid, just because Millicent was beautiful and a cleverer woman than herself. Freddy had obviously enjoyed her unexpected visit.
"Your fair friend paid us this honour, Mike, for some reason best known to herself," he said. "Some reason she has not divulged, I wonder what it was? There is always a hidden reason in what she does."
"Curiosity," said Michael, carelessly. "She wanted to see how excavators live and to find out for herself what we were doing."
"I guess so!" Freddy said, significantly. "Find out for herself—that was just it." He laughed. "I wonder how much she did find out?" Freddy clapped his hand on Mike's shoulder as he spoke. "I didn't give you away, old chap!"
Michael faced him squarely. So Freddy knew!
"Has Meg told you?" His voice was anxious.
"Told me? Do you suppose I'm blind?" Freddy spoke with such frank sympathy and pleasure that from his voice more than his words Michael took heart.
"It's awful cheek on my part."
"Yes, 'awful cheek,'" Freddy said. "Considering Meg's just the one and only Meg in the world." He took Meg's brown hand in his—such a different hand from Millicent's!—and placed it on the top of Michael's and held it there. "Bless you, my children!" he said. "I feel like a heavy father. And I've nothing more to say, except that I'm jolly glad, and I congratulate you both."
Meg's eyes were shining. Freddy was so boyish and yet so much her elder brother. How she loved him!
"Thanks, old chap," Michael said. "I suppose Meg's told you all about it?—I mean, how I'm not going to let her bind herself to me? We love each other, and I forgot and told her I did."
Freddy laughed. "If something better than you, you old drifter, turns up, she's to be free to take him. Of course, something will!"
"Yes," Michael said. "Or if . . ." he paused.
"If you prove too unpractical for a husband, you old humbug, I'm to cancel the engagement!"
Meg linked her arm in her brother's. "I'm quite practical, enough for us both," she said. "The Lampton common sense wants leavening. We never rise to heights, Freddy—we're solid dough."
"We manage to get down into the bowels of the earth, which helps a bit, if we can't soar very high."
All three laughed. Freddy meant the tomb, of course.
Freddy was smoking a cigarette. His eyes were following the two donkeys which were taking Millicent and her friend down the valley. They looked like white insects in the distance; they had travelled rapidly, as donkeys will travel on their homeward journey.
"The fair Millicent!—and, by Jove, she is fair!"—Freddy said, meditatively, "didn't come here to find out your engagement—don't imagine so. She managed to carry away some information more difficult to obtain than that." He laughed and quoted the old saying, "Love, like light, cannot be hid. What a pity she isn't all as nice as the nice parts of her, or as nice as she is pretty!"
"I always think she looks so nice to eat," Margaret said.
"I think she looks so nice to kiss," Freddy said laughingly. "If thatAmerican hadn't been there, I'd have taken her off for a walk, and thenI could have told you, Mike, what it was like."
Meg blushed to the roots of her hair. Her brother's words recalled the ball at Assuan. She knew that Michael knew what it was like.
Freddy saw Meg's blush and wondered what it meant. He turned and left the lovers to enjoy a few moments' uninterrupted bliss and to discuss the day's events.
Their bliss consisted in standing together, silently watching the two figures on the white donkeys disappear into the valley below. When the last trace of them had vanished and the desert and the sky composed their world, Meg gave a sigh of relief. Perfect content was expressed in her attitude and silence, a long silence, too sacred to be broken rashly. The sun was brilliant, the distance before them immense, compelling.
As Meg gazed and gazed, her heart became more and more full of happiness. The world was a wonderful mother; she had only to trust, to believe, to love, to have happiness showered upon her.
"In a book I was reading the other day, Mike," she said, "the heroine remarked that looking into a great distance always made her long to be better than she was. How true it is—at least, with me. I knew what she meant, instantly. I feel it now, don't you?"
"That's why town-life is so bad for us," he said. "Our vision never gets beyond the traffic, beyond the progress of commerce. I've often thought the same thing. Distances are sublime."
"The distances in the desert make me feel far more like that than any other distances. The desert has taught me so much—it is a wonderful mother."
Michael's eyes answered her.
"Looking at that distance makes me wish I hadn't been so wicked in my heart about Mrs. Mervill. I was bursting with hate of her, Mike—I longed to hurt her as she always hurts me!"
"You behaved splendidly! I knew it was an awful trial to you. You knew I understood, Meg?"
"It was a trial," Meg said, "but why am I so little when I am put to the test, and why do I feel so big, so far above such contemptible things, when I look at a distance like that?"
"Because you're a darling, human woman, Meg." Michael's arms went round her. "Because there would be no merit in our victories if the battles were quite easy."
"I suppose not, but for your belief in me, Mike, I want to be as big as the biggest thoughts I've got, and I'm only as small as my meanest."
"You are the mistress of my happiness, Meg."
Meg's eyes shone with understanding, while his words called up the figure and the bright rays of Akhnaton.
"Freddy said that I am to act as a curb on your unpractical tendencies, Mike. I felt very deceitful. He doesn't know how much I've aided and abetted them."
"He never imagined that he'd a practical mystic for a sister, did he?"
"Never," Meg said.
"But that's what you are, dearest—a practical mystic. You are a woman with two sides to your nature—the intensely practical and the subconsciously mystic. Egypt has developed the mystic half—your Lampton forbears are responsible for the other."
"The Lampton half of me keeps my two feet firmly planted on the earth,Mike."
"The mystic half loves this silly drifter." He pressed her to him.
"The practical half says, come back to the hut and help Freddy."
And so they went.
Michael's travels in the Eastern desert had barely extended over a three days' journey by camel and some hours spent on the Egyptian State Railway, which runs by the banks of the Nile.
The town of Luxor lies on the right or east bank of the Nile, four hundred and fifty miles to the south of Cairo. Tel-el-Amarna, or "The City of the Horizon," Akhnaton's capital, lies about a hundred and sixty miles south of Cairo. Michael could very easily have gone almost all the way to the modern station of Tel-el-Amarna, or Haggi Kandil, by boat or by train from Luxor, which faces the Theban Hills, in whose bowels lies the great Theban necropolis, the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, which had been his home for some months. But that was not his idea; he wished to spend all his days in the solitude of the desert, so he started his journey at a point half-way between Luxor and Tel-el-Amarna.
This was not his first pilgrimage to the eastern desert.
Luxor and Assuan both lie on the east bank of the Nile; the great Arabian Desert in Egypt stretches from the Suez Canal to Assuan; after Assuan it is called the Nubian Desert. The Libyan Desert stretches from Cairo to Assuan, but on the western bank of the Nile. Michael's desire was for the uninterrupted ocean of sand which stretches from the shores of the Atlantic to the cliffs which give the Nile its sunsets. Its infinity of space drew him to it.
In the desert, where a traveller begins his day at dawn and ends it at sundown, where the slow tread of his camel is only interrupted by a short halt for the midday meal, and the days roll on and into each other as the sand-dunes roll on and into succeeding sand-dunes, the sense of hours and days becomes lost. With nothing in front of the eye but an infinity of sky and distance and nothing active in that distance but dazzling heat, moving over the desert, the mind becomes a part of the intense solitude. The traveller's ego is comatized; he takes his place with the elements.
When the traveller's long day's march is done, the wonder of the starlit nights makes his past life seem still more unreal. It has been truly said that the solitary contemplation of the desert stars either for ever convinces a doubter of the certainty of a God, or confirms his opinions as an Atheist. When Michael was alone with the stars, the Sweet Singer of Israel's words ever rang in his ears:
"When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;
"What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"
During the three days spent on camel-back in the desert nothing had happened which the world calls happening. Michael's small equipment was proving itself entirely satisfactory and sufficient for his needs. His guide and his servants were both agreeable and obedient. His head-man or guide was none other than the soothsayer who had predicted the astonishing wealth of the tomb which Freddy had discovered. He had travelled far and wide in the great Arabian Desert and he had also helped at the excavations at Tel-el-Amarna.
Although apparently nothing had happened, no events which would bear recording in the diary of a practical explorer, yet much had happened which evaded the limitations of words. The things which had happened were the great things which mattered to Michael's mind. They had produced an extraordinary sense of repose; they had settled his nerves and allowed his convictions to steadily develop, to emerge from shadowy dreams. If he thought less constantly of Margaret as the days wore on, it was with more satisfaction and confidence. He ceased to blame himself for confessing his love; he accepted that also as an act of the guiding Hand.
On the desert march Michael generally went at the head of his cavalcade. He liked the wide sweep for the eye, the great expanse, undisturbed, even by such picturesque figures as the natives on their camels. Over and over again he rode for hours in a beautiful dream; he gave himself up to the intoxication of immensity. At such times the thought would come to him that if he turned the universe upside-down, nothing would happen. The high heavens would be made of golden sand and the limitless earth of bright blue—that would be all the difference; nothing would tumble about, for there was nothing to tumble; nothing would be standing on its head, for there was nothing which had a head to stand on. God's world was as it had been before the creation of man.
Since hisHijrah, as Freddy called his flight from the valley, he had ceased to think about his own standing on his head. He had accepted the fact that a man must work out his own life as truly as he must work out his own salvation. To be a weak copy of Freddy would be contemptible; it would be better to be an out-and-out failure and drifter for the rest of his days. As a failure he would at least be living the life he best understood, the life which to him seemed fuller than the lives lived by successful materialists.
For the whole three days in the desert he had scarcely passed a living creature; it was the most desolate journey he had ever taken. Some portions of the great desert are much more barren than others, more extraordinarily desolate. The whole thing, of course, depends upon the all-important water. One writer's words explain the matter concisely—"there are two kinds of desert in Egypt, the desert of sand, which is only desert because it is left without water, and the desert which is desert because nothing profitable will grow there."
Probably the country over which Michael had travelled belonged to the last type of desert. There had been wonderful effects of light and shade and strange changes in the colour of the sand and rocks, owing to geological reasons. Sometimes such strange effects that he found it hard to believe, from a distance, that there were not bright carpets or gay flowers spread on the sands.
To the uninitiated it sounds as if such a journey could become dangerously monotonous and boring, and so it would to the eye or mind which has not the true desert instinct. Michael's had it. He loved its passionate intensity of sky and space as a true sailor loves the ocean. He loved his "ship of the desert," which bore him silently over the rolling waves of sand, as a Jack Tar loves his ship. He loved the stories of the desert which his guide told him at night under the southern stars, as an English Jack Tar loves his fo'c's'e yarns.
Although nothing ever happened, there was for Michael something happening every minute, some fresh beauty which revealed a new phase of Nature, some geological surprise which changed the colour and atmospheric effect of his surroundings. At one time mirage after mirage appeared and disappeared like delicate, subtle dreams; fair cities sprang up on the horizon with white-winged sailing-boats drifting on their waters; tall palm-trees, black against the light, stood up and refreshed the eye, only to become fainter and fainter until they were no more.
These fair Jerusalems, God's help to tired travellers, with eyes grown weary of emptiness and space, made beautiful interludes in the day's march. Since their first day's march they had seen no real desert villages, with their much-treasured palm-trees and picturesque inhabitants, for they had made for the open desert. Where palm-trees grow, there are also human habitations and Government taxes. Anything green in the desert which is of lasting duration is the result of artificial irrigation. But if the sand brings forth no food for man or beast, its emptiness holds a world of prayers and desires.
* * * * * *
It was about noon of the fourth day of Michael's journey when he saw in the distance a cavalcade of camels riding towards him. It had emerged out of nothing; suddenly it became clearer and clearer. Was it mirage? It was still so distant that it might yet prove an optical delusion.
He stopped his camel. Abdul, seeing that his master evidently wanted something, rode forward quickly.
"Look, Abdul," Michael said, "can you see some camels coming towards us?"
Abdul had no need to look. His eyes could see much further thanMichael's. He had already noticed the cavalcade.
"Aiwah, Effendi, they are camels carrying real human beings." His master's words had implied that he wondered if he was looking at a mirage. Michael had never seen a mirage of anything but scenery, villages with minarets and rivers with boats—reflections, in fact, of distant towns.
Abdul assured his master that the camels were real camels and that he was almost certain that it was an European outfit; it did not belong to desert natives.
Michael again rode on ahead for a few moments. He wondered where the travellers were coming from, and whither they were bound. This fourth morning's journey had certainly brought them slightly nearer again to the border of civilization. He knew that they were skirting an ancient oasis. Perhaps the travellers had come from it. He was still some distance from Tel-el-Amarna—not the modern Tel-el-Amarna or Haggi Kandil, which lies about five miles back from the banks of the river, where passengers travelling by railway alight when they come from Cairo to visit the ruins of the ancient city—but the ruins of Akhnaton's capital. At the point on the Nile where Akhnaton chose to build his city, the limestone cliffs go back from the river about three miles, returning to it some six miles further on.
Michael's objective was not the ruins of Akhnaton's city, but the desert and the hills which lie beyond it. The boundaries of the "City of the Horizon," Akhnaton's new capital, the seat of the heretic King, were so carefully laid down and defined by him that there has been no mistaking its exact size and circumference.
Michael was going to the original tomb of Akhnaton, cut out of the hills which formed a half-crescent round the city, like a bay, reaching back from the river. In these encircling hills the King's body was buried; the hills were his chosen resting-place.
"Here Akhnaton elected to be buried, where hyenas prowled and jackals wandered, and where the desolate cry of the night-owls echoed over the rocks. In winter the wind sweeps up the valley and howls round the rocks; in summer the sun makes it a veritable furnace, unendurable to man. There is nothing here to remind one of the God Who watches over him, and the tender Aton of the Pharaoh's conception would seem to have abandoned this place to the spirits of evil. There are no flowers where Akhnaton cut his sepulchre, and no birds sing; for the King believed that his soul, caught up into the noon of Paradise, would need no more delights on earth.
"The tomb consisted of a passage descending into the hill and leading to a rock-cut hall, the roof of which was supported by four columns. Here stood the sarcophagus of pink granite in which the Pharaoh's mummy would lie. The walls of this hall were covered with scenes carved in plaster, representing various phases in the Aton worship. From the passage there led another small chamber, beyond which a further passage was cut, perhaps to lead to the second hall in which the Queen should be buried, but the work was never finished." [1]
Later on, for political and religious reasons, his mummy was disentombed, taken up the river to the western desert and placed in his mother's splendid tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. It was in these same hills that Michael believed the King to have concealed his treasure.
The treasure was Michael's practical objective. To others the idea might seem absurd and unpractical; to him it was quite possible and practical. He could not have been more businesslike in his marching and halts if he had been a general taking his troops across the desert to relieve a beleaguered city. It was a part of his nature to be practical about the unpractical. The words of his old friend in el-Azhar often came back to him as his camel bore him through a spell of light, or as he listened to the thundering silence of the Arabian desert. He recalled his counsel, to journey undoubtingly, to follow in the steps of a "child of God," who would lead him to the treasure which no eyes had seen for countless centuries.
So far no child of God had crossed his path. From dawn until dusk he had seen nothing living or moving but one pale lizard, almost colourless as the rocks from which it had come; it had scurried across his path, the sole inhabitant of the untrodden sands, alarmed at the invasion of its kingdom.
These thoughts were passing through his mind as his camel bore him nearer and nearer to the cavalcade which was coming towards him. The unexpected sight of travellers had raised a whirlwind of new doubts in his brain and called up undesired visions before his eyes. For the last three days nothing had disturbed the divine calm of his desert surroundings. He had contentedly become a part of his camel; its somnolent tread had lulled his senses like the gentle movement of an ocean steamer on the high seas.
As the two cavalcades drew nearer to each other, Abdul pressed forward to his master's side. His long sight, well used to desert distances, had clearly discerned what to Michael was still indistinct, blurred by the sun.
"One lady in party, Effendi."
Michael showed surprise. It was an extremely unlikely place to meet a lady on camel-back; there were no tourists in that part of the desert, so far back from the Nile; it was not a likely place to meet an European pleasure-party. Michael knew that Abdul had meant an European lady when he spoke of "one lady" being in the party; he would not have mentioned the fact if it had been only a Bedouin Arab woman moving her home to some more desirable spot. Perhaps it was some excavation-party. A number of European women, he knew, were now engaged on archaeological work in Egypt.
As the distance shortened, he began to count the number of the camels.It was not a large equipment.
Quite suddenly the two leading camels of the approaching party strode forward, almost at a gallop, the curious gallop of fast-travelling desert camels. The next minute a clear voice called out:
"Hallo, good morning! Have you used Pears' Soap?"
Michael's heart stopped beating. It was Millicent's voice. For the sake of appearances he returned her greeting gaily, although his heart was filled with anger.
"No," he cried back. "But I've used desert sand, which the Prophet said does as well."
Millicent had tricked him, cheated him. She had discovered his plans; she had laid hers very cleverly so as to meet him on the most desolate part of his journey. A vision of Margaret's anger, had she seen her riding towards him, rose before his eyes. The tone of Michael's voice expressed something of his feelings; it made Millicent all the more daring.
"I arranged a surprise for you—wasn't I clever?"
"It is certainly a surprise," Michael said. "Where are you going?"
"Whither thou goest, I will go," she said laughingly. "Where do you suppose I am going?"
"This is absurd, Millicent!" Michael lowered his voice.
"Why absurd? The desert's big enough for us both, isn't it?"
"I should have thought it sufficiently big to have made our meeting unnecessary."
"Now, Mike, don't be an ungracious pig! Here I am and here I mean to stay. I won't bother you, so just be nice."
The mules and camels of both parties had met. The men had joined forces and much talking was going on amongst the natives.
"Have you come alone?" Michael asked.
"My dragoman is with me."
"Of course," Mike said. "I know that. But are you by yourself, without any other European?"
"Quite," Millicent said. "I didn't want anyone. Hassan's a reliable dragoman. I came to meet you."
"Do you think it was nice of you?"
"Well, no," she said. "Perhaps not, but it is nice for me, Mike, and it will be nice for you, too, if you will only be sensible and accept the situation."
"What do you mean by being sensible?" he asked.
"Just allowing me to come, and being pleasant and happy and enjoying yourself. I've everything I need—I won't ask you for a single thing but happiness."
"I shan't be happy—I wished to be alone. You knew it."
"What harm shall I do you? I'll halt when you halt, I'll go on when you go on. I'll bedouce comme un lapin blanc—I really can be, Mike." Her eyes asked him if in that respect she was not speaking the truth.
"Yes," he said. "You can be anything you want to be." He sighed. "I wish you oftener wanted to be good, Millicent; I wish you oftener wanted to please me and not always only yourself."
"I'd get nothing if I did, Mike. I stole this march on you, half for fun and half because it's no use trusting to you. I never see you—you are afraid of yourself."
"I told you it was useless." He moved his camel further from hers. "I must see what is to be done. You must turn back. Your very presence disturbs all my ideas."
"The natives think this is a prearranged plan, of course. They give you the benefit of being more human than you are."
Michael looked at her in annoyance. He knew that she was right; he knew that even Abdul, the visionary, would not believe him if he told him otherwise; he knew that already he had formed his own opinion of Michael's surprise.
Millicent's veil almost completely hid her face. She flung it up over her sun-hat. As Abdul came to his master's side, Michael saw his eyes linger on the Englishwoman's beauty. He knew that to the Eastern, mixture of mystic and fanatic as he was, her freshness and fairness were like the scent of white jasmine to his nostrils.
This woman, who loved his master—for already Millicent's dragoman had confided her secret to him—was very rarely beautiful, and in his eyes very desirable; but she was false. His eyes had instantly seen beyond. Because she was false she interested him. She was not like other Englishwomen; she was not like the girl who was the sister of Effendi Lampton. This wealthy Englishwoman, whose body was as sweet as a branch of scented almond-blossom, had thoughts in her heart like the thoughts of his own countrywomen. In his Eastern mind, Englishwomen retained their virgin minds and ideas even when they were married women with families; to their end they retained the hearts and minds of innocent children. This slender creature, a sweet bundle for a man's arms, thought as his countrywomen thought. He saw into her mind as he had seen into the unopened tomb.
He was amazed at the Effendi, not because of this meeting with his mistress—it was not an unheard-of thing in the desert; he was not unaccustomed to the ways of men and women of all nations when their passions control their actions—he was amazed at his own false impression of Effendi Amory's character and mind. He had never for one moment contemplated such a contretemps; he would never have imagined that he could be false to Effendi Lampton's sister. The meeting, however, lent a double interest to their journey.
"The Effendi has been fortunate in meeting his friend," he said respectfully. Michael had turned to address him.
"Yes," Michael said. "We have been fortunate." He saw no other way of settling the question. For the present he must quietly accept the inevitable. Millicent had insisted that she had a perfect right to follow him, even if he refused to allow her to join his party.
"We will go on, Effendi? TheSittwill accompany us?" Abdul's voice was expressionless, deferential.
"For to-day, at least," Michael said, "theSittwill travel with us."He knew that equivocation was useless.
Abdul searched his master's eyes. There was no love in them, no passion for the woman he had taken all this trouble and secrecy to meet. Englishmen were strange beings. Time would prove which way the wind of desire blew. Was it from the woman to the man or from the man to the woman? Had Michael the qualities of Orientals for dissembling his feelings? It was rare amongst Europeans.
The cavalcade moved on. A fresh element had been introduced into it. The at-all-times low talk of the natives soon became more obscene than it is possible for Western minds to imagine. Its influence affected the sublime silence of the desert. God no longer shadowed the distance.
Michael knew the native mind. He had heard the workmen at the excavation camp, and even the girls and women in the desert villages, discussing subjects freely and openly which to the Western mind are impossible. He had heard children and boys using language and ejaculations which would disgrace the lips of the most degraded Western.
Before Millicent's appearance his men had no doubt talked together in a way which would have shocked a stranger to the East if he could have understood what they were saying, but there had been an absence of any special topic; their talk had been impersonal. Now their interests were awakened, their lowest instincts were on the alert, their passion for intrigue whetted. Suggestion, like perseverance, can work miracles. With Millicent riding by his side and with the whole company of servants discussing their affairs, the desert had lost its purity, its healing powers. In its sands the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil seemed to need no water.
Michael clung to the thought of Margaret. For some few moments they rode in silence. Michael was inarticulate; his thoughts were like a flaming bush. In half an hour's time they would halt for lunch; until that time Millicent held her soul in patience.
Nothing was to be gained by a broken conversation on camel-back. A delicious excitement exalted her; her plans had succeeded; the very devil of insolence danced in her veins. She had trapped Michael and successfully outwitted Margaret Lampton. She was going to thoroughly enjoy herself. Michael, of course, would become quite docile in her hands later on; one of her gentle spells would reconcile him.
"How long have you been in the desert?" Michael asked.
"We've camped for two nights," she said. "It's been perfectly beautiful! We have had no difficulties, no adventures and we've scarcely met a living soul. This eastern desert is awfully desolate, Mike—you're alone with your thoughts if you can't speak to your dragoman."
"It's very desolate," Mike said. "And it's quite different from theValley in colour and in feeling—at least it is to me."
"I think so, too. This morning we met a strange creature—the only human we've struck—one of those desert fanatics, 'a child of God,' as my dragoman called him."
Michael's heart beat faster; he forgot his annoyance. "Where did you meet him?" he asked.
Millicent noticed the change in his voice. "Not long before we sighted you. He was travelling this way—we shall probably pass him. Our camels were travelling at a good pace."
"Did you speak to him?"
"No, I couldn't, but Hassan did. I asked him about him. He told me that what we call an idiot or a village simple is really a man whose reasoning powers are in heaven. We see the material part of him, the part that mixes with ordinary mortals. To the Mohammedans such people are considered sacred, special favourites of God."
"Yes, I know," Michael said, "and the worst of it is that advantage is taken of that charming idea and dreadful things are done by rogues who pretend to be religious fanatics or holy men. Some of them are awful creatures, absolute impostors, but as a rule they frequent towns and cities. The genuine holy man, a 'child of God,' lives apart from his fellows in the desert."
"This poor creature wore a long cloak made out of all sorts of bits, a weird Joseph's coat of many colours. His tall staff was hanging with tattered rags and his poor turban was in the last stages of decay." Millicent's voice betokened genuine pity. "He looked terribly thin and tired. I ought to have given him some food—he wouldn't accept money. I don't think he grasped its meaning."
Michael's thoughts were busy. "A little child will lead you, do not despise the favoured of God—their wealth is laid up for them in heaven."
And so they journeyed on, Millicent pleased at the result of her conversation, it had set Michael dreaming.
"They have lots of beautiful ideas," she said. She meant Moslems generally, not only the simples or religious fanatics.
"Yes," Michael said. "No religion has more lofty or beautiful ideas and ideals."
"You don't think their ideas are often put into practice?"
"I don't know," Michael said. "It isn't fair to judge—the Western mind can't. Their ideas are beautiful and in obeying the laws laid down by the Koran they do beautiful and kindly acts; at the same time, their minds to us seem terribly polluted. Their religion doesn't appear to elevate their general aims or thoughts of life."
"But isn't it the same with the greater portion of Christians, with many of what we call religious people?" Millicent laughed. "I know it is with myself, Mike. I go to church and say my prayers and I think I believe in all the tenets of the Church and in the Bible—at least, I'd be frightened to not believe—and yet it doesn't make me feel a bit better. I don't really want to be good. I want to eat my cake on this earth and have it in heaven as well. All the nicest plums with you, Mike!"
Michael laughed. Millicent was always so frank upon the subject of her own worthlessness.
"We don't know what these people would be like if they had no Koran to curb them," Millicent said. "It may do more than you think. It's a strong bearing-rein."
"That's true. The Egyptians are, I suppose, about the most sensual of all Easterns—the women are considered so, at any rate, by Lane, and he knew them intimately."
Millicent laughed. "I'm sure they are, speaking generally—that's to say, I suppose you meet exceptions here and there, as in all other countries."
"The Prophet had his work cut out," Michael said. "And the world doesn't give him half the credit he deserves. The rules he laid down in the Koran are the only laws a Moslem really observes or reverences. His own soul teaches him nothing; it has been buried far too long by the laws imposed upon it; his superman is non-existent. The natural man blindly obeys the Prophet's teachings in the hope of the material rewards which will be his when he dies. The future life has always meant a great deal to the Egyptian peoples; their existence on earth has since time immemorial only been looked upon as an apprenticeship for the fuller existence. The very fact that their earthly homes, even the Pharaoh's palaces, were only built of sun-baked bricks made of mud, shows that they carried out in practice the saying in the Bible about having no abiding cities here. Their tombs were their lasting cities andtheywere built to endure throughout all eternity."
"Anyhow, they are delightfully picturesque people in their devotions," Millicent said. "I feel almost as pious when I watch a Moslem praying before sunset as I do when a boy's voice is reaching up to heaven in one of our Gothic cathedrals at home. I think I'm at my best then, Mike, only no one is ever present to test me."
Michael knew exactly what Millicent meant. The emotional side of religion excited her senses. She imagined, when she was listening to a boy's treble soaring up into the lofty heights of an English minster, that her soul was soaring with it, that she was deriving spiritual benefit from the service. He could picture her kneeling with folded hands, the polished nails conspicuously bright, and eyes upraised, listening to the boy's clear, pure voice, her whole being in a satisfied sensuous ecstasy.
He knew that this state of ecstasy was about as far as Millicent's religion ever carried her. She was afraid to give up the flesh-pots of this world in case she found life without them too dull to be supportable. She enjoyed her state of being so thoroughly that she had no wish to change it. Her religion and church-going were, she considered, sufficient to ensure her a place in heaven. It was her way of paying her future-life insurance policy, as were her many liberal gifts to charities.
When the halt for lunch came, Michael and Millicent were to all outward appearance good friends. Michael had been considering within himself what attitude he ought to adopt towards her amazing adventure, what face he should try to put upon their meeting. His knowledge of the East told him that it was probably best to leave things alone, for whatever he said Hassan and Abdul would put their own construction on the affair. During their conversation, which had been carried on without the slightest regard for Michael's annoyance at her appearance, his thoughts had been very busy. Their serious talk must come later on, when they halted for lunch.
Among the many things which troubled him, Michael tried to solve the riddle of how Millicent had gained her knowledge of his movements. Freddy's words had come back to him—that the fair Millicent had not come to their camp to learn of his engagement to Margaret! She had come to find out something which was more difficult to discover. Had she seen the servants in the hut and questioned them when she was alone there? Had she bribed Mohammed Ali? How otherwise had she found out all that she wanted to know?
When lunch-time came, Millicent's splendid basket, exquisitely furnished and equipped with everything that could be desired for an appetizing and original lunch, was opened, instead of Michael's, which contained the simple necessities of a desert outfit. They chose their halting place under the shadow of a mighty rock—they were reaching hilly ground. Millicent's outfit included a sun-shelter, which was quickly raised and in incredible shortness of time they were comfortably seated under it, on camp chairs at a camp table. Michael could not help showing his pleasure and admiring the dainty equipment. His child's heart was very easily touched and pleased. Nothing was left undone which could be done to give freshness and daintiness to the scene. A luscious fruit salad looked cool and tempting in a glass bowl, while iced drinks, which had been carried in ingenious Eastern water-coolers, appealed to his parched lips. The galantine of chicken and the selection ofhors d'oeuvrewould not have disgraced the table of the Cataract Hotel at Assuan. Here, indeed, were the flesh-pots of Egypt—la tentation de Saint Antoine.
Millicent noticed Michael's pleasure. It was expressive of his simple, open nature. In such moments he was very lovable.
"Now, isn't this nicer," she said, "than pigging it alone?"
"It's beautiful," he said. "What a wonderful outfit! How clever of you—I feel as if you had a magic wand."
"Hassan's a good man—I left everything to him."
"He's done it A1," Michael said, more coldly. Suddenly he felt annoyed, vexed with himself, for yielding so easily to the pleasures which Millicent had provided, anticipating the enjoyment he would derive from eating all the good things.
After three days' hard travelling in the desert and some days spent in economical living in Luxor, while his arrangements were being made, he was readier than he imagined for a good and delicately-appointed meal. Even at the hut he had never sat down to a lunch such as this. The renaissance of the old Adam astonished him.
The servants had betaken themselves to a sheltered spot; discretion being nine-tenths of a good dragoman's training, Hassan and Abdul saw to it that their master and mistress should not be disturbed, while they themselves remained out of sight, but within call.
"Let's sit down," Millicent said. "I'm starving—the desert turns me into an absolute primitive."
They sat down and while Millicent rid herself of her gloves; and sun-hat and veil, Michael remained lost in thought. How nice it was! As nice as anything could be, if . . . the "if" was subconscious . . . if he had only come on this journey into the desert to enjoy himself, if there was no Margaret. But there was a Margaret, and he adored Margaret, whose dear dark head and trustful eyes were ever present with him they were as present in the shelter as the golden head and the inviting, provoking eyes opposite to him. There never again would be for him a world which held no Margaret, nor could he endure it if there was. And yet her very existence robbed this desert feast of its flavour. He knew that to be loyal and true to Margaret he ought not to be accepting and appreciating the dainty lunch laid before him. He ought not to be eating it with the woman Meg detested.
What if Margaret knew? What if his practical mystic had already had a vision of their meeting? Had some native carried Millicent's plans to meet him to the Valley? Had the birds of the air brought the news to Freddy's ears? Was Margaret now tortured by a vision of this sumptuous desert picnic? Could she see him sitting alone with Millicent in her tent? He knew how mysteriously news travels in the desert, how quickly it journeys. A wave of anger flushed his face as he pictured to himself what Freddy would think of the situation.
His hands trembled as he took Millicent's dust-cloak and hat. She looked extremely pretty in her white muslin dress, which the cloak had hidden. Millicent mistook the meaning of his trembling hands. She had seen men's hands tremble many times.
"Our little home," she said, as she sat down at the table. "My desert dream realized. I'm so happy!"
"Why did you do it?" Michael cried passionately.
Millicent still mistook the nature of his emotion. She leaned across the table. "Don't ask, dearest—just rest and be content. Hand me the sardines, like a dear man."
Michael handed her the sardines. How could he just rest and be content? If he did, he would allow himself to drift into the woman's mood, he would be enjoying himself at the cost of his loyalty to Margaret. He would be drowning "the clear voice" with Moselle cup and smothering it with galantine of chicken and pigeon-pie.
"I want you to promise me," Millicent said, "just to eat this one meal happily with me, eat and forget. For half an hour or more don't ask me any questions and don't scold!" She handed Michael an olive in her fingers. "Open," she said. "They're so good."
Michael opened his mouth, but he took the olive from her fingers into his own.
"Will you do what I ask?" she said. "If you will, I'll promise to listen to you afterwards. Your conscience is an awful bore, Michael."
"I'm an awful bore apart from my conscience. It's simply your impish persistence that makes you desire my society. It can't be anything else."
"Perhaps it is," Millicent said. "All the same, will you promise?"
"Very well," Michael said. "That's a bargain. I promise."
"For this one meal you'll be like you used to be?"
"What was that?" he asked. Her words annoyed him.
"Mine," she said. "Mine and not Margaret Lampton's."
Michael put down his knife and fork and looked straight into the eyes of the woman opposite him.
"I am Margaret Lampton's," he said, "and you'd better know it. I'mMargaret Lampton's, body and soul." He flung her hand away.
Millicent gave a suggestive whistle. "Wh-o-o!" she said, with a low laugh. "So that's it?"
"What do you mean?" he said.
"Nothing—I didn't say anything, did I? Oh, don't let's quarrel—let's enjoy our lunch."
"Very well," he said. "Let's, for time's flying. But it's best for you to know that I'm Margaret's."
"Never mind—lend yourself to me for a few days. Surely she won't mind if we amuse ourselves in the desert?"
"I'm not going to lend myself to you," he said. "What nonsense you talk!You're going back the way you came. You can play with someone else."
"You dear silly, you can't make me!" Millicent laughed at the idea. "Besides, you know you want me all the time, and you've just promised to enjoy this jolly little meal and to lecture me afterwards. I'm not going to be unhappy because you belong to Margaret Lampton."
"So long as you know I do," he said, "I feel I can eat your excellent lunch."
"And if Margaret doesn't know, what can it matter?"
"Oh, Millicent!"
"You know, Mike, it's what's found out that matters. If you enjoy yourself and make me happy for two or three days in the desert and Margaret never knows, what harm could it do?"
"If you can't see the harm for yourself," he said, "I can't show it to you."
"Well, I can't," she said. "But let's talk of something else. Margaret is taboo—she's spoilt half our lunch."
"First tell me how you got here, how you knew of my movements. I spoke of them to no one."
"No, no, that also is taboo—until after lunch."
"What can we talk about?"
Millicent looked at him. Her eyes suggested another topic—themselves."Is that taboo as well!" she said, as Michael's eyes dropped under hers.
"Absolutely," he said.
"Happy idea!" she cried. "The tomb! If we mayn't talk of Margaret or of our two selves or of how I got here, or of whence I came or whither you are going, surely a tomb is a safe topic?"
"Yes," Michael said, "if any topic is safe with you."
"Ah," Millicent said. "That's the nicest thing you've said."
"I didn't mean to be nice. What's nice in that?"
"But you were nice, awfully nice. If there are so many danger-zones to be avoided between us, you don't feel very safe, very sure of yourself. That's triumph number one for Millicent; Margaret's lost one point already."
"I thought Margaret was taboo?"
"Oh, so she was—I beg her pardon!" She sighed. "'One word is too often profaned for me to profane it,' etc." She put her elbows on the table. "Oh, Mike, aren't you an odd darling? I do love teasing you. If you weren't so easily ragged, I wouldn't."
"Do go on with your lunch," he said. "And don't chatter so much. We only have a certain amount of time for lunch and digestion. This pie's delicious."
"Where are we going? When do we go on?" Millicent was not oblivious of the fact that he spoke of their going on as an accepted fact.
"So you don't know? You haven't found out everything?"
"No, I knew enough to bring me to you. That was all I wanted. You can tell me the rest."
Michael was silent.
"My dear man, you needn't tell me if you don't want to, but remember that no secrets are hid from the hand that hathbaksheesh. I found out what I wanted to know; I can find out more."
"I'd rather you found out," he said, "than I told you."
"Right ho! Funny man!"
"Do you want to hear about the tomb, or don't you?"
"Oh, yes, rather!" Millicent's teeth were busy picking the leg of a pigeon. "Tell me everything."
Michael told her everything he could remember, the things which he knew would interest her, the most personal facts relating to the minute examination of the tomb. It was proving a great puzzle to Egyptologists. There were many conflicting theories about it—whether the mummy which was found on the floor beside the effigy of the dead queen was the mummified body of the queen or not. It had been sent away to be carefully examined by experts; the report of the examination had not yet been made known. If it was the body of the queen, why had they endeavoured to cut off the golden wrappings which had been rolled round her body? Why had her name been roughly cut out of the inside of the coffin? Why had this queen, who had been buried with such royal magnificence, been "debarred from all benefits of the earthly prayers of her descendants? Why had she become a nameless outcast, a wanderer unrecognized and unpitied in the vast underworld?" [2]
These questions had not yet been solved. Millicent was excited and interested and Michael enjoyed telling her about it. She was inquisitive and insistent. She wanted to know all about the doings in the camp since her visit to the Valley, and Michael thoroughly enjoyed talking to a sympathetic, intelligent listener. Like all Celts, he had the gift of words.
He was so engrossed that Hassan appeared with their coffee long before he was ready for it or expected it. Noticing his surprise, the man instantly took his cue. He salaamed respectfully in front of Millicent.