Now, on her lounge-chair in front of the hut, Margaret was resting after their walk. Freddy and Michael were both indoors.

Half an hour or perhaps more might have passed, when suddenly a luminous figure stood in front of her. She had not seen its approach; it was simply there before her, just as if it had taken form out of the desert air.

She recognized that it was the figure of an Egyptian Pharaoh or a high priest—she could not tell which. It wore the short kilt-like garment and the high head-dress, with a serpent's head sticking out from the front of it (the double crown of North and South Egypt, though Margaret did not know it at the time) which had become familiar to her in the pictures of ancient Egyptian kings. She had seen many such figures in her brother's books and in the mural paintings of the tombs.

As Margaret looked with amazement—certainly not fear—at the face of the strange apparition in front of her, she thought that it was the saddest she had ever seen. In the eyes there was a world of suffering and sorrow.

She felt conscious of being awake; the moon and the stars were above her; they surrounded the luminous figure. Her brain struggled for intelligence. Was this the spirit of some great king of Egypt, or of a high priest, or what was it? Was it an optical delusion? If it was a spirit, why had it come to her?

"Tell me who you are," she said. "Do you want anything?" She spoke nervously, not expecting an answer.

"I once ruled over Egypt, and I return to see what my people are doing, if the seed I sowed has borne fruit."

"In this, valley there are no people—it is a valley of the dead."

"My body was brought to my mother's tomb in this valley."

The voice was so sad that Margaret said:

"You are in trouble? You cannot rest? Is that why your spirit has returned to earth?"

"My spirit is with Aton, the master of that which is ordained. I have come to deliver a message; it is for you."

"For me?" Margaret said. "I know nothing at all about Egypt."

"That is not necessary. Aton's love is great and large. It filled the two lands of Egypt; it fills the world to-day."

"But I am ignorant. You think I understand—I don't. . . . I can do nothing."

The sad eyes in the emaciated face, the face of a saint and fanatic, smiled at her fears so tenderly that Margaret's heart was less troubled.

"You can tell the one who is to do my work, the one who knows and loves Aton, Aton—the compassionate, the all-Merciful. Tell him that I bid him take up my work."

"Your work?" Margaret said. "You were a king of ancient Egypt. . . . You speak as if you had worshipped our God . . . there is no one who can do your work . . ." She paused, and then said nervously, "Egypt is different now—it cannot go back."

"Egypt must go on, not back. Nothing is different in the heart of man; your soul is as my soul. Aton liveth for ever in his children. He filleth the two lands of Egypt with his love. I was his messenger."

"But who was Aton?" Margaret said. In her mind she was striving to recall if she had ever heard any references to the worship of one god in Egypt, except by the children of Israel.

"The one who is to do my work will tell you. He has studied my teachings, he understands the love of Aton, whose rays encompass the world."

"Thank you," Margaret said. "I will tell him." She knew instinctively that it was Michael who "understood."

"He knows my work and my desire for the people of Egypt. He knows that my people worship one God, but that they have no love of God in their hearts."

As the figure moved, it became less distinct. Margaret said: "Is that all I am to tell him? Are you going away?" She felt distressed; she knew not why.

"I will return. Give him my message."

"That he is to continue your work in Egypt?"

"That he is to teach my people the love and the goodness of Aton, that his mercy is everlasting."

"Tell me, before you go, who is Aton?"

"You ask, as people asked of a Messenger of God who followed after me in my distant kingdom of Syria. Did He not answer them: 'Who are those that draw us to the Kingdom of Heaven? The fowls of the air, and all the beasts that are under the earth and upon the earth, and the fishes in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.'"

"And will he understand if I tell him your words? I am quite ignorant of your teachings."

"He will understand because he has studied my teachings. He knows how fair of form was the formless Aton, how radiant of colour. He knows that the Kingdom which is Heaven is within us. In loving the world and the beauty of the world which is Aton's he knows my commandments."

As Margaret was about to ask why he had not appeared to Michael himself, for she had no doubt that it was upon him that the mission was laid, the vision disappeared and she was left alone, under the clear skies, gazing out over the valley which lay spread before her, in its eternal stillness. She could hear the sound of her last words vibrating in the air. There was not a sign of any living thing near her; only in the distance she could hear the barking of the jackals, a desert sound to which she had already grown so accustomed as to scarcely notice it.

That she had been wide awake she was convinced; she did not feel as though she had been asleep. As she tried to visualize the vanished figure and to repeat to herself the words, which she must either have imagined or heard, Michael came out and offered her a cigarette.

"Who were you talking to?" he said. "Freddy and I thought we heard your voice."

"Michael," she said eagerly, "what time is it? Have I been asleep?
Have I been here long?"

She spoke anxiously, impatiently.

"How can I tell if you have been asleep?" he said, laughingly. "As to the time, it's about eleven o'clock. Do you often talk in your sleep?"

"Sit down beside me," she said urgently, "and let me tell you what has happened. If I have been asleep, I have dreamed it; if I was awake, I have experienced a very extraordinary thing, the moat extraordinary thing you can imagine!"

Michael threw himself down on the ground at her feet.

"While I was sitting here, and, as I thought, wide awake, thinking over our walk in the Sahara and about your story and enjoying the moon and the stars, quite suddenly a figure appeared. I was awfully startled, and yet not frightened."

"What sort of a figure? One of the house-boys pretending to be a spook?"

"No, no house-boy. If I tell you, don't laugh, for even if it was only a dream—which, of course, it must have been—it was very beautiful and solemn."

Now that Margaret was talking to someone about it, the incredibility of the incident seemed much stronger. "It was probably a dream," she said humbly. "All the same, don't make fun of it."

"I won't laugh," he said. "You know I never laugh at such things. I believe in visions—if you like to call these visitations visions."

"But the odd thing is that the figure was exactly like the picture of an Egyptian Pharaoh—that's why it now seems absurd—only his face was not like the proud, arrogant faces of the Egyptian kings one sees in pictures—fighting kings. It was more like the face of a suffering Christ, the saddest face I ever saw, or ever will see again. Oh, those eyes!" Margaret shivered, and paused.

"Please go on," Michael said. His voice encouraged her.

"I can't remember exactly what he said . . . it's all slipping away. He spoke of some character of which I never heard; he said beautiful things—I wish I could recollect the exact words he used."

"Then he spoke to you?" Michael's voice was low, intense.

"Yes, he spoke. He gave me a message for you."

"For me?" Michael said passionately. "For me? How do you know it was for me?"

Margaret trembled as she spoke. "How do I know it was for you?" She paused. "I do know—or, at least, I never doubted while the figure was here. Now it seems foolish—it must all have been a dream."

"No, go on. I want to hear everything."

"He said I was to tell you that you were to carry on his work in the world, he said that you would understand." She paused. "If it was you, you will understand, because he said you had read his teachings and believed in them. Does that convey anything?"

"Yes, yes. Go on—what else?" Michael's voice trembled with impatience.

"There was one word he used which I have forgotten . . . and it meant everything. I wish I could remember it! It's a name I never heard before."

"Think," Michael said, "do try to think—it may come to you." Margaret noticed that he was trying to hide his excitement; he was more nervous than she was.

"He spoke of someone as God, and said beautiful things about Him . . . this God, of everlasting mercy . . . those were his words. . . . Oh, I remember the name!" she cried. "It was Aton—it seemed to be the name of his God. He spoke of Aton as St. Francis spoke of Christ. Aton was in the birds and fishes and flowers and in the cool streams."

Michael turned round and grasped Margaret's hand. He was trembling with excitement; he could hide it no longer.

"It was Akhnaton! Oh, Meg, how wonderful! Tell me everything . . . the spirit of Akhnaton!"

"But who was Akhnaton? I am in the dark. He said he was Aton's messenger."

"First tell me all you can remember."

Margaret tried to recall everything that the Pharaoh had said to her. His exact words she could not repeat, but their essence she contrived to convey quite clearly to the listening Michael.

"Akhnaton," he kept murmuring. "It must be Akhnaton . . . a message to me through you!"

One sentence she was able to repeat almost word for word. "Who are those that draw us to the Kingdom of Heaven? The fowls of the air and all the beasts that are under the earth and upon the earth, and fishes in the sea, these are they which draw you, and the Kingdom of Heaven is within you."

Michael had unconsciously drawn closer to her as she spoke. She heard him say, with a sigh of intense satisfaction, "His very teachings, Christ's own words!"

"Tell me as exactly as you can what he was like."

Margaret closed her eyes to bring back a picture of the vision, the wonderful figure, luminous and bright.

"His sadness is what I remember most plainly. I had thought that all the Pharaohs were proud, hard warrior kings, with no pity in their hearts. This king's face spoke of the suffering of Christ, of a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His sorrow seemed to be for humanity, for our sins, not the sorrow of a man who had known only personal unhappiness."

Michael said nothing; he was too deeply moved.

"As I told you," Margaret continued, "he had a very strangely-shaped head, more curiously-shaped than I can describe—very long and sloping upwards to the back. He wore a high head-dress which seemed too heavy for his slender neck. Coming from behind it there were bright rays, just like rays of the sun—I have never seen anything like them in any picture . . . oh, it must have been a dream! It all sounds quite absurd." Margaret's trembling voice belied her words.

"Akhnaton!" Michael cried excitedly. "Now there can be no doubt. Oh, Meg!" He had unconsciously been using Freddy's pet-name for her, his hand sought hers sympathetically.

Margaret prized the word "Meg" as it came affectionately from his lips.

"Meg, it is all too wonderful!"

Michael said no more; he had buried his face in his two hands. He would have given his youth to have seen what Margaret had seen.

"Then you don't think it was a dream?"

"How could you have dreamed the very appearance of Akhnaton, or dreamed his personality, when you have never heard of him?"

"I suppose I couldn't," she said. "But was Akhnaton unlike any other
Pharaoh of Egypt?"

"As unlike as St. Francis was to Nero."

A sudden idea came to Margaret. "But," she said, "he spoke to me in English, in my own language. If it was really the spirit of Akhnaton, how could he?"

"Dear Meg, there are more things in divine philosophy than are dreamed of by you or me. In what language did Our Saviour speak to St. Francis, who was an Italian, and to St. Catherine?"

"That is true," Margaret said, in a changed tone. "Will you tell me all about this Pharaoh?"

Michael thought before answering her question, and then he said, "I'd rather not, not yet."

"But why?"

"Because I don't want to put any ideas into your head. All this has come perfectly naturally, and through a modern who was totally ignorant of the message she was conveying. If you were to receive another message, if you ever were to see Akhnaton again, and you knew all about him, it would not be the same thing."

"Oh," Margaret said quickly, "I forgot—he said as he disappeared, 'I will return.'" She gave a deep-drawn sigh and said nervously, "Do you think he will?"

"Will you be afraid? Were you afraid?" Michael's arm had slipped almost round her shoulders. It was a moment when close human contact came very graciously to the girl.

"Afraid? No, he was too gentle, too sad—there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I didn't stop to think of the supernaturalness of the vision—I was much too interested. If it was a ghost, I shall never be afraid of ghosts again."

Michael shivered.

Meg looked at him. She had hurt him; she felt a slight shrinking in his sympathy.

"Don't speak of ghosts, Meg—I hate the term, with all its cheapness and irreverence!"

"Then you believe in visions? You are convinced that I have not dreamed all this?"

"If it had been Freddy who had told me, I should have said that he had been asleep and dreamed it, because he knows all about Akhnaton. We are constantly discussing his character, a character I admire much more than he does. But as it was you who saw him and you who have described him as accurately as if you had his portrait in front of you, I feel certain it was not a dream."

Meg remained silent, while her thoughts worked with a new and amazing rapidity. In Egypt she felt that anything was possible; the supernatural might very soon become natural. And certainly the face which she had seen was so unlike the types of the conventional figures of the Egyptian kings she would have visualized if she had tried her best to picture one from imagination, that she began to wonder if Michael was right in his assumption that she had actually seen and been in communication with the spirit of Akhnaton.

"But why should he have chosen me, this great Pharaoh?" she said.
"Modern me, with no knowledge whatsoever of his kingdom or his beliefs!"

"Ah, why?" Michael said. "Have we ever been told why Mary was chosen to be the Mother of Jesus, the Divine Man Who taught the world what Akhnaton tried to teach his people thirteen hundred years before His coming—that the Kingdom of God is within us? Who can tell the manner or the means by which God works? Not half, or a quarter, of the Christian world knows, Meg, how often God speaks to them through mysterious channels—through spirits, if you like. When people are inspired to do good works, to lead what the material world calls holy lives, God has spoken to them, the God Who is within them, the God Who brought you and me together, Meg, to enjoy this valley. Its emptiness and stillness is full of God. Don't you feel that its beauty and solitude are due to His presence?"

Meg shivered. "I know what you mean."

"Don't be nervous. It is a great privilege, this sense of the divine, this beautiful closeness to God, this cutting off of our material selves, this knowledge of our Kingdom of Heaven within us."

"I am far more earth-tied than you, Mike. I do feel these things, but more feebly, less convincingly. I have never thought much about them. We Lamptons are very practical; all our men have led good, clean, straightforward lives, and our women have not made bad wives and mothers, but I don't think we have been idealists, or very religious. Our sense of honour more than our beliefs has kept us straight."

"Poor, poor Akhnaton!" Michael said. His thoughts had strayed while
Margaret spoke.

"Why do you say 'Poor Akhnaton?' Why was he so sad?"

Michael evaded the question by saying, "We won't speak of this to anyone, if you don't mind. Let it be just between you and me."

Margaret hesitated for a moment. There was something stirring and pleasurable to her emotions in the idea of having a secret with Michael; it was like possessing a part of him all to herself; yet she shrank from keeping back anything from Freddy. Even this dream—if it was only a dream—she would naturally have told to him, because it held such a wonderful idea; it would have interested him. It was interesting from the scientific point of view, the fact that she should have been able to project her unconscious brain into the history which she was going to study and accurately visualize and create for herself the personality and teachings of a Pharaoh of whom she had never heard. If it had been the great Rameses, or any Biblical character who in later years entered into Egyptian history, it would have meant less, for already the personality of the great builder-king of Egypt was known to her, by the frequency with which she had heard the expression "Rameses the Great." But of the heretic Pharaoh she had never heard.

"Do you mind not mentioning it even to your brother?" Mike said. "If he was not in sympathy with my belief that it was not a dream, he might unconsciously affect you—he would probably tell you much that I would rather you didn't know until we find out more."

Margaret gave her promise willingly. Michael's reason seemed to her such a justifiable one that their secret might be kept even from Freddy.

Presently Freddy shouted out, "I'm off to bed, Meg—kick Mike out and go to yours—you've had a long day."

As Mike said good-night, Margaret noticed how strained and grave he was. "Don't look so serious!" She tried to speak lightly. "To-morrow we shall both say that it was all a dream. Fancy an Egyptian Pharaoh rising out of his tomb below the hills to speak to me! I'm not going to think of it any more—I'll send myself to sleep by trying to say the Arabic alphabet backwards."

Michael did not look any the less grave. "He was brought to the valley," he said, "to his mother's tomb, and I don't suppose that I am the first person to receive a message from him—perhaps the first European, but then, I love his teachings. They have not been known very long."

"He said he had come to see what his people were doing. Do you really think he has given this message to others?"

"Why not?—in another manner. These holy men in Egypt who feel compelled to give up their lives to preaching and praying, and who travel from desert-town to desert-town, calling on the people to worship the one and only God—who knows what the manner of their call was, or how God came to them?"

"Then you think that God came to-night, in this valley, in the form of
Akhnaton, to you through me?"

"I certainly do. Akhnaton, like Christ, became divine. We could all be divine if we allowed ourselves to be."

"Good-night," Meg said, for Freddy was shouting again. "It's late, and I'm afraid I am too matter-of-fact and far too materialistic to follow your ideas and beliefs."

"I wish I followed what I believe," Mike said. "On a night like this you can't help believing that God is in the yellow sand and in the blue sky and in the beautiful stillness. He is in you and me and around us. The hills look very holy, don't they? But to-morrow it will be so easy to forget, to take everything for granted, or to behave as if chance had produced God's world." He held her hand for one moment longer than was necessary. "One is so closely in touch with the beauty of God here, Meg. In busy Luxor or Cairo, or in any city, material things are the things that matter. God is forgotten, set aside . . . man's ingenuity is so much more obvious."

"I know," Meg said. "Do you wonder at hermits and saints?" She smiled a beautiful "Good-night."

When she was alone in her room, she opened Maspero's Dawn of Civilization, which Freddy had placed there for her. She turned over its pages idly. "I wonder if I should find anything about Akhnaton here," she said, "or if this is too early history?"

Suddenly she closed the book. "No, I won't—I will keep my promise. I won't read anything about him."

She paused and thought for a few moments: her brain was too active for sleep, her nerves too much on edge, so instead of reading about Akhnaton, who is known in history as Amenhotep IV., the heretic Pharaoh, she knelt down and prayed to his God, beginning with the old familiar words, "Our Father, which art in heaven," for He is the same God yesterday, to-day and for ever, the God of whom Akhnaton said, "He makes the young sheep to dance upon their hind legs, and the birds to flutter in the marshes," and as a modern writer said of Him, "The God of the simple pleasures of life, Whose symbol was the sun's disc, just as it was the symbol of Christianity. There dropped not a sigh from the lips of a babe that the intangible Aton did not hear; no lamb bleated for its mother but the remote Aton hastened to soothe it. He was the living father and mother of all that He had made. He was the Lord of Love. He was the tender nurse who creates the man-child in woman, and soothes him that he may not weep." [1]

This was the God Margaret prayed to, not knowing that it was Aton, the God whom Akhnaton first taught the world to praise, the God for whom Akhnaton thought his kingdom well lost. He was Margaret's God, as He is our God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God Who revealed Himself to His chosen people in the form of Jesus Christ.

One thousand three hundred years elapsed between the mission of Akhnaton and the mission of Jesus Christ. Still another one thousand and nine hundred years were to elapse before the world was to know that there was a king in Egypt, the land of the crocodile-god and the cat-god, Egypt, a very Pantheon of animal-headed gods, to whom God revealed Himself as he revealed Himself to Christ, a God of Love, a God of Tenderness and of Mercy—"The master of that which is ordained."

[1] Weigall's Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt.