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 his Hijrah, 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 than
Michael'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 be douce 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? The Sitt will accompany us?" Abdul's voice was expressionless, deferential.

"For to-day, at least," Michael said, "the Sitt will 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 the
Valley 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 and they were 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 of hors d'oeuvre would 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'm
Margaret 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 hath baksheesh. 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.

"Ta, Sitt," he said, "will it please you to wait for another hour? The camels are not yet rested, the day is still young."

Millicent looked at Michael. Time really did not matter to him one scrap, yet she dared not hint so. He could just as well look for this phantom treasure a year from now. It was all a mystic's mirage to her, a delightful excuse for a sojourn in the outer desert.

"I'm ready if you are," she said, addressing Mike. Her woman's tact told her the wisdom of putting no hindrance in his way.

"If the Effendi will graciously consent, it would be wiser to remain here for one hour more," Hassan said. "The men are tired, also."

Michael assented. If the beasts and the men were tired, they would wait.
The excuse was not unwelcome. The good meal had relaxed his energies.
Hassan thanked him and silently disappeared.

Michael sipped his coffee; it was perfect. He lit a cigarette, after they had turned their chairs to the open front of the shelter. Presently Millicent slipped down from her chair and sat on the sand in front of the tent; there was more air. Soon Michael did the same.

They had lunched well and were friends. A certain delicious apathy stole over Michael, which kept him from referring to any unpleasant topics. He left alone the subject as to why Millicent had trapped him and forced her company upon him. For the time being she was good and gentle, the reason being that she also was relaxed and inert—the result of a good meal after a strenuous morning on camel-back.

Michael had been riding since dawn. The temptation to let things alone was an unconscious one; he submitted to it.

A great expanse of the desert was before them. Millicent lay curled up, like a golden tortoise-shell cat, in the sun; Michael, with his legs doubled up to his chin, rested his head on his knees. He would have been asleep in a few minutes if Millicent had not spoken; suddenly she said:

"Look! Surely that's my holy man, whose reasoning powers are in heaven?
There, look—far away, over there!"

Michael raised himself and looked to where she pointed. There was nothing to indicate any particular spot in the stretch of sand before them.

"I can just see the tattered rags of his staff. I'm sure it's the same man. Can't you see him?"

Michael looked again. "I can only distinguish something moving in the distance. I can't say what it is, or if it is coming this way."

"Can't you see a thing like a flag fluttering in the air? I can—there, can't you see him now?"

"Yes, now I can," Michael said. He got up from his low seat, his energies fully alert, his drowsiness gone. He held himself in check. It was absurd to appear so interested in a desert-fanatic—or an idiot—coming across their path. They were both common enough occurrences in the East.

Millicent watched his face. Why was he so thrilled, why so interested? Michael's first impulse was to go and meet the man. He was afraid that he would not notice their encampment. He was afraid that he would not come their way. At the same time, he was conscious that if there was any truth in the old man's words, their meeting would come about naturally and not by his seeking. The "child of God" would find him out.

They waited for some time and nothing happened. Michael's hopes abated. The figure with the fluttering rags disappeared. It seemed as if it had vanished into the sands. Michael felt disappointed.

The shelter was taken down and packed up, the lunch-basket refilled and the camels harnessed. Hassan appeared.

"Ya, Sitt, all is ready."

Nothing had been said about Millicent's plans; nothing had been said about how she had contrived to meet Michael; no lecture had been delivered. The subject had been forgotten, forgotten by Michael at least, whose interest had been absorbed in the talk about the tomb and in the glimpse he had of the distant figure. Millicent had not forgotten the promised lecture, but it had been her object to make Michael forget it. She had gladly let the matter rest. Why wake sleeping dogs? She let them lie so undisturbed that not one bark had been heard. They slept so soundly that her heart was full of triumph and amusement when, seated on her camel, she took her place in Michael's cavalcade.

She had managed to get through the starting without his feeling any annoyance at her presence. He had simply forgotten his objection to her accompanying him.

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

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