There was a King in Egypt. Norma Lorimer
a girl, comical as it had been, had forced before his eyes another face and another form which he had been striving to forget. Whenever he was idle, and too often when he was busy over some piece of work which ought to have engrossed his entire thoughts, her haunting charm and beauty would suddenly become more real and vivid than the bright blues and greens and reds of the pigments on the white walls of the tomb upon which he was at work. With well-practised mind-control he had learned to pull down a blind on her vision, to blot it out from his thoughts. On this morning, when he was hurrying through his dressing so as to be in time for breakfast, always a matter of difficulty with him, even though he had many hours in which to put on his few clothes, he shrank from thinking about the arrival of the girl who was coming to live with her brother in this strange valley, which had been the underground cemetery for countless centuries of the tomb-builders of Egypt.
When he was almost dressed and the sun was high in the heavens and its power was beginning to warm the night-chilled valley, a stone was flung into his tent. "Come out, you lazy beggar! The coffee's getting cold."
It was Lampton's voice and Lampton's nicety of aim. He had not been up since dawn; his boy had only brought him his cup of early tea half an hour ago, yet he was bathed and shaved and as neatly dressed as the most fastidious woman could desire.
"Right-ho!" Michael shouted back. "Don't wait for me."
"I should jolly well think I won't! Who'd be such an ass?" There was the best of human fellowship in Freddy's voice, but he knew his friend too well to risk the chance of spoiling his coffee by waiting for him.
After stretching out his arms and opening his lungs to the fresh dry air of the newborn day, Freddy turned into the dining-room. The mess-room and common sitting-room of the camp was in a wooden hut. Lampton's bedroom was at the back of it, as was also the one which had been set apart for his sister; it by right belonged to the Overseer-General and Controller of the Excavations and Monuments of Upper Egypt. Margaret Lampton was to use it and her brother was to evacuate his room when the overseer announced that he was coming to pay one of his visits of inspection to the camp.
Michael Amory lived in a tent, as did one or two other Englishmen who in busy and prosperous years helped in the work of excavating. At the present moment they were slack, which meant that funds were low and there was no fine work to be done which necessitated the individual spade and pick work of European Egyptologists. A new site was being cleared, so that the work had consisted for some time of the first clearing away of sand and stones and the debris which had collected during the thousands of years that had passed since the tomb which Freddy hoped to discover had been carved in the bowels of the earth, and the Pharaoh had been laid to rest in it. At such times there was little work for experts to do, so the camp shrank and left Lampton, who was the head of it, and one of England's finest Egyptologists, alone with his native workmen.
He had allowed his old Oxford chum, Michael Amory, to join him on condition that he put in so many hours' work every day in connection with the excavations. Michael's stipulated work, the work which he had undertaken to do, was the making of exact copies of the mural paintings and decorations, such as Lampton required, and to help in the evenings to clean and sort and arrange the small objects which the workmen found each day. In the debris they often found amulets and small earthenware vases and minute pieces of broken pottery, the very smallest of which suggested theories as regards the period and history of the monument. The texture of the glaze used, or the nature of the pottery itself, the small remnant of decoration on them, or the trademark on the broken base of a vase, all were valuable links in the chain of history which is unfolding itself to the eager eyes of Egyptian exploration schools.
When Michael at last appeared, Freddy looked up from his bacon and eggs. "I say, Margaret comes to-night."
"Yes, I know."
Freddy raised his blue eyes and gave Michael one of his quick glances.
"Remembered, did you?"
"Yes—the fact suddenly came into my head when I was shaving. I say, what are you going to do with her? Won't she be awfully bored?"
"Margaret doesn't know what the word bored means. Give her enough freedom and lots of sunshine—that's all she wants."
"Sounds the right sort."'
"One of the best—old Margaret's all right!"
"Is she like you in appearance?"
"Good Lord, no!"
Michael's enthusiasm was damped. He wanted her to be like Freddy, to have his short, straight nose and his strong rounded chin and beautiful mouth. For his looks were wasted on a man; Michael wanted to see them repeated and softened in a girl. As his eyes rested contemplatingly on his companion's bent head and youthfully-lean figure, he began to visualize a very plain, dowdy sister. The "Good Lord, no!" probably meant that although Freddy was not the least vain of his own extraordinary good looks, he could not help exclaiming at the idea of his dowdy sister being considered like him.
Michael had never seen her, because Freddy and Margaret had been left orphans when they were little children. They had been adopted by different relatives, so that Michael had never had the opportunity of meeting his friend's sister while they were together at Oxford or when he visited Freddy in his uncle's home.
"Pass the marmalade!" said Freddy. "And I say, old chap, I wish you'd go and meet Margaret!"
Their eyes met as Michael handed him the marmalade, which was the one thing in the world which Lampton said he could not live without.
"Meet your sister?" Michael said. "I will, if you can't, but where?—and won't she expect you?"
"She ought to be on the ferry at five o'clock—I've made all the other arrangements, but I do wish you would meet her there and bring her up the valley. I simply can't, and Margaret knows that she is only allowed to come here on condition that her visit makes no earthly difference to my work. I daren't leave the men alone to-day—there's too much lying about. We are getting pretty 'hot' and they know it."
Michael looked up eagerly. "By Jove, is that so?"
"Getting hot" was expressive of getting close to a find. It was the old saying which they had used as children when they played hide-and-seek.
"Yes, I think we are on the right track and I want to get ahead, so if you will go down to the ferry and fetch her up here I'll be awfully obliged to you."
"Right you are, old chap. I'll be there at five o'clock, and if she's not punctual I'll do a bit of sketching. You're sure everything else will be all right?"
"I don't think she'll be late, because she is to be in Luxor by eleven o'clock. She is to rest there until it gets cooler and Abdul is to bring her over the river from the hotel. The donkeys will be at the ferry to meet her. Mohammed is very anxious for her to ride his camel" (Mohammed was the sheikh of the district); "he thinks it more proper and fitting for my sister to make her entry into his district on a camel, but I don't feel certain that Margaret would appreciate the honour. He is keen to 'do her proud.'"
"Good old Mohammed!" Michael said. "He has a great sense of dignity and convention."
"And of hospitality," Lampton said. "He never forgets that as the sheikh of the district he is its host as well."
That was all that was said about Margaret's arrival. The two men lapsed into silence until breakfast was over. If they had been two women discussing the coming of a man in their midst, there might have been more to say on the subject. In silence Freddy lit his cigarette and wandered into Margaret's room. It was as bare and plainly furnished as a convent cell or a room in a small log-hut in a frontier-camp in Canada—just the necessary bed and table, a washstand and one chair. It was scrupulously clean, and the white mosquito-curtain, which was suspended from the roof and dropped over the little iron bed like a bride's veil, gave the room a pleasant virginal atmosphere.
Freddy came back to the sitting-room, evidently satisfied. His quick eye had noticed that the "boy" had carried out his orders.
"Meg's an awful girl for books," he said, as he carried off a