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Michael was in blissful ignorance of the fact that the servant whom he had sent back to Freddy Lampton's hut in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, bearing a letter to Margaret, in which he had told her everything that had happened not omitting Millicent's visit and her sudden departure had never even reached Luxor. He had fallen sick by the way and had died of smallpox in a desert village.
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."
If the natives weren't wading knee-deep in jewels, there was probably, as you say, some truth in the report that there were valuable antiques." "I've nothing reliable to go upon," Michael said. "Nothing that a man in his normal senses would pay any attention to that was Lampton's verdict." Again the stranger looked at Michael with calm, searching eyes. "Yet you believe in what you heard?
"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.
Freddy's Ras, or native overseer, was a highly intelligent man, who had a genuine appreciation for antiques he was a clever hand at faking them and did a good business with tourists but at heart even he doubted the sincerity and single-minded purpose of the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, and "Mistrr Lampton's" absolute clean-handedness in the business.
Only yesterday the most experienced of the workmen had struck something hard, something which told him that they had finished with loose sand and broken rocks and had struck the ancient handiwork of man. The site chosen had been a mere conjecture on Freddy Lampton's part, a conjecture guided by scientific knowledge and careful research.
He had never seen Meg so moved as she had been in the tomb. He felt a little relieved that a very human and irritating influence had suddenly thrust itself across her path. Meg was getting too enthralled in Egypt. These thoughts flashed through his mind. "Good old Meg," he said tenderly. "The fighting Lampton's roused, is it?" "Yes," Meg said. "I am roused. She's so insolent, Freddy."
You believed enough to bring you across the desert to find it?" "If you ask Lampton, he'll tell you that I'm not quite in my normal senses that I frequently walk on my head." "Lampton's a sound man." "Well, that's his opinion." "You're a rum chap," the stranger said, as he noticed that a glint of humour had for the moment driven the expression of exhaustion from Michael's eyes.
Before entering the tent, the stranger looked round. "Who's your man? Is he all right?" "He's one of Lampton's men absolutely trustworthy. He's been more than a servant to me for some weeks now." Michael paused, and then said abruptly, "Who told the Government of this site? What do you expect to find?" "Will you first tell me where you got your information? Did you know we were here?"
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.
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