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What a strange sight it presented in the brilliant morning sunshine! To the untutored eye nothing more or less than a vast rubbish-heap of sand and stones and broken rocks, with here and there patches of sparsely-clad natives working away with pickaxes and the tall figure of a white-robed gaphir, standing on a hillock of sand, watching them with unremitting care.
Instantly a white turban appeared and the tall figure of a gaphir came forward, with his signal of office, a long staff carried in the Biblical manner, in his hand. Tall and bearded, in his flowing white robes, he might have been Moses praying apart in the wilderness, pleading for the children of Israel until the anger of the Lord was turned away.
When Michael questioned him if the Sitt, his sister, had remained with him until he left the Valley, the gaphir appeared uncertain; he, personally, had not seen the Sitt, but then he had only come to take up his job the day before Mistrr Lampton had gone away; the Sitt might have been there he did not know.
The gaphir, a splendid man and very reliable, adored his enthusiastic English master, whose good looks and well-bred, unfailing courtesy of speech alone would have made his personality irresistible to the Arab.
In the sunlight their one garment, a blue or white shirt, stood out against the yellow sand as they wound their way in Indian file from the low level of the excavation to the place in the desert where they threw down their burdens. The gaphir led his master a few steps from where the staircase had been excavated the day before and then bade him look own.
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