Part 2 (1/2)

About once in ten days Freddy found it almost necessary to go to a.s.suan or Luxor and there throw himself heart and soul into the festivities of the foreign hotel society. For one night and half a day he played tennis and danced and was young again. These periodical outings and his private hobbies kept his mind and nerves well balanced. At his age it was scarcely healthy for a sport-loving, normal Englishman to spend his days and nights all alone, in the silent valley in the hills, his only companions the mummies of Pharaohs and the bones unearthed from subterranean tombs. But Freddy slept as happily and as soundly with mummies in his room and ancient skulls below his bed as he did in the modern, conventional bedroom of the big hotel at a.s.suan.

Michael had accompanied him to these dances, and Freddy had noticed that on each occasion he was very much engrossed by the company of an Englishwoman of whom he had heard a good deal that was ugly and unpleasant. He had long ago ceased to pay any attention to the scandals which were related to him each season about the English and American women who came to Egypt for the sake of the climate and for its hotel-society--ugly stories, generally greatly exaggerated, but often with a foundation of unsavoury truth in them. The sands of Egypt breed scandals as quickly as the climate degenerates the morals of shallow-minded tourists. But this woman Freddy knew to be as dangerous as she was charming; and he also knew the enthusiastic nature of Michael and how it was temperamental with him to place all women on pedestals and wors.h.i.+p them as pure, high beings, far above mere men.

Fallen idols never shattered his belief; they were simply forgotten.

Since Michael had met the beautiful Mrs. Mervill, Freddy had noticed that he had fits of abstraction, and that instead of working overtime, as was his habit, he was now as prompt as the _fellahin_ to ”down tools” at the precise moment.

Freddy ”had no use” for the woman. His practical mind had summed her up at a glance. But he was afraid that his friend might drift into a very undesirable friends.h.i.+p with her. She would enjoy his simplicity, for he seemed to have been born without guile, while his intellectual fascination was not to be denied. Michael was generous, impetuous and reckless.

”I'm not going to disturb you,” Freddy said. ”We'll meet at lunch.”

”Right-ho!” Michael said. ”I've almost finished.”

”Looks as if you'd blown the thing on to the paper this time,” Freddy said. ”Gad, it's topping!”

Michael said nothing, but he glowed inwardly. A word of enthusiastic praise from Freddy was worth all his morning's toil in the breathless, stuffy tomb-chamber of the Pharaoh whose embalmed remains it contained.

Freddy returned to his hut and flung himself down in a cane lounge-chair in as cool a spot as he could find. He picked up a French novel and lit a cigarette.

Lying there, in his white flannels, reading _Marie Claire_, who would have thought that he was one of the most able Egyptologists of the day, of the younger school, or that he controlled so important a section of the English School of Archaeology in Egypt?

Meanwhile the simple meal was being laid with a neatness and convention which was a striking contrast to the wooden hut and scarcity of furniture in the room. The Arab who was setting the table was a perfect parlourmaid, a product of Freddy's teaching. The only thing Freddy was proud of was his ability to train and make good servants.

Mohammed Ali's table-waiting really pleased him. He thought Meg would approve of him. He was an intelligent lad and proud of his English master, who seemed to think that telling a lie for the sake of being polite or kind was really a sin. In fact, the Effendi was very rarely cross, except when Mohammed forgot and told a lie. Sometimes it was very hard to tell the truth when a lie would, he knew, make his master happy. While he set the table he felt his master's eyes were on him, even though he was reading a love story which was so beautiful that he had seen, or thought he had seen, tears in the eyes of Effendi Amory, when he was reading it the night before.

Teddy was not finding the beautiful story of the Frenchwoman go interesting as Mohammed Ali imagined. He had allowed the days to pa.s.s, with all their engrossing interest, without giving much thought to Margaret's coming or what she would do with herself, or how her presence would affect their daily life.

Now in a few hours she would be with them. This was, in fact, his last meal alone with Mike. He had never bothered about the matter because Meg was such a good sort and so jolly well able to amuse and look after herself. The days had just pa.s.sed, and now she was coming, Meg, who was his best friend in the whole world, Meg who in his eyes had the mind of a boy and the sympathy of a woman.

CHAPTER II

At five o'clock Michael Amory, true to his word, was down at the ferry, awaiting the arrival of Margaret Lampton. The ferry-boat was pulling across the Nile; he would soon be able to distinguish her. In all probability no other Englishwoman would be crossing to the western bank of the river at so late an hour. Tourists who came to visit the Colossi of Memnon, whose song to the dawn never dies, or to ”do” the ruins of the Hundred-Gated city of Thebes, came much earlier in the day.

While the boat was drifting slowly across, Michael's eyes rested lovingly on his surroundings. If the girl was appreciative of Nile scenery, how greatly it must be impressing her!

Boats, like white birds with big crossed wings, flew past him on the pale blue river. Heavy, flat-bottomed barges, coming up from the pottery factories, laden with jars which were to be used for the building of native houses, drifted past, with their well-stacked, squarely-built cargoes piled high like stacks of grain. One barge, with a wide brown sail, was full of fresh green melons. Across the river, on the opposite bank, bands of women, enveloped in black and walking in Indian file on the yellow sands, carrying water-jars on their heads, were wending their way to their mud villages. The gleam of their metal anklets caught the sunlight.

But the ferry-boat was drawing close to the bank; the next minute he would be able to distinguish Freddy's sister, with Abdul in attendance.

The other pa.s.sengers, with native politeness, were already making way for the English Sitt and her servant to go ash.o.r.e.

Michael hurried forward to greet her. Margaret's blue veil hid her features until he was quite close to her.

”I'm Michael Amory, I live with your brother,” Michael said. ”I have come to bring you to his camp. He was too busy, or he would have been here himself--he asked me to apologize to you.”

Margaret's long firm fingers gave Michael's outstretched hand a grateful grasp. Michael, whose sensibilities were very near the surface, lost nothing of the girl's meaning. A feeling of relief soothed his anxiety.

”How awfully kind of you to come!” she said. ”I knew Freddy would be busy, digging up something that was once somebody, four thousand years ago.”

”That's about it,” Michael said. ”As I could be spared and he couldn't, he asked me to look to your arrival and bring you to the camp.”

Abdul had hurried on to see that the donkeys were properly harnessed and all in good order for the long ride across the plain and through the immortal valley.