There the writing became almost indecipherable; many words were quite meaningless; only the end of the last line was distinct:

"To the mistress of his happiness, Aton, the Loving Father, giveth counsel."

When Margaret had finished reading the amazing thing that her hand had written, she was faint and frightened. What had come over her? How could she account for the mysterious thing which had happened?

The state of her nerves prevented her thinking connectedly or sensibly. The meaning of the message scarcely formed any part of her bewilderment; it was the automatic writing itself which disturbed her. It made her very unhappy. She had never heard of anything like it happening to anyone else. She wished that she had only dreamed it; but there the words were, lying on the tablet before her. If she was real, they were real.

It was so long since she had read anything about Akhnaton's Aton-worship that she could not have composed the sentences in exactly the manner of the Pharaoh's writing if she had set herself down in a retired place and tried very hard to remember his style and his language. Here, in this modern and vulgar tea-room, filled with men and youths in khaki and shop-girls in cheap and showy finery, she had suddenly and unconsciously written a thing which had absolutely nothing to do with her thoughts or surroundings.

The girl who brought her coffee and was standing waiting to make out her bill, looked at her sympathically and asked her if she felt ill.

At the sound of her voice, Margaret dragged her thoughts back to the fact that she had been waiting for a cup of coffee.

"No," she said, jerkily. "I am not ill, only a little tired, thank you."

"You're working hard, I suppose? One coffee, threepence," she jotted down. "Are you in a hospital? I wish I was nursing, instead of doing this."

Margaret looked at her blankly for a moment. She wished that she would not talk to her; she felt afraid of her own answers.

"No, I'm not nursing—I'm a pantry-maid in a private convalescent hospital."

"Well, I never!" the girl said; she was not ignorant of Margaret's good breeding. "Do you like the work?"

"It's very like your work, I suppose. I never stop to think about whether I like it or not. Someone has to do it, and I've been given it—every little helps."

"Isn't that splendid?" the girl said. "And I don't suppose you ever worked before?"

"Not in that way," Margaret said. She smiled a queer sort of smile, as her thoughts flew back to her work in the hut, the cleaning and sorting of delicate fragments and amulets which had been made and treasured by a people of whom the girl had probably never even heard, the mascots and art-treasures of a forgotten civilization, which had lasted for thousands of years.

Margaret paid for her coffee, and looked at the clock. She had only a few minutes in which to drink it. She poured in all the cream which she had ordered to cool it, but still it was too hot to drink. While she waited she wondered whether her hand would write anything else if she left it lying on her writing pad. Nervously she took up her pencil and while she tried to sip her coffee, she left her right hand lying on the pad just as it had been before.

Nothing happened. Her hand never moved; she was extremely conscious of her own feelings and expectations.

She looked at the writing on the tablet once more. Yes, it was totally and absolutely unlike her own. She tore off the sheet on which it was written and folded it up and put it safely in her note-case. If she was to drink her coffee, there was no more time for thought.

Hurriedly she left the crowded tea-rooms and started off in the direction of her hospital.

It was well for her that she had to hurry, and that her thoughts for the next few hours had to be given to the carrying-out of everyday things. With practised mind-control she put the incident of the "unseen hand" away from her as far as she could. When it came creeping back again, like leaking water, into the foreground of her thoughts, she fought it splendidly.

Freddy had so extremely disliked her dabbling, as he called it, in occult matters, that for his sake, for his memory, she must not allow herself to be mastered by it. She had scarcely ever allowed herself to think even about her vision in the Valley for this very reason, and had refused to be drawn into the wave of fortune-telling by palmistry and by crystal-gazing and psychic sciences which the war had given birth to in London. The nurses and the staff generally at the hospital spent a great deal of time and money on palmists.

Margaret could honestly say to herself that no one had sought those strange experiences less than she had, no one had been less interested in Spiritualism and black magic, as it used to be called, than she had been—and, indeed, still was. Michael had called her his practical mystic, yet she had never felt herself to be one.

For Freddy's sake she would not encourage this new phase of the super-mind which had suddenly come to her. He had considered spiritualism a dangerous and undesirable study. With only his memory to cling to, she would do nothing which would cause him any trouble. Here again was the Lampton ancestor-worship developing to its fullest.



CHAPTER XX

When Margaret got back to her hospital, she found no time for psychic reflections, for news had come that a fresh consignment of patients was to arrive at the hospital the next morning, and as the number was considerably more than they had expected, or the wards had beds for, it meant that the staff, from the humblest to the highest in command, had plenty of extra work to do.

She did a hundred and one odd jobs which kept her busy until nine o'clock. A V.A.D. whose duty it was to run the lift was ill; she had had to go home, so Margaret took her place until a girl-scout appeared, who was a sister of one of the staff-nurses. The proud girl-scout became lift-boy in her after-school-hours and kept the post until the V.A.D. was well enough to resume her work. During the day the V.A.D.s filled the post between them, taking it in turn.

It was not until all her work was done, and Margaret was alone in her bedroom, with its air of ghostly fashion, that she found it increasingly difficult to drive the incident of the automatic writing from her mind. She did not wish to think of it because of her promise to Freddy. While she had been busy it had never entered her head. Certainly Satan finds some mischief for idle thoughts as well as for idle hands to do. But was it Satan who had sent these thoughts? Was she dabbling in black or in white magic?

She wondered whether, if she looked at the writing once more, and thought over every incident of the strange occurrence which had happened to her, very clearly and thoroughly, it would help her to drive it from her mind, in the same way as saying some haunting lines of a poem over and over again will often drown their insistence in our ears. Certainly she must make an effort to free herself from the obsession of the incident. It was unnerving her.

She took the sheet of paper out of her note-case and read the writing on it aloud, very distinctly and slowly. She said the words thoughtfully, so as to get their precise value. As she read them, she tried her utmost to subdue the increasing nervousness which they produced, a nervousness which she certainly had not in any way experienced when her hand had hurriedly written down the words.

As she read them aloud, she realized with a sudden and astounding clearness their true meaning, which had either escaped her intelligence, or she had been too astonished and interested in her own action to appreciate before. Her first feeling had been one of amazement and interest; now she felt quite convinced that the message had been sent to her to tell her that Michael was at the Front, that she was not to trouble or be afraid, for his safety was in divine hands.

How much or how little her super-senses had understood this fact she could not be certain. Her over-self was an independent factor. Her natural consciousness had certainly not appreciated the news. She had never said the fact to herself, or derived any comfort from it, or questioned it. She had been too overwhelmed by the practical evidence that she was once more in touch with her vision to grasp the real purpose of the message. Its value had been lost upon her, even though it had told her that Michael was fighting, that he was in the war. But was he? That was the question which her natural mind forced upon her. She must take it on faith or reject the whole thing as a fabrication of her own brain.

The writing had told her that the Light of Aton would guard him, that the rays of Aton, which were God's symbol on earth, would encompass him and confound his enemies. To the reasoning, practical Margaret it seemed incredible nonsense, and yet Egypt had taught her that nothing is incredible. She had thought of many solutions of the problem of Michael's disappearance, many answers to her riddle of the sands, but she had, to her conscious knowledge, never once imagined that he would be taking part in this most horrible of all wars. Knowing his views upon the subject of war, the possibility had never entered her mind that he might have volunteered to fight in it. He had said over and over again that Germany's desire for war was a myth, a mere mania which obsessed a certain class of mind; that if such a thing happened it would be the death-blow to the spread of Christianity, and rightly so, for a religion which had done no more for the most scientifically-advanced race in the world was not likely to be adopted by non-Christian races.

And yet the hand had written words which could have no other meaning. She had no friends or relations at the Front. Her first cousins were all too young, and their fathers too old, to fight. Freddy had represented her personal and intimate interest in the army at the Front.

She read the words over and over again, until she knew them by heart, until the strange handwriting which her own pencil had formed had become familiar to her. She knew that she could never have written the words except by some outside power. But what was that power? Had anyone else ever experienced it? Was it known to Spiritualists?

As she asked herself the question, a picture formed itself in her mind of Daniel interpreting "the writing on the wall" to the guests at the feast of Belshazzar. She saw the hand write the three words: Numbered, weighed, divided. She saw the wonder of the King and the curiosity of his friends. God only, who sent the omen, explained it, and all which Daniel under His direction uttered, explaining it, was fulfilled.

Egypt had reconstructed in Margaret's mind the proper proportion of time as applied to the history and evolution of the world's civilization. The deeds and the victories of Cyrus, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, were not mythical deeds because they belonged to a mythical and lost age. In Egypt they had seemed to her legends of a comparatively late date. Darius, the Mede, to whom Biblical authority awards the succession of the kingdom of the vanquished and slain Belshazzar, was removed by almost a thousand years from the world which had known the gentle King, the youthful Pharaoh, who loved not war, and whose God was the Prince of Peace.

As compared to Michael's beloved Akhnaton Belshazzar was a mere modern. Almost one thousand years before the impious King had reigned over Babylon Akhnaton had told the Egyptian people of the unspeakable goodness and loving-kindness of God, he had preached a religion which was to abolish all wars, which was to unite all nations under the banner of universal brotherhood.

The Biblical handwriting on the wall had come into her thoughts for a good purpose. The vision of it had been sent to prove to her that such things had happened in the world before, and that there was no reason to believe that they had not often happened since. God works in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

Her fight against her desire to believe had been solely on Freddy's account. He had so intensely disliked her interest in occultism that for his sake she had struggled faithfully to subdue it. Now she knew that she could no longer ignore the influence which had entered into her life in this strange manner, not understood by her material self. She possessed powers and qualities which with all her heart she wished that she did not possess. She dreaded this last evidence of the mysterious power which had made her very actions subservient to its will.

Yet even as she said the words she was ashamed. If the message had any connection with the figure in her vision, how could she hate it? Instantly the tragic eyes, glowing with the light of divine love, were before her; their reproach and pity made her blush, for in denying her belief in things spiritual, she was surely denying the power of the Holy Spirit in just the same way as Peter had denied and mocked at Jesus for His assumption of divinity.

Believing, with the intuition of her higher self, with her divine mind, whose reasoning powers were in heaven, like the desert child of God—for so the everyday world would say of her if they had known—in the spiritual source of the amazing message, she ceased to question the why or the wherefore of it. She could not treat it as the mere creation of her own overwrought imagination, and yet she would be true to Freddy in the sense that she would do absolutely nothing to get into closer touch with the world behind the veil. She would make no effort to develop her powers.

On that point her conscience was absolutely clear. She had been loyal and true to Freddy; she had left all occultism and mysticism severely alone. And surely never in the world had her mind been farther separated from things Egyptian or occult than on this afternoon, when she had suddenly felt her hand begin to write of its own free will? Of all people in the world, her Aunt Anna was the last who would call up any suggestion of her vision in the Valley, and Freddy would agree that a Lyons' tea-room was amazingly unsuited for such an experience.

She puzzled her brain to find out any reason why this message should have been sent to her at this particular time, why Michael had been thrust so vividly into her life again. Her pride had driven him from her mind until he had at last actually lost his place in her daily thoughts. It would be impossible now not to think of him; she was thinking of him with a beautiful rebirth of her first romantic love.

* * * * * *

Was he, with all his horror of bloodshed and war, in the trenches while she was snug and sleeping in her bed at night? were some mangled and unrecognizable fragments of his body lying on the battle-fields of Flanders? Or, sadder than all, had he, like Freddy, never been in action? Had his life also been a useless sacrifice?

As she asked herself the question, the bright rays of Aton shone round a figure in khaki; she saw Michael clearly and beautifully. He was illuminated by a bright and shining light. Margaret remained motionless and spell-bound. Her visualizing was more than a mere mental reproduction of an imaginary scene. The bright light which surrounded Michael revealed to her how instantly his enemies would quail before him, how terrified and amazed they would be!

In an ecstasy of wonder and surprise Margaret called to him. Her voice broke the spell; her eyes saw nothing, nothing but the shadows and the half-lights shed by her inadequate gas-jet in the large room.

She fell on her knees beside her bed. She must get closer to God, she must feel Him, for there was no human being in whom she could confide. She was terribly alone; her body hungered for arms of sympathy, her mind for understanding ears. The lonely and love-starved will know how she craved to be gathered up and comforted; how she longed to throw off her self-reliance, to let it be lost in a strength which would make her feel like a little child in a giant's arms. As only God knows what is in our hearts, only God understood her unspoken prayer. He was not shocked by its pitiful humanity. That night He permitted the tired V.A.D. to sleep in the strength of His everlasting arms.



CHAPTER XXI

Some few days later a letter arrived for Margaret from Hadassah Ireton. It contained interesting and surprising news. Michael Ireton had been thrown in close contact with one of the excavators who had formed the camp in the hills behind Tel-el-Amarna—they were now both employed in the same Government office in Assiut.

From the excavator Michael Ireton had learned that the secret police had traced the movements of the native who had given the Government the information about the chambers in the hills, and had discovered him. But, as bad luck would have it, he was ill with smallpox and incapable of giving any information. The man had died without recovering consciousness. The excavators had become more and more convinced that he had stolen the treasure, and that it was now resting in its second hiding-place, awaiting, it was to be hoped, its final discovery.

If the man had recovered, his information could no doubt have been bought. To an Eastern a guinea in the hand is worth twenty in the bank.

The reason, Hadassah explained, for the excavators' belief that there had been a hidden treasure, of jewels if not of gold, was the fact that half a mile or more beyond the site of the excavation three uncut jewels of considerable value had been found in the open desert. They had been covered and hidden from sight by the drifting sand, and there they would have lain perhaps for ever but for the stumbling of a tired donkey, which was carrying a native and a huge load of forage to a subterranean village, not very far from the site of the excavation. The disturbing of the sand had exposed the jewels, which caught the sunlight and the sharp eyes of the desert traveller.

He was an old man, exceedingly honest, uncontaminated with the ways of city dwellers, so he took the jewels to the Omdeh's house and asked him if he thought that they were valuable, and if they were, what he should do with them.

The Omdeh (it was the same Omdeh who had so little credited the story of the hidden treasure when he had spoken of it to Michael) was as surprised as he was suspicious. His interest was aroused. Could these fine jewels have been dropped by the thief who had burgled the tomb? These were his thoughts, although Hadassah did not know it.

He at once carried them off to the Government camp in the hills. The excavators pronounced them to be ancient stones of great value.

The other reason for their belief that the treasure had been stolen was the fact that the inner chamber, in which they had found absolutely nothing, had obviously been built with a view to holding objects of great value. It had all the qualities of a royal treasury. The inscription on the wall spoke of it as "the treasure-house of Aton." That no ancient plunderer had entered this chamber, which the heretic King had cut out of the rook under the hills behind his city, was obvious. There had been practically no excavating to be done, in the sense in which Margaret thought of excavating, because the chambers were all in a state of perfect preservation; none of them were blocked up with rubbish. Once the entrance had been opened up—and this had been done by the native who had discovered the site—they met with little difficulty.

The entrance had been so skilfully hidden, that the excavators wondered how it had happened that the ignorant native who gave the information had discovered it (this Hadassah considered extremely interesting and convincing from Michael's point of view) and what had put him on the track of the hidden treasure.

These questions, Hadassah said, her husband had refrained from answering. He considered that the treasure, in its second hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition; the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision and scoffing.

Hadassah ended her letter by congratulating Margaret on the fact that the treasure, whether it was great or small, did exist, that it was an actual fact. The finding of the jewels proved that Michael's theories and occult beliefs were justified. "And after the war you will be able to go with him on his second pilgrimage, for certainly the spirit of Akhnaton has saved the treasure for him. What the world calls chance has preserved the King's legacy from profane hands."

* * * * * *

The letter was written from the Fayyum, where Hadassah was staying with her boy. Her constant visits to this beautiful oasis had wrought great changes in the house in which her cousin Girgis had spent the greater part of his life. Her aunt and cousin had, with native quickness, learned to speak English quite fluently, and Hadassah had, by her tact and sympathy, helped to develop their lives and intellects. The household was scarcely recognizable as the one in which, only a few years ago, she and Nancy had endured a terrible half-hour at afternoon-tea.

Hadassah often wished that Girgis could have seen the development and change which the widening influence of Western ideas had brought about in his old semi-native, semi-European home.

In all things relating to the war it was an ardently pro-English household, which, ever since its outbreak, had become a veritable institution for Coptic war-workers. Veiled figures hurried to it, carrying their knitting, proud and pleased to be imitating the efforts of the European ladies in Egypt, and knit they did from morning until night, with the patience and endurance of the uncomplaining East.

Hadassah's letter greatly disturbed Margaret. If it had only come before Freddy was killed, how she would have gloried in it, how delightful it would have been to tell him that even a scientific body of excavators had come to the conclusion that a treasure had been laid up by the religious fanatic—for that was Freddy's summing-up of Akhnaton—that the seer's vision had again proved true!

But now she had no one to rejoice with. Freddy had been taken from her, and Michael was lost, and there was not a creature in all her world who would care one brass farthing about the strange materializing of Michael's spiritualistic theories. All that she cared most about she had to subdue and crush back. Probably Freddy, in his new life, was understanding and sympathizing, for she knew now with a nervous certainty that the veil is very thin.

Hadassah had said in her letter, when referring to the death of the native, "This sounds as if Millicent's servants had played her false. The police report that she never reached the hills, so whether her dragoman deliberately took her off the track, and allowed one of her servants to go to the hills and secure the treasure, remains a mystery which may never be solved. But one thing is pretty clear—that her cavalcade was never seen in that part of the desert, for, as you know, the drifting sand in Egypt carries information; it conceals and reveals many things undreamed of in our Western philosophy."

As Margaret read these lines she cursed her own stupidity with a bitter curse. If she had used a little more tact and shown less jealous rage, she could have learnt from Millicent all which now so baffled them. She could easily have discovered if she had ever reached the hills.

Margaret was rereading the letter in her off-hours. Her first reading of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to the Iretons. If he really was at the Front, surely he would have told them? But the letter contained no such information.

Her disappointment was, however, drowned in surprise and pride. With one fell swoop the letter had obliterated the passion and obsession of war which had held her in its clutches. It made her forget, for a little time, at least, that such a country as Germany existed. Her mind was again vivified with visions of the desert and the various scenes which Hadassah's letter suggested. Flashing before her eyes was the open desert, the unbroken light, and the stumbling donkey, heavily-laden and meekly submissive, with the gleaming gems, betrayed by the rays of Aton. She could visualize the astonished native fingering them and holding them up to the light; the sunlight, Akhnaton's symbol of divinity, was to bear testimony to the fact that the bright objects which had caught the Arab's eyes were beautiful and rich-hued gems, that they were indeed a portion of the treasure which he had hidden from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up graven images and worshipped false gods.

For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid, Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic, aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her? She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read the letter.

She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was ignorant.

When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarrassment. The meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed. There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had drugged Margaret's senses.

She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.

During the short time which Freddy was at the Front, how different her thoughts had been! His beauty and ability seemed to say to her, as she watched him on that memorable afternoon at the station, "Whom the gods love die young." He seemed to typify to her England's brave and beautiful young whom the war chose for its victims. The wages of the war were England's youth and devotion. She knew that much as Freddy loved his work and enjoyed his life, he would be the last to grudge his death. It was she herself who so ardently wished that he had died in action; that his brains and ability had been given a chance; that he could have done as he would have wished to do, taken a life for a life; that he could avenge in honest warfare the hideous death of his comrades.

This letter from Hadassah made Margaret realize the awful fact that Freddy was dead as nothing else had done, that his death meant that she could never, never again consult him, or speak to him, or hope to hear from him. It was not only a case of patience and the distance of half the world between them; it was a case of never, never again on this earth. She had scarcely known the meaning of death until this starvation for his sympathy revealed itself to her. The awful difference between mere distance and death had escaped her. Hundreds of men were dying, but death was talked of unconvincingly, superficially.

Now, by some strange means, she suddenly saw the years of doing without Freddy stretching out before her. The Valley where his work lay would never see him again. His brains and extraordinary energy were lost to the world; his archaeological work would be taken over by others.

The pent-up tears which Margaret had not shed when she received the news of his death, or during all the busy days which followed it, mingled themselves with the unrestrained weeping which Nature sent to save her overwrought system. She cried uninterruptedly, until the urgency of tears subsided. She dried her eyes and braced herself up. Her weeping had stopped suddenly; it had exhausted itself.

It seemed to her that she could almost hear a voice repeating to her a sentence out of Hadassah's letter. It was strikingly like Hadassah's own voice. "Try to remember that your wonderful brother is still doing his bit. He is working hard, wherever he is—be sure of this, for it is what he would wish."

* * * * * *

Margaret carried this thought in her mind as she returned to her pantry. Hadassah was right. Freddy was working; wherever he was, he was busy, for he could not be happy if he was not working and helping on the cause of the Allies. Freddy had been one of the few enthusiasts in the early days of the war who had never pretended, even to himself, that England's primary object in declaring war against Germany was to avenge the devastation of Belgium. He knew that England had to enter it to save herself and France from a similar devastation.

When she was busy at work again, Margaret said to herself, "Of all the strange things which have happened during the last six months, perhaps the strangest of all is the fact that in all the wide world, the only human being to whom I should dream of applying for help or for sympathy in the things that matter is Hadassah Ireton, Hadassah the Syrian, whose marriage with an Englishman of good family would have so shocked and horrified me not so very long ago!"

A smile of amusement changed the expression of her face. She was thinking of Hadassah as she really was, and of the outcast Hadassah as she would have pictured her. The smile lost itself in the shame with which the memory of her ignorance and prejudice filled her. How well Hadassah and her husband could afford to forget the narrow-mindedness and the conceit of it all!



CHAPTER XXII

And now to return to Michael. During the weary weeks of anxiety and suffering which Margaret spent in Egypt before she sailed for England, Michael lay hovering between life and death in the Omdeh's house near the subterranean village in the Libyan Desert.

Abdul had taken him there when he gathered him up in his strong arms on the eventful evening when he left the excavation-tent in the hills. A violent attack of fever, made more serious and difficult to throw off by the overwrought condition of his nerves, kept Michael a helpless exile in the hands of the hospitable but somewhat ignorant Omdeh and the devoted Abdul.

When the fever was at its height, Michael was very often delirious; in his ramblings he let the discreet Abdul see deep down into the secret hiding-places of his heart. Sometimes he spoke in English, and sometimes in Arabic. Abdul could understand a great deal more English than he could speak, and as Michael often repeated the same things in Arabic—when he thought he was addressing Abdul—he soon found the key to much which, without the Arabic translation and constant reiteration, might have escaped his understanding. Arabs learn a language with extraordinary rapidity; it is no unusual thing to meet a dragoman who can understand three or four languages, and speak a fair smattering of each; the same man is probably unable to read or write in any one of the four. From the deep waters of affliction came strange and terrible revelations, of desires and temptations which the conscious man had not allowed himself to recognize. In his helplessness they leapt forth and proclaimed themselves unmistakably. He innocently betrayed the nature of the woman who had earned Abdul's hatred.

At other times he called upon Margaret and implored her forgiveness, denouncing the woman who had followed him. He cursed her in horrible words. Even Abdul was surprised at their impiety. Once, when Abdul laid his fine fingers on his burning forehead, Michael took his hand eagerly and tried to kiss it. The next instant he rejected it and with the strength of delirium threw it from him and tried to get out of bed.

"That's not Margaret's hand?" he said angrily. "And I want no other woman than Margaret. I have told you that before—I belong to Margaret, I am Margaret's body and soul. I told you that the first time we ate our meal together, even before your white tent went up."

When Abdul managed to subdue his master's fears, he laughed wildly and idiotically. "Of course it is only you, Abdul. I had forgotten. I seem to forget everything . . . I thought that . . ." here his words became incoherent. "I was so tired, Abdul, and you were sitting up in the sky above the horizon . . . so very tired."

Abdul fanned his babbling master and offered him a cooling drink. Michael swallowed it eagerly; his bright eyes gazed pitifully into Abdul's after the last drain was swallowed.

"Don't let the other woman come near me," he pleaded. "She is wearing all Akhnaton's precious stones—they are hung round her neck, her breasts are covered with them. But her skin is so white and tender, the sun is burning it—I must lend her my coat." He laughed horribly. "Mean little beast, Abdul, how frightened she was! The saint gave me the amethyst—it's for Margaret."

Abdul listened to these strange outpourings with the philosophy and trust of a devout Moslem. If Allah willed it, He would let his master recover. He had put the Effendi in his care, and no trouble was anything but a pleasure to him if it brought some sense of ease and comfort to the delirious Michael.

The Omdeh was the very soul of hospitality. He observed the teachings of the Koran in the spirit as well as in the letter. He spoke no English, so he was ignorant of all that Michael's delirious words conveyed to Abdul. On his master's concerns, Abdul was a well of secrecy.

By night and by day he heard him go over the same ground again and again. His life in Egypt for the last few months was expressed in broken sentences and vivid declarations, uttered sometimes with astonishing gravity and lucidity. At times Abdul was deceived into thinking that he was conscious, that his reasoning powers had returned, that he was quite sensible. But he was soon undeceived by a sudden breaking-off in the continuity of the words, or a return to confused, half-meaningless sentences. It was only by the constant repetition that Abdul learned the whole truth. A bit out of one raving fitted into another, and things hard to explain were made clear.

Once he said very gravely, "Hadassah Ireton will help Margaret, the beautiful Hadassah. She is more beautiful than Margaret, Abdul, much more beautiful, but Margaret is the mistress of my happiness."

Abdul answered by saying, "Aiwah, Effendi, she is your guarded lady, she will be the mother of your sons."

"She who sends me to rest with a sweet voice, and with her beautiful hands bearing two sistrums."

Abdul was ignorant of the fact that his master was quoting the words of Akhnaton, as written in the tomb of Ay in reference to his queen. He thought they were his master's own words, and so thinking, his heart was cheered, for Michael's voice was gentle and reasonable. But the hope was suddenly wiped out.

"Are the camels ready, Abdul? We must get away, get away from the woman. It's the only way. And you thought I cared, you came in sorrow to tell me that the little beast had slipped away, just while Margaret was standing among the daffodils. I heard her calling, calling in the breeze. I was in England with Margaret."

Abdul saw that he had been mistaken. His master had never been sensible; he was declaiming again, in his high-pitched, unnatural voice.

"I was a Christian—they wouldn't allow me to see the holy man buried. But he gave me the jewel, the gem precious beyond all rubies. Abdul covered his poor body with quick-lime; he said it would prevent infection. Freddy won't believe it, Margaret, so we won't tell him—he would only laugh. 'A child of God shall lead you'—that is what the old African said. But I never told Freddy; he thinks I stand on my head . . . Abdul! Abdul!" Michael's cry was ringing forlorn. "Do you see the Government flag? It's all up, Abdul, it's all moonshine! We're too late, too late. Freddy will say that Millicent detained me! Is it the fluttering flag of the saint? It was Millicent who saw it in the sunlight."

In despair Abdul recited a sura from the Koran. "The God Who gives a good reward for the good deeds of His creatures, and does not waste anyone's labour."

Michael took up the last words of Abdul's prayer, in the way in which a delirious mind will often carry on a sentence which drifts to the brain.

"Nothing is ever wasted, Freddy—I've told you that over and over again. You say I waste my time. You won't say so, when you see the jewels. The saint kept it in his ear, Abdul—wasn't that clever for a child of God? Look, look, Abdul!" Michael stared into the distance; his eyes became transfixed; he was excited, strong physically. "Millicent's small breasts are so white, so white and fair. Her two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, that feed among the lilies. They are covered with jewels, they catch the sunlight. How beautiful she is! Do you see her, Abdul? She is walking in the air in front of me, all the way, Mohammed Ali's 'golden lady.'"

Abdul applied a wet towel to his master's burning temples. He sank back on his pillow exhausted; his voice became low and feeble.

"The little white tent, it is always calling, calling, its open door is always inviting me. Why does it say, all day long, 'Turn in, my lord, turn in'? But Margaret came to me, she saved me. Listen—can you hear the bells, Abdul? I heard them in the night, they sounded like the bubbling of water. Then peace came, peace, when the woman had sneaked away. Freddy always said I walked on my head, Abdul; he always declared that the whole affair was moonshine, no one in their senses would believe it. I always believe in people who have no sense, for God gives finer senses to people who have no sense. Sense never sees beyond, Abdul."

Often he became very wild; broken sentences would pour from his lips, the foolish, unmeaning ravings of a fevered brain.

After these wild outbursts intervals of exhaustion would set in, in which he would lie in a semi-conscious state of stillness. On one such occasion the stillness was suddenly broken by the solemn recitation, in exactly Abdul's devout tones, of the Mohammedan rosary. When he reached the sixty-third attribute of God, he repeated it with great unction. Then his pious tones suddenly changed to a querulous cry.

"Abdul, why do you go on saying 'O Source of Discovery'? You know that we've discovered nothing, nothing at all. It's all mere moonshine. I wish Abdul would stop—he's sitting in the sky above the horizon, repeating those same silly words over and over again! If I could only get at him . . . but the horizon never gets any nearer." He laughed vulgarly and hoarsely, and then lost the trend of his thoughts. "It was a crimson amethyst—he always kept it in his ear. They buried me, Meg, beside the saint. The sand drifts very quickly, it runs and runs along the surface of the desert, so quickly and silently, like oozing water over a dry river-bed." He gazed wildly at Abdul. "Will you tell my old friend at el-Azhar that I have been dead for a long time? Tell him that the sands drift very quickly. Margaret mustn't cry. The wind is the desert grave-digger. Take your wicked hands away!" Abdul had touched his wrist. "You'll never, never tempt me any more, because I'm dead, I tell you. I was go tired, I got off my camel, and lay down, and you ran away, you little coward. And the sands covered me, and I'm dead, thank God!"

Abdul waited and watched and trusted in Allah. His devotion was complete; he surrendered himself to his master in his material life as completely as he surrendered himself spiritually to his God. And he had his reward, for gradually Michael's youth and splendid constitution asserted themselves; the fever abated—natives have their own wise methods of treating it. There were days when he seemed almost well, far on the way to recovery, but they were often followed by hours of reaction and high delirium. These reactions were familiar to Abdul; they did not depress him. Nevertheless they required time and patience. It was Michael's first attack of fever, and therefore he was able to throw it off more completely than if his system had been undermined by it.

To Abdul his convalescent stage was a time of perfect content. As is often the case with Orientals, he loved his European master with a sentiment and romance which finds no equivalent in Western natures. This sentiment and romance had increased intensely during Michael's illness. Abdul now looked upon him as a personal possession; he had nursed him back to life and health; he was a gift which Allah had placed in his hands. He had no sons of his own, so his master filled the unforgettable void. His conversion to Islam was Abdul's most earnest prayer.

The only cloud in his blue sky was the knowledge that Michael was disappointed and distressed by the fact that he had not, in some manner or other, let the Effendi Lampton know that he was seriously ill. Abdul could not have written himself, for he could neither read nor write English; he always spoke to Michael in Arabic. It was therefore impossible for him to write to the Effendi Lampton, and to the native mind time was of so little account that one day was as good as another. Besides, deep down in his heart there was a pool of jealousy; he wished to nurse his beloved master back to life and health with his own hands. If the Effendi Lampton knew that he was ill, he would come to him or send someone to wait upon him who would rob him of his sweet work. And to do Abdul justice, he did not know if his master would like any stranger, or even the Effendi Lampton himself, to know all the secrets of his heart which his ravings revealed. Michael had so often expressed the wish to Abdul that it should be from his own lips, or from his own letters, that the Effendi Lampton should hear that the harlot had been with them in the desert, and the whole story of their desert journey.

Abdul was quite convinced that his master's letters had not yet been delivered at the hut in the Valley. It did not seem to him a very long time for a letter to take to travel across the desert and the Nile. The carrying of news was a different matter; he had a native's knowledge of how that can be transmitted with great rapidity. A letter belonged to a widely-different means of communication. And so he let the matter rest.

To the hospitable Omdeh he confided nothing. The old man was pleased and delighted to have Michael as his guest. During the patient's rapid recovery, after his first weeks of intermittent convalescence, he was as pleased as a child to be allowed to entertain Michael with all the delights which he had held out before his eyes when he had invited him to spend two or three days with him, before he journeyed to the camp in the hills.

During that time Michael became learned in the points of well-bred gazelles. He saw some native dancers, both male and female, who charmed him with their beauty and their art. And he listened so many times to celebrated A'laleeyeh (professional musicians) that, with the help of the Omdeh, be became familiar with the remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music—its division of tones into thirds. Egyptian musicians consider that the European system of music is deficient in sounds. This small and delicate gradation of sound gives a peculiar softness to the performance of good Arab musicians.

At first Michael was unable to appreciate the excellence of the music he listened to, for the finer and more delicate gradations of tone are difficult to discriminate with exactness; they are seldom heard in the vocal and instrumental music of people who have not made a regular study of the art. But as his ear became more habituated to the style, the more it delighted him. He had seen the rapture on Abdul's face and had heard the exclamations of "God approve thee!" "God preserve thee!" from the Omdeh, many times before the knowledge came to him. He knew that it was his own ignorance, and not the musicians' lack of skill, which was to blame. Until now he had only been familiar with the music of the Nile boatmen and the popular music of the people.

It was delicious, or so Abdul thought, to sit with his master and the Omdeh in the cool garden, under the shade of a fantastic arbour, darkened by the leaves of oleanders and other semi-tropical trees, and there listen to the songs of famous Arab singers, or to the music of the 'ood, or the nay, a picturesque native flute, made out of a reed about half a yard in length, pierced with holes.

Sometimes story-tellers would arrive. One would begin his romance early in the evening and it would not be nearly finished by bed-time, which came late in the hot summer nights. The reciting of it was broken by pleasant intervals for discussions, or for the sipping of sweet syrups and cool native drinks. The romance always left off at a thrilling point; sometimes it took three evenings to finish it.

Abdul lived in a condition of satisfaction only to be expressed by a Moslem mind. As for Michael, he had never imagined that he could feel himself so much at home and so closely in sympathy with purely native life. He began it at the point in his convalescence when nothing mattered; the path of least resistance was the only one which he could take. He continued in it when he no longer desired to resist.

He had received no word from the Valley or from the outer world. He felt that he was cut off and abandoned. Millicent had no doubt taken pains to let Margaret know that she had been with him in the desert, and what could he expect but that Freddy would be justly indignant?

But he was getting better every day. He had had no return of the fever for some time. Whenever he felt fit to travel, he would go to the Valley and see if he could discover anything of Freddy's whereabouts. Of course, he could not stay there during the hot weather, but the guards in charge of the excavation-site might be able to tell him where he was to be found.

It was no difficult matter for Michael to let things drift, and easier for him under the circumstances than it might otherwise have been.

It was only after his complete recovery, and at the end of his long journey with the faithful Abdul back to the Valley, that he realized the utter desolation which faced him.

He had said good-bye with regret and gratitude to the Omdeh, who was every day becoming more concerned about the secret propaganda which was being preached in the desert mosques, and had travelled as quickly as he could, more by train than by camel, back to Luxor. On an afternoon of blistering heat he had crossed the Nile and ridden over the plain of Thebes. He had to rest for a little time under the cliffs which shelter the great temple of Hatshepsu at Der-el-Bahari, before he continued his journey up the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, to the hut in the wrinkles of the hills.

As he rode through the Valley, his thoughts were full of his first meeting with Margaret. He remembered how at a certain point of the desolate track, which winds like a dry river-bed through the Theban hills, she had said, "Does Freddy live here all alone?" and how, when he had assured her that Freddy was well guarded by watch-dogs at night, she had said. "But dogs couldn't keep off this!" For Margaret they had not kept off "this," the spirit of Egypt; nothing can keep off Egypt; its power and mystery defy both time and science.

He remembered her almost childish eagerness, when she first listened to his explanation of Akhnaton's beliefs and teachings. Then her vision of the suffering Pharaoh came back to him, and all her arguments against her super-sense, which told her that she had seen the spirit of the first divinely-inspired man. He visualized her honest eyes and their expression of interest when he had argued with her that God had revealed Himself to mankind in many individuals and in many countries. Surely she could not believe that God had left a single nation without some revelation of Himself, that he had not sent upon all nations the gift of His Spirit by some redeemer?

Margaret had said. "You mean, don't you, that Christ revealed Himself to all nations?"

Michael had rejected her correction, for Christ was but one of God's manifestations of Himself upon earth. There have been others—Buddha was one, so was Mohammed; all great reformers, and those who are inspired with the spirit of truth, and seek to reveal its beauty to mankind, were to Michael God's revelations of Himself upon earth. He gave to China, Confucius, to India, Krishna, and so on. To Palestine he gave Jesus, Whose teachings have lightened the darkness of the Western world.

"You may call them all Christ or Jesus, if you like," he had said. "For they are all imbued with the same Spirit, which is of God. Jesus has become our ideal and example, He it is Whom God chose to teach a doctrine suited to Western minds."

In the heat and stillness of the Valley Michael pondered in his heart over all the arguments and discussions which he had had with Margaret under the star-lit heavens, or in an expanse of blinding sunlight, which left not a shadow as big as a man's hand on the golden sands of the Sahara.

He was living again in the days which preceded his adventures in the Libyan Desert. Abdul was conscious of his master's total absorption in the thoughts which his return to the Valley had called up. For many weeks the heat of the summer sun had made the Valley like a furnace; even now, though the hottest hours of the day were past, it was stifling and almost unendurable. The air scorched Michael's face like the hot air which comes from an oven when its door is opened.

As they drew near to the hut which had once been his home, the loneliness and desolation became more intense. It hurt Michael indescribably; the contrast between the present and the past was horrible. What he had looked upon as his home, and what had meant for him so much activity of mind and body, was now a mere wilderness. It was an inferno of heat and sandhills; even lizards and scorpions sought the shade. Nothing but the dead Pharaohs under the hills remained to tell him that this had been his Eden, where passion-flowers bloomed.

The wooden hut was bolted and barred and closely shuttered.

"Certainly the family are not at home," he said to Abdul, with grim humour. "There's no good looking for Mohammed Ali—he won't greet us with his white teeth and smiling eyes."

They halted. Not a movement or sound disturbed the Pharaonic stillness; not a sign of even insect life caught their searching eyes. Abdul drew a native whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips; its sound travelled and echoed round the hills.

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.

With inimitable dignity he came towards the two riders, who had so suddenly appeared in the Valley. He was the trusted servant of the Excavation Society; his duty it was to patrol the district which surrounded the freshly-opened tomb, the one which Freddy had discovered; his duty it was also to see that no harm came to the hut, to which the Effendi Lampton would return in the autumn.

When Michael asked him for information about the Effendi Lampton, he threw back his head. He had heard nothing from him, or about him, since he had left the Valley and that was in the second week in May. He had gone away in a great hurry, and had left some of the settling of his papers and the packing of his antikas which were in the hut, in charge of the Effendi King. 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.

As the dignified personage seemed to be disinclined to volunteer any information, and he was unable to give Michael a satisfactory answer to the questions he asked him, there was nothing else to do but to let him return to his meditations. Michael supposed that there were native mounted police in the Valley, whom the man could call to his assistance if any trouble arose; they would appear from some sheltered fold in the hills in answer to his signal.

Down the Valley of Death, in which the flames of the inferno seemed to have licked and scorched the dry air ever since the world was created, Michael rode with Abdul at his side. He had turned his back on the hut, for the place thereof knew him no more. Freddy and Margaret had left it; it was as though their presence there had never been. He knew that he had been foolish to hope to find either Freddy or Margaret in the Valley; it was far too late in the season and too hot for any excavating work in Egypt. This he had been conscious of, but in his heart he felt the urging necessity of going to the Valley and proving the fact with his own eyes. Perhaps there was hidden in the back of his mind a hope that some message had been left there for him, that Freddy would have known that even if it was midsummer before his journey was accomplished, he would return there as soon as he could; something would draw him to the scene of their united labour and happiness.

But Freddy's practical mind had not thought of any such folly; he had left the Valley to the sun by day and the stars by night, and had gone like the swallows to a cooler and greener land.

* * * * * *

Michael was compelled to spend that night at Luxor. His urgent desire was to reach Cairo as quickly as possible and discover if the Iretons knew anything of Freddy and Margaret. They were now his one hope. In Luxor the fine European hotels were closed, so he found accommodation in the house of one of Abdul's friends, a clean, well-managed native inn. Luxor in May was without one blot or blemish of foreign life.

The next day he travelled by train to Cairo. The new moon was just appearing in the evening sky when he found himself nearing the Iretons' ancient Mameluke mansion. With the absence of all tourists and European life, the mediaeval city seemed to Michael so Biblical that he would not have been astonished if he had come across the city magistrates, sitting apart in conclave to hear the witnesses of the new moon's appearance and settle the time. He could picture the scientific men in their midst, making their astronomical calculations, and judging whether the testimonies agreed with their calculations. If they did, the president of the assembly proclaimed the new moon by the sound of a trumpet, and set open the gate of Nicanor, the great eastern brazen gate of the temple.

But instead of the trumpet proclaiming the new moon, Michael heard the sonorous cries of the mueddin, calling out the hour of Moslem prayer from the galleries round the tall minarets, which rose from the city like the lotus-headed columns of ancient Egypt. All the large mosques in Cairo are open from daybreak until two hours after sunset. The great university-mosque of el-Azhar would, Michael knew, remain open all night, all but one small portion, the principal place of prayer.

When he reached the Iretons' house, he rang the bell at the door of the outer courtyard. The Nubian who was stretched out on the mastaba behind it did not trouble to rouse himself. Let the fool ring—surely everyone knew that his master and mistress were not living in the city in this weather, when they had a beautiful mansion in the cool oasis to go to?

Michael rang again, but even as he rang his heart was beginning to sink; he knew that no servant would have kept a guest waiting behind the big door if his master was at home; it was his one and only duty to guard it and admit visitors. The second time he rang, he did it so emphatically that the noise vibrated through the courtyard.

A moment later Michael heard a movement. The bar was lifted from its iron hooks, the door was grudgingly opened, and a black face, with thick lips and goggle eyes, was thrust out. In a great many more words than were necessary the Nubian told the anxious Michael that his master and mistress were away from home; they were in the country; the house was closed and would not be opened until October.

When Michael urged him for more particulars, as to the precise address of his master, the effusive Nubian became as close as a sphinx. His duty to his master forbade him giving any information to strangers at the gate; he only retained the post because he could be trusted.

As Michael looked into the deserted courtyard, its sense of romantic isolation was as affecting as the desolation of the Valley had been. It seemed to him as if all his friends were dead, as if he was the sole survivor of his generation and civilization. The native city, bathed in the mystery of the falling night and the secrets of its great age, lay behind him. It, too, was a world which had outlived its civilization, a relic of the Middle Ages, as lonely as his own soul.

Mechanically he bade the Nubian good-night; the half-piastre which he dropped into the pink palm of his black hand brought down blessings on his unbelieving head.

He wandered aimlessly on. He was very tired and absolutely friendless; he had no place or part in the city, whose arteries were throbbing with the prayers and praise of an infinite variety of Oriental peoples, peoples whose countries were separated by oceans and continents, joined in one vast brotherhood in Islam. He felt miserably alone, a homeless and friendless alien.

At the hour which follows sundown Egypt has always new secrets to reveal. On this night of the new moon, the late afterglow of the summer sun spread an opal haze, flame-tinted and milky, over the sin-soiled city of the Caliphs. It descended from the heavens like a veil of righteousness.

Michael had no desire to return to his hotel. He did not know what to do; the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had shattered his last hope. Surely it was ordained? He was to realize that he was reaping the punishment he deserved for his weakness and folly. It was obvious to his tired nerves and hypercritical senses that Margaret had purposely returned to England without leaving any indication of her destination. He would go to Cook's post-office the next morning; that was his last forlorn hope. If there was no letter awaiting him there, he would take his dismissal as final. It had been he himself who had insisted that Margaret should consider herself free.

He knew Freddy's English address, but dared he write to him? He had ignored all his letters and had gone back to England without making any effort to communicate with him. This was certainly his dismissal. And if Margaret had gone also without leaving one word of comfort for him, he must draw the same conclusion from her silence.

Tired out with walking through the narrow streets, he stood on the steps of a small mosque, whose doors were closed. He must think over what he ought to do. As his eyes rested on the Eastern scene before him, a sudden vision of his old friend at el-Azhar came to him. The university-mosque would not be closed, its gate would open and receive him into the Perfection of Peace.

For a few moments the desire to throw himself into the arms of Islam overwhelmed him; it was the way of peace, the way of forgetfulness, the way of self-surrender.

He remembered Abdul's teachings, and how he had often said, "A sort of death comes over the first life, and this state is signified by the word Islam, for Islam brings about death of the passions of the flesh and gives new life to us. This is the true regeneration, and the word of God must be revealed to the person who reaches this stage. This stage is termed 'the meeting of God.'"

Michael imagined that he would find that stage if he went to his old friend at el-Azhar, if he went humbly and asked him to lead him into the way of peace, if he went that very night and confessed to him his own failure to reach the stage which is enjoyed by all devout Moslems. The burning fire which is Islam, the fire which consumes all low desires and gives to men that love for God which knows no bounds, would that be his state, if he surrendered himself intellectually and spiritually to the laws and the teachings of the Koran?

There was nothing in the ethics or the moral code of the Prophet with which he disagreed; the excellence of his teachings as laid down in the Koran was extraordinarily far-reaching and comprehensive. Michael's whole being for the moment was filled with the devotion and abandonment of Islam. Mohammed's mission was to turn the hearts of his people to the worship of the one and only God; his desire, like Akhnaton's, was to throw down the false gods from the altars, and reinstate the simple and undivided worship of the Creator in men's hearts and minds. To Michael, his teachings had always been the teachings of a great and inspired reformer. At that moment, when the spell of Islam was baptizing him, he forgot that Mohammed's God was not the Sweet Singer in the spring-time, or the bright eye of the daisy in June, or the laughter of the babbling brooks. The beauty of God, to the Moslem, consists in His unity, His majesty, His grandeur and His lofty attributes. Michael overlooked the difference. He loved to walk with God in the cornfields, to speak to Him when he visited the lotus-gardens on the Nile. The Moslem succeeds in abandoning himself to God's will, but he fails to enjoy Him in the scent of the hawthorn, or hear His voice in the whisper of the pines.

The Moslem city was pouring into his veins the beauty of its spiritual calm; the hour was kind to its imperfections, its hidden sores were forgotten.

His feet mechanically descended the flights of stone steps which had raised him above the level of the street and had placed him under the shadow of the ancient doorway of the mosque. Without asking himself where he was going, or what he intended to do, he walked in the direction of el-Azhar.

As he threaded his way through the narrow streets, darkness was quickly obliterating the dirt and unsightliness which was visible in the noonday. His mind was vexed with a thousand questions. Why did a Western civilization and the Protestant religion make human beings restless and questioning? Why were they for ever desiring the things which are withheld? Why had his life and his interests suddenly tottered to the ground? Surely it was because he had not learned to put the things of the spirit above things material? If he resigned his will to Islam, would he in return be granted the calm philosophy of a Moslem, who accepts his condition and his disappointments as the unquestionable and far-seeing decree of the Cause of all causes?

Drifting and dreaming, Michael wandered on, the summer heavens above him, the mediaeval city surrounding him. The hot day's work was over; men and women were enjoying in their Oriental fashion the cooler and sweeter air of the late evening. Portly figures of elderly men were descending the high steps which raise the mosque-doors from the level of the street; narrow, two-wheeled carts, of immense length, packed full of black bundles—Egyptian women closely veiled—were taking tired workers back to their homes in the suburbs. Darkness, which falls so quickly and early in the East, even in mid-summer, was bringing relief to sun-tired eyes.

Reaction was affecting Michael very strongly. It had only set in when the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had suddenly opened up a chasm of distrust and doubt before his feet. In his desolate wandering through the city, Margaret seemed very far away. Indeed, he had never felt any assurance of her sympathy and presence since he had recovered from his illness. He had nerved and braced himself to make the supreme effort which he knew would be demanded of him if he was to reach the Valley; he had made it wholly unaided by any subconscious sense of her spiritual presence. His assurance of her unchanged confidence in his devotion had left him. It was to his material, not spiritual, will-power and determination that he owed his victory over the physical exhaustion which he had experienced.

He scarcely thought of Margaret as he wandered on; in his mood of self-pity he felt abandoned. Every minute he was drawing nearer and nearer to the gates of el-Azhar. Unconsciously he desired that when he reached the gate which led into the Court of the Perfection of Peace, it would open, and strong arms would gather him up as they had gathered him up in the Libyan Desert, and drown his restlessness and doubts in their strength; that he might spend his future at rest under the shadow of the Everlasting Arms—The God of Akhnaton, the God of Jesus, the God of Mohammed, His Arms encompass and enfold the world.

At the gates of el-Azhar Michael paused and listened. The praises of Allah, and man's love for Him, went up from a hundred devout voices. The pillared courtyard looked vast and solemn; the soft air of the summer night vibrated with the sonorous chanting of students and professors. The peace of God which passeth all understanding beautified the mediaeval building, which has been for long centuries the centre of culture and learning for the scattered Moslem world. It baptized Michael's fevered soul as the waters of Jordan baptized those who were converts of the forerunner of Jesus. Centuries of meditation and player have left their divine influence on the place.

All sacred enclosures hold the gift of healing. Michael had felt it in the temples of Egypt, in the temples of the Greeks, in the mosques. The things of the spirit remain in them, the thoughts which have been born by communion with the soul.

Impulsively Michael lifted the iron handle of the bell; it hung from a long chain which lay against a square column, one of the two posts at the outer gate. Here was the rest he was seeking, the beauty of divine meditation.

As he lifted the handle and his palm pressed it with the tightening grasp necessary for pulling it, he let it drop. Something made him drop it. He had ardently desired to ring it; it was not the lateness of the hour, or the nervousness which he might well have felt at taking a step which would lead him into fresh perplexity and doubt, which had made him pause. He had dropped it because he was compelled to, and as he dropped it, he knew that he would never again ring it for the same purpose. His super-self had triumphed; it had dominated his actions.

Suddenly the overwhelming significance of the step which he had been about to take so rashly made him tremble and feel apprehensive. He turned round quickly, as if he expected to see the hand which had stayed him. No one was there.

He stood tense, perfectly still, listening. Only the prayers from the courts of Islam came to his ears. Mingled with their solemnity, came with vivid clearness the picture of himself, seated on the marble floor of the courtyard, pretending that he was one in heart and soul with the others. He could see their devotion, their bridled intellects, their impersonal minds, strange peoples of every Oriental nation—black Nubians, pale Arabs, flat-featured Mongolians—all sincere and honest in this one thing at least, their absolute belief in, and surrender to Islam. He saw himself, a Western, with a Western mind; ha saw himself a hypocrite and charlatan. He saw the deadly monotony of the life which only a moment before had seemed the Way of Perfect Peace. His old friend, who had given him such wonderful counsel, would have read into his heart: he would have seen there the vast difference which lay between Michael's sincere beliefs and the beliefs which he was professing.

Resolutely he turned his back on the university-mosque. He would visit his friend at a more suitable hour, and ask him to explain to him some of the things that had happened. He would ask him if he was aware that his desert journey had, in a material sense at least, ended in failure, if his seer's vision had enabled him to discover what had happened to the treasure.

On his way back to the European quarter of Cairo he rested for a short time by the roadside, in a strange little cemetery of poor Moslem tombs. It lay exposed to the turmoil and dust of a rough road, a sun-baked spot in the daytime; at night it was grimly mysterious. The memorial stones—the humbler for the women, of course, the grander ones, with turbans cut in the grey stone, for the men—had sunk into the ground until they stood at strange angles. The rough white stones had become grey with age, and many of them were sadly broken.

A donkey-boy, who had perchance taken some portly Turkish merchant back to his home in the country after his day's work in the city, came hurrying down the hill. It was steep, and loose stones covered the path. When he reached the dilapidated cemetery he pulled up his suffering animal. Michael, from his hidden corner, watched the boy fling himself from the donkey's back; the animal remained motionless, while its rider, in his one garment—a short white shirt, which only reached to the knees of his tanned legs—stepped in amongst the gravestones. Finding the one he sought, he said a short prayer beside it in devout tones, then hastened back to his donkey. When he started down the hill and the tired beast stumbled, he belaboured it with a heavy stick and cursed it. His foul language rang out into the stillness; it echoed among the stones under which lay the bones of his ancestor—or was it, perhaps, the bones of some humble saint, whose favour he was inciting?

The little incident was as illustrative of the effects of Islam as the peace within the courts of el-Azhar.

Michael sat in the cemetery, which had seemed to him to be of no more consequence than a heap of stones by the wayside, awaiting the roadmender's hammer. Yet, with the strange inconsequence of Orientals, it was evidently a sacred spot. It had its pilgrims and its uses. This city cemetery brought to his mind the drifting sand of the open desert, and the ever-increasing mound which Nature was piling up over the bones of the holy man, which lay in an ocean of sweet silence and expanse.



CHAPTER XXIII

Early the next morning Michael again stood at the gate of the university-mosque, but it was a different Michael to the Michael of the night before. The unseen hand which had stopped him when he was about to ring the bell did not have to interfere a second time. He rang it resolutely, thinking calm thoughts, and despising himself for his foolish mood of the night before.

When the gate was opened to him, he passed in and hurried across the blinding brightness of the open courtyard. He made haste to reach the shelter of the colonnade; he was in no drifting humour; he was again asserting his capacity for being practical about the unpractical. He did not even allow himself to dwell on the memories which the scene recalled of the day when he had visited his friend, before he determined to leave the Valley and go into the Libyan Desert.

When he reached the portion of the building where the old African student lived, his steps slackened. What if he was dead? He was an old man for a mid-African, and his physique had been greatly exhausted by continued chastening of the flesh.

When he was well within sight of his cell he saw the lean, gaunt figure of the hermit-student standing inside the iron-barred gate; he was straining his eyes into the distance; he was looking for someone.

When Michael was near enough to address him, which he did in tones of pleasure and respect, the African opened the gate slowly and not without difficulty, his trembling hands thinner and more bloodless even than they had been when Michael had visited him before.

After the proper greetings were exchanged, the African invited Michael to enter, and asked him if he would lend a patient ear to what he had to tell him.

"I am an old man," he said. "I can see the end of this existence—it is not far off. It is well that you have come."

When Michael expressed his sorrow, the tired eyes flashed.

"Do not grieve, my son. When the righteous servant of God sees death face to face, he does not contend with his God—that is to oppose His will, that is not in accordance with total resignation."

Michael said that his grief was for himself, not for his friend; his words were an apology. The old man had seated himself in a humble attitude on the floor in front of Michael; with the never-failing courtesy of an Oriental, he was not forgetful of the etiquette which prescribes for the seating of oneself in the presence of a superior. There is always a position of honour in a native room, and this, even in his cell, the zealot of Islam reserved for his professors and for his honoured guests, if they were his social superiors.

When they were seated and the tired old man had rested for a few moments, he said, in the lengthy and flowery style of Orientals:

"I looked for you, my son; your coming was foretold. I have long and eagerly awaited it."

"Were you watching for me?" Michael asked. "I saw you at the door of your cell. I am glad I came."

"Even as you came, I looked for you. The Lord of Kindness knows the desires of our hearts; He grants all those which in His mercy He deems fit."

"You desired to see me, O my father?"

"Aiwah, for long I have desired it."

A rosary was in his hands; he pulled the beads slowly along the string. Michael had learned to banish impatience in the presence of natives.

"I have been in great tribulation," he said. "Did you know that? I am even yet sorely troubled."

The African answered with his eyes.

"O Lord, give us in our affliction the contentment of mind which may give us patience."

"My peace of mind has gone, O my father. I feel that my feet have strayed far from the way of peace. I came to hear your counsel."

The old man's eyes flamed with the fire of righteousness. "My son," he said, "the Lord has revealed to His dying servant the things which as yet you know not. You speak of peace where there is no peace, for I have seen the Armageddon of God's enemies; I have seen the world washed in the blood of those who know not Islam; I have seen the heathen nations of the earth blind with rage. Why do these nations of the earth so furiously rage together? I tell you, O my son it is because they have not the love of God in their hearts."

Michael was silent. The old man's words conveyed very little to him, for as yet there was no rumour of the war which was breeding in Europe. The internal troubles in Ireland, distressing as they were, were not of a nature to be spoken of with such appalling gravity. The old man's anxiety and sincerity were unmistakable, but what did he mean? While he sat in silence, wondering what the seer had in his mind, Michael saw that his dark eyes were far away. His attitude was that of one who had detached himself from his surroundings; his spirit was immeasurably removed from his material body. Suddenly he spoke.

"Take heed, my son, for everywhere, even unto the ends of the earth I can see bloodshed and suffering, and an agony of evil such as the world has never seen. I can see nations rising against nations, and the blood of kindred spilt by each other's swords, for they know not God."

Michael, not without a feeling of mental irritation, listened to the African's foretelling. It seemed to him the imaginings of a zealot's weakening brain. This war which he foretold was to Michael an impossible thing amongst civilized nations, but he listened patiently to all that he had to say. Blood which was to pour like a river over the Western world, was to be spilt for the cause of Truth; it was to be the punishment and final agony of the unbelievers; war was to spread over the world like a deadly plague. God in His wisdom had willed it, for it was to be a proof that the infidels, who had flourished like the green bay-tree, were at last to suffer the vengeance of God. This war, which he saw as clearly as astrologers see the stars and the moon in the heavens through their scientific instruments, was ordained by Allah, it was the work of His hand, it was His terrible revelation to mankind of the falseness of the doctrines preached by those who called themselves the followers of Christ. For nearly two thousand years they had fed the nations on lies and set up images which were abhorrent to the one and only God. They had, to suit their own doctrines and dogmas, perverted the meaning of the words of Jesus; they had made the name of Christ a byword to all true believers. The sin of hate and the lust for blood, which was to fill the hearts of all Christian countries, was to be a token to all true believers that the teachings of Christians had been vain and fruitless. They had lived without God in their hearts; now even the example of the Prophet Jesus they laughed to scorn.

"God is alone in His personal attributes, He has no partner, He is neither a Son nor a Father, for there is none of His kind."

Knowing the religious fervour of devout Moslems, Michael listened to his warning, but without the interest which he would have felt if he had had the slightest inkling of the agony which was so soon to convulse Europe. He thought that as the African's end was not far off, he was becoming more troubled and desirous for the conversion of the world to Islam. He said to himself, "If he knows nothing about my experience in the desert and my failure to find the treasure, I will give no second thought to this imaginary war of nations." While he listened to his strange and fervent warnings, he determined to find out if he knew what had happened. When the African paused, he said:

"Pray tell me, O my father, if it was known to you the things that befell me in the desert. If not, I have much to tell you."

The African was far away; only his emaciated body was in the cell when Michael spoke; when he drew back his mind to his material presence, he met Michael's questioning eyes; his own were tragic and stricken.

"These things are past, my son, in this new world of despair and suffering there is no place for them. Very often I saw you, very often you were in great trouble, trouble as the world understood trouble in the days of peace. But because of the avarice of ungodly rulers there is sorrow and mourning coming to the world, which will teach men that they knew not the meaning of anguish. In the Armageddon they will understand the suffering of the Prophet Jesus, the Man of Sorrows Who was acquainted with grief."

Michael, convinced that the seer's mind was obsessed with this one idea, accepted the fact philosophically; he shrank from asking him the more personal questions he wished answered. Nevertheless, he was extremely curious to learn if he was ignorant of the result of his expedition.

"Tell me, my father, did you see me securing the great treasure of gold and jewels which I went into the desert to find? Did you know how greatly I have reaped my reward?"

"My son, speak to me of the truth which is in thy heart, not of lies." His angry eyes rebuked Michael. "Stand fast to truth and justice. The men of truth shall find a rich reward—they do not sit in the company of liars."

"I ask your forgiveness, O my father. Truly I spoke not after the fashion of those who have understanding."

"My son, I have seen what I have seen. Your deeds of charity are known to God, His power extends over all things; not a chicken cheeps in the egg-shell but He has created. Your trials and losses are known to Him, they are His ordaining. Because of your weakness and the carnal thoughts and desires which were in your heart, God saw fit to remove the treasure from your sight. Again in the days of peace you must seek it, in the bowels of the earth it is laid up for you."

Michael's heart stood still. Verily the old man had seen, for in his words there were truth and meaning.

"My son, listen to the teachings of the Prophet, God bless his holy name. 'Believing men should restrain their eyes from looking upon strange women, whose sight may excite their carnal passions. Draw not near unto fornication. The word of God restrains the carnal desires of man even from smouldering in secret.'"

"You know, O my father, that I sought not the presence of the strange woman in my camp?"

"My son, through the grace of Allah I have seen. Your temptation was great, your charity was acceptable in God's sight. He knows that many unbelievers look towards Him, but do not see Him."

"And what now is thy counsel, O my father?"

The African shook his head. "Prayer, my son, that is my counsel. The world has much need of prayer. Pray that through Allah's guidance all nations of the earth may learn how to live peacefully one with another. I can see nothing further; that is my counsel: Work and pray. I can give you no assurance, but Allah granting, I will pray without ceasing. You must humbly submit to the will of Allah. This I give you as my counsel. You took the great journey; your heart is still filled with the eagerness of youth, with the vanity of earthly ambition. But all these things will be purged from your heart, your bowels of compassion will yearn for the mothers of sons, who weep for their sons because they are not. Your journey was not in vain. If your fingers have not yet touched the treasure which you sought, if your desires have strayed from the path of righteousness, if you have not always stood in the Light, there is a new treasure laid up in your heart, my son, the treasure of meekness. Meekness is one of the moral conditions of the Koran, and the servants of the All-Merciful are those who walk meekly upon earth. This treasure has been revealed to you, you have learned many strange and wonderful things, a spiritual treasure has been bestowed upon you which is of greater richness than the gold and the jewels which you sought. You dreamed not of man's weakness, O my son, you relied upon your own strength. Allah has chosen His own method of revealing to you the manner of man's carnal nature."

Michael remained lost in thought while the old man finished his counsel by reciting a beautiful sura from the Koran. In his mind there had been gathering the conviction that there was more truth than he had at first imagined in his daring prophecy, in his foretelling of the calamity which was to befall all Christian countries. He had been perfectly accurate on the subject of his own journey, that it had not been successful in regard to the treasure of Akhnaton. He had seen with extraordinary clearness all which had happened, even to the reading of his heart. It was unnecessary for Michael to tell him in words all that he had gone through, for the African was tired, and his eyes had seen. There was just one thing he had been craving to ask him about; it had been glowing at the back of his mind like a light from a sacred lamp. That precious thing was Margaret. Had this mid-African, whose feet were bending to the open grave, any seer's knowledge which would assist him?

"I would ask you yet one more question, O my father. Of my dear friends, whom I left in Upper Egypt when I journeyed into the desert—have you counsel regarding them which will ease the anxiety I feel?"

The old man's eyes flashed brightly. He had forgotten; his voice was expressive of human sympathy. "Your guarded lady, insha Allah, the future mother of your sons, she was never far from you, she it was who many times comforted you. Often have I seen her spiritual presence very close to you."

"Your words are the truth, O my father. When the weakness of man's nature overwhelmed me, she came to me in the desert."

"Spiritually you embraced her, my son; Allah, in His perfect understanding, granted you this great comfort."

"I have not heard from her, my father, nor has her spiritual presence been close to me for many weeks. My heart is desolate."

"Pray for fortitude, my son, that moral condition which enables us to meet danger and endure pain with calmness." As he said the last words, his eyes looked into the future; his expression became agonized. "Fortitude," he repeated the word slowly and deliberately, "fortitude—you must pray for it without ceasing, for without it you cannot face the future."

"You do not explain, O my father, why I do not see or hear anything from those who love me."

Michael had seen by the visionary's expression that his thoughts were again obsessed with the Armageddon he had visualized.

The African shook his head. "Some things I may not see, O my son, Allah withholds them from my imperfect human understanding. It is only by His ordaining that I can see what I see. If your heart is clean and worthy, my son, doubt not the faithfulness and steadfastness of the woman to whom you are spiritually united. She raises not her eyes to strange men; if by your own weakness you have lost your spiritual connection with her, then hasten to act worthily of her. The world will have need of all those who have the love of God in their hearts, of all those who have the moral quality of forgiveness and sympathy. It is an easy matter to forgive those whom we love. Go you forth into battle and learn to forgive those whom you hate. Never have your opportunities been greater."

As his last words were uttered, with extreme earnestness, through the colonnade and courtyard of the ancient building came the midday call to prayer; it was sonorous and prolonged.

Michael rose hastily from his low seat. The aged student did not detain him. Their farewell was comparatively brief, owing to the mueddin's harmonious and sonorous chanting of the adan.

"I will return," Michael said. "I will not leave Egypt without saying farewell to you, O my father, and asking for thy blessing."

"Insha Allah (if God wills), my son. Very soon God will permit His servant to enjoy the blessings of paradise."

"It will not be many days before I go to England."

"Aiwah, the time draws near when each man will return to the land which gave him birth. The Lord of Battles has decreed it, the Lord of Battles will send forth His summons. From the uttermost ends of the earth all those who have denied Him, all those who have denied that He is God beside Whom there is none other to be worshipped, they will answer to the call: with pride in their hearts they will slaughter those who should be their brethren. The voice of the slain will travel even as the wind travels to the world's end. Woe unto those nations who have taught false doctrines, who have stretched out their hands to oppress the widows and the helpless, for the anger of the God of Battles is turned against them. He knows everything, and nothing lies hidden from His sight."

Michael made no answer. His mind was groping after the true understanding of all that the African said.

"If Allah had so willed it, my son, great would have been my happiness, my rejoicing, to see the final triumph of Islam, to see the nations upon the earth loving each other, all borders and barriers broken down, to see the love of God ruling all men and all countries. When men live with the image of the true God in their hearts, there will be no dividing barriers. True patriots will be the obedient children of God, the banner of Islam the universal banner of mankind. Farewell, my son, God be with you."

His gate was shut behind Michael; the lean figure hastened to obey the call to prayer.

As Michael hurried to the outer gate and crossed the thronged courts of el-Azhar, he meditated on the old man's words. What did they mean? What had his eyes seen? Locked away in his obscure cell in the centre of the Moslem university-mosque, how could he know what was going to happen in the great countries of Europe? He would find it difficult, no doubt, to assign to England her correct position on the map. And yet his warnings were strangely intense. Had they any connection with the tales of political sedition of which the Omdeh had so often spoken? Nothing belonging to the present seemed to matter to him now; his thoughts and visualizing were riveted on the agony of the world which he foretold. His prayers were for this new agony and world-wide disaster which had been revealed to him.

It was strangely perplexing. Michael felt great pity for him, that his last few weeks on earth should be so saddened; even though he was convinced that this agony was to be for the final triumph of Islam, it was tearing at his bowels of compassion. His gentle nature was suffering for the children whom Allah now saw fit to punish.



PART III

CHAPTER I

The war was six months old and Margaret was still a pantry-maid in the private hospital in St. Alphege's Square. She was to be promoted to the wards in a few weeks' time, to fill the place of a V.A.D. who was going out to France. Before taking up her more interesting work, she had been granted a fortnight's leave; the exacting matron realized that the willing horse which works its hardest is one which will eventually collapse under its burden.

Margaret was now visiting an aunt in a northern town, drinking in the keen air of the winter hills and the resin of the pine-woods. She was conscientiously building up her tired system, fitting herself for fresh endeavours; she considered that her brief holiday had been given her for this purpose. Her health and capacity for work were the two assets which she could give to the war; it was as much a matter of duty to nurse that capital and increase it as it was the duty of the engineers on a ship to keep the driving power of the vessel in perfect order.

During her holiday the only form of war-work which she allowed herself to do, except the mechanical one of knitting, was to help at a railway-station canteen, which supplied free meals to all the soldiers and sailors who passed through. The aunt whom she was visiting had the entire responsibility for the free-refreshment-room for one of the shifts for two nights in the week; her shift began at six and ended at nine o'clock. Punctually at nine o'clock another member of the canteen, or "barrow-fund," as it was called, took the responsibility off her hands and kept it until two-thirty a.m. Margaret's aunt asked her to take the place of a helper who had suddenly been telegraphed for to see a wounded brother; who had just arrived at a hospital in Edinburgh.

At the large station, a very important junction, the third-class ladies' waiting-room had been given over to this energetic body of women war-workers, who had converted it into an attractive refreshment-room. Margaret was established behind the buffet in her V.A.D.'s uniform. The wide counter in front of her was covered with cups and plates, piled high with tempting sandwiches and bread and butter, cakes and scones; immense urns, full to the brim with steaming coffee and tea, gleamed brightly on a wide shelf behind her. Everything was in readiness, and there were a few minutes to spare before the first train was due, which would bring a bevy of hungry men into the hospitable room. Margaret used those few minutes to make a tour of inspection; she had to see that plenty of post-cards and writing materials were in evidence on the centre table, that the illustrated papers were conspicuously displayed. The barrow, or the moving refreshment buffet, was already out on the platform; it served the men who had no time to leave their carriages. It was winter, so flowers were scarce, but hardly a night passed but there was a fresh bouquet on the counter and table. The owners of large country-houses saw to that. The dominoes and draught-boards had been forgotten; Margaret put them on the table in the centre of the room. And then, satisfied that all was right, she took up her position again behind the counter. She was to be responsible for the serving of the tea and coffee; the men helped themselves to the contents of the plates. Her aunt attended to the tea and coffee urns, keeping them replenished and their contents in good condition. Margaret's was distinctly the pleasanter work of the two.