I gathered that, according to Thomson's explanation when he turned up in Cairo, he had been wandering about in Arab dress, bearded to the eyes (he was heavily hirsute), in Libya and Egypt for many weeks, still uncertain of his real identity. The fact was (or so Borrodale hinted) that Thomson was seeking news of Lake.
"It is probable," said Borrodale, "that he learned of Lake's illness, and it is possible that he made his way up to Luxor in order to confirm the reported facts. He might have reached Cairo, for instance, just after Lake left. It is even possible, if a little farfetched, that he was watching Lake and Moira. I hesitate to suggest so fantastic a theory, but he may have been one of the party recruited by the ghafir to reopen Schroeder's shaft. The blinding light described by Moira would not be inconsistent with someone suddenly turning on a flashlight — someone concealed behind the central pillar."
While Tom Borrodale had been talking, people had begun to drift onto the formerly deserted terrace, and now, from behind me, I heard a soft calclass="underline" "Coo-ee, Tom!"
Tom Borrodale came to his feet at a jump; his eyes gleamed; his whole rugged face irradiated happiness. I turned and stared at a girl who had just come up the steps. She was well worth staring at: a petite chestnut blonde with that Irish rose complexion which has inspired so many songs, and widely spaced violet eyes. She wore nurse's uniform. A quick intake of breath drew my glance away. Tom Borrodale was grasping his left arm, which evidently pained him.
"Moved my chair too hurriedly," he explained. "Stopped a bit of shrapnel with this arm."
He had also grasped it too hurriedly; for a heavy gold ring which he wore with the bezel concealed had got twisted, and I saw that it was set with a large amethyst scarab.
"You don't know Sheila Asthore, do you?" he asked. "Shei-la, one of my oldest friends has turned up in the nick of time — to act as best man." He turned to me. "We're to be married in three days."
The Treasure of Taia
Brian Desmond recognised that he was no more than a wretched interloper. Almost he regretted his own temerity. Camp life within the precincts of the Temple of Medinet Habu has many drawbacks, but at least one may stand where heaps of precious ingots once gleamed within the treasury of Rames-es in Thebes, the city of the hundred gates; one may share the apartment over the great pylon with bats and creeping things, and, by the light of that same old moon which shone upon golden Pharaoh, watch painted ladies of the royal harem wave flabella before the mighty one, cast flowers at his feet, and receive the reward of his godlike caresses. According to the inscriptions, the queen was never present.
Oft times Desmond had spent his evenings thus, imagining how, in some earlier incarnation, he, too, might have worn the double crown of Egypt.
To-night he felt less godlike. Luxor was crowded, and money could not obtain a room at the Winter Palace Hotel. The German representative of one of Europe's great Jewish families had secured twenty apartments for the accommodation of his dahabeah party. Mr Jacob Goldberger, of Johannesburg, occupied three suites. Others, still more newly rich than Diamond Jake, made Egypt glad with their presence. Only for sentimental reasons had the great M. Pagnon granted Desmond the use of a chamber apparently designed for a hat box, top floor back — at the nominal rate of ninety piastres per day.
What is a distinguished Egyptologist, an MC, a BA, a B Sc, a member of numerous learned societies and one of the oldest families in Ireland, compared with a millionaire banker who is a director of numberless companies and a member of one of the oldest clans in the world? Small fry, indeed — and a beer drinker withal, whose wine bill for the week would not total as much as Jacob Goldberger paid for a single postprandial cigar. One should not expect impossibilities!
Fashionable women of Europe and America moved about him, with black-coated manhood hovering in attendance. Desmond felt uncomfortable — as every public school man, even though he be Irish, and strive how he may to defy the conventionalities, must ever feel when he is conscious of not being "correct." Dress suits are unnecessary in the desert, and Desmond was arrayed in a serviceable outfit of washable linen. He concealed his discomfort, however, for in his secret heart he despised the sheeplike trooping of society equally with the gilded glory of Goldberger, and sought to crush that within him which was allied to the ways of the fold.
He turned to his companion, who sat beside him in the gay-ly lit lounge, and a slight smile disturbed the firm, straight line of his mouth.
Desmond's smile had once been described by an American lady as "worth while." He was one of those grim six-footers, prematurely grey, and straight as a mast. His short moustache was black, however. When he smiled, he revealed his lower teeth — small, even, strong-looking teeth — and his deep-set, rather sinister blue eyes lit up. The stern face became the face of a lovable schoolboy — and a bashful schoolboy, at that. With his fine appearance, his romantic name, and his smile, he was fatal to women; but he didn't seem to know it.
"It is good of you to consent to be with me," he said, in his slow, hesitating fashion; "for, although I am neither distinguished nor wealthy, I dare to be shabby."
Mme. de Medicis dropped the cigarette from her tapered fingers into the little bowl upon the table at her side. Women were there to-night whose reputation for smartness was well deserved, and who, covertly watching madame, knew her to be dressed with a daring yet exquisite tastefulness which they might copy but could never equal. Women were there whom society called beautiful, but their beauty became very ordinary prettiness beside the dazzling loveliness of Desmond's companion.
She wore a gown of Delhi muslin with golden butterflies wrought upon its texture, and over it, as a cloud, floated that wondrous gauze which is known in the East as "the breath of Allah." No newest tenet of Paris was violated in its fashioning; no line of the wearer's exquisite shape was concealed by its softness.
Madame smiled dreamily, protruding one tiny foot cased in a shoe of old gold. Under her curved black lashes her eyes turned momentarily, glancing at Desmond. Those eyes were such as have never been bestowed by the gods upon woman save as a scourge to man. They possessed the hue seen in the eyes of a tigress, yet they could be as voluptuously soft as the shadows of some dim lagoon. Her carmine lips were curved with a high disdain, and, though her hair was black as the ebony pillars of the Hall of the Afreets, her lovely cheeks glowed like the petals of a newborn rose and her velvet skin was as fair as the almond blossom.
"You lack the courage of the soi-disant grand duke," she murmured.
Desmond turned languidly in his chair, fixing his queer, lingering regard upon the speaker.
"You refer to the eccentric royal personage who braves the wrath of Alexandria arrayed in a frock coat fastened by a piece of string? Poor fellow! His estates are confiscated, and he wears a pair of canvas shoes and a straw hat with a crown that permits the genial rays to caress his scalp."
Mme. de Medicis laughed softly.
"But he is so clever an artist!" she said.
Desmond shrugged cynically.
"There you are!" he protested. "An artist and a grand duke — all is forgiven!"
Madame laughed again, adjusting the filmy scarf that caressed her white shoulders as lightly as the amorous cloud which of old enveloped lo, the beauteous.
"You are so English!" she declared. "Oh, no — please forgive me! You are Irish — but so absurdly sensitive! You fly to the Winter Palace because you are weary of the Theban solitude, and here you find yourself more lonely than when you camp in wilderness!"
"But you have taken pity upon me," said Desmond, leaning toward her; "and now wild horses could not drag me back to my camp."