"There is my dahabeah!"
Desmond stared across the water toward where a vessel showing but few lights lay moored in the stream.
"Your dahabeah?" he said in surprise. "But I thought—"
"That I was one of the Goldberger party?" she suggested. "Oh, no! I have my own dahabeah; but because I was lonely, too, I came, as you came, to the Winter Palace."
"I am grateful to the gods of Egypt!" said Desmond in a low voice. She turned and laid her hand upon his breast again. He clasped his own tightly over the little jewelled fingers, crushing them against his heart, which was beating wildly, tumultuously.
Across the waters of the river of romance there came, faintly, magically, the sound of a throbbing darabukkeh and the wail of a reed pipe — that ancient music which the ages have not changed, and which accompanied the gliding of Cleopatra's golden barge down the mystic Nile to meet the great Roman soldier.
A man's voice — a light baritone, possessing in a marked degree the wild, yearning note peculiar to oriental vocalists — rose upon the night's silence. The song was a ghazal of that sweet-voiced singer of old Shiraz whom men called Chagariab, "the sugar-lipped."
"If a cup of wine is spilled and I have spilled it, what of that?
If ripe, tender lips be crushed and mine have crushed them, be it so!"
Transfixed by something compelling and magnetic in the vibrant tones, Desmond stood, tightly clasping madame's jewelled fingers. The final syllable of the verse died away, to ever diminishing beats of the drum and a softly sustained wailing note of the reed.
"You have Persians among your crew?" he said, and drew his lovely companion closer to him.
"But why?" she whispered, looking up into his eyes. "Do you recognise the words of Hafiz?"
"Perfectly! May I translate?"
Her reply was barely audible.
"If you wish!"
Desmond stooped and kissed her upon the lips.
Desmond always began working the temple at an early hour. His enthusiasm ran higher than ever, but his ideas had taken a strange twist. He began to study his men, to listen to their conversations with a new interest, and to interpret what he saw and what he heard from a different angle.
His excavators laboured with skill and good will; and, once having penetrated the six or eight feet of tightly packed stone which closed the top of the opening, Desmond's task became a mere job of shovelling. Clearly enough, he had blundered upon a shaft opened in very early times, the lower part of which had apparently been filled up with sand. His only fear was that it might prove to be the work of early tomb robbers, and not of those who had hidden the sacred ornaments.
Medinet Habu affords a lively enough scene in the daytime during the Egyptian season, being visited by hundreds of tourists from Luxor. Hence Desmond's early starting of operations. There were many vistors to the temple during the day, and not a few penetrated to the barrier and read the notice posted there. None of them, however, had the necessary official permit to enter the closed Treasure Room of Rameses, and work proceeded without interruption.
Evening came, the labourers departed, and Desmond was left alone — save for the headman, Ali Mahmoud — in the wonder of Egypt's dusk. He watched the pale blue merge into exquisite pink, and the two colours, by some magical transmutation, form that profound violet which defies palette and brush. He became lost in reverie.
Not a sound came to disturb him, save a faint clatter of kitchen utensils from the tent under the ruins, were Ali Mahmoud was preparing dinner. A dog began to howl in the nearby village, but presently ceased. From the Nile, bome upon a slight breeze, came the plaintive note of a boatman's pipe. Presently the breeze died away, and silence claimed the great temple for its own.
Desmond bathed in the extemporised bath which the headman had filled. Then he shaved, changed into his best linen outfit, and dispatched his dinner.
"Ali Mahmoud!" he called, stepping to the tent door.
Out of deepening shadows the tall Egyptian appeared.
"I shall be away for some hours," said Desmond. "Keep a sharp lookouti"
"But you will return before morning?"
There was an odd note of anxiety — almost of reproach — in the man's voice. Desmond felt his cheeks flush.
"Of course I shall return before morning," he answered sharply. " 'For some hours,' I said. The temple ghafir will keep you company."
Ali Mahmoud shook his head.
*That Coptic robber has departed," he replied simply.
"What?" Desmond cried. "Since when?"
"Since the opening to the passage was made-, he has departed each night at dusk."
"Then you have been here alone?"
"It is so."
"He had orders to remain!"
"It is true; but he is an unclean insect and an eater of pork."
"Has he been bribed?"
"How can I say, Desmond Effendi? But I will keep a sharp lookout, as you direct."
Ali Mahmoud saluted with graceful dignity, turned, and walked away.
For a long time Desmond stood looking after the headman, his mind filled with misgivings. From what he had overheard of the men's conversation he had been forced to conclude that superstition was working among them like a virus. The source of the strange rumours passing from man to man he had been unable to trace. He wondered if definite human enmity might not be at the bottom of the trouble. The desertion of the official watchman of the temple was significant.
Clearly, in the circumstances, it was unfair to leave Ali Mahmoud alone on guard. Desmond hesitated. A mental picture uprose before him, and he seemed to hear a soft voice whispering his name:
"Brian!"
"Damn!" he exclaimed.
Then, lighting his pipe, he set off briskly in the direction of the river, where he knew that a small boat awaited him. He would explain the position to madame and return immediately — so he determined.
Yet such is the way of things that more than four hours had elasped when the boat brought Desmond back again to the bank of the Nile. He thought of Ali Mahmoud, and was remorseful. Furthermore, he despised himself.
He set out for the camp at a smart pace, wondering what had taken possession of the village dogs. From near andfar came sounds of dismal howling.
Then, as he passed the village, and came at last in sight of the great ruin, he heard the sharp crack of a rifle.
"Ali Mahmoud!" he exclaimed.
Plunging his hand into his pocket, where latterly he had carried a pistol, he set out running.
"Good God!" he muttered, but never checked his steps.
The pistol was missing 1 Familiar with every foot of the way, he raced on through ebony shadows, making for the excavation. Out of the darkness he ran into the dazzling moonlight that bathed one side of the Treasure Room.
"Ali Mahmoud!" he shouted.
From a cavernous doorway, framed in deep-hewn hieroglyphics, the tall figure stepped out.
"Thank God!" Desmond panted. "I thought—"
He paused, staring at the headman, who carried his rifle, and whose strong, brown face betrayed some suppressed emotion.
"I am here, effendil"
"I heard a shot."
"I fired that shot."
"Why? What did you see?"
Ali Mahmoud extended one of his small brown hands in a characteristic and eloquent gesture.
"Perhaps — hyena," he replied; "but it looked too big."
"It was some animal, then? I mean, it walked on four legs?"
Ali Mahmoud shook his head doubtfully.
"I thought," he answered slowly, "not always on four legs. I thought, sometimes on two. So I challenged. When it did not answer. I fired."