Not a footfall could be heard; the very insects were still.
Deliberately, putting forth a conscious effort, he took the six remaining paces to the corner of the temple enclosure. No living thing was visible. Again a horrific tingling crept all over his skin and into his scalp. The opinions of the unknown stretched over him, and he stood in the shadow of fear.
"Is any one there?" he cried.
He shrank from the sound of his own voice, for it had a sinister and unfamiliar ring. The voice of the Thebaid answered him — the voice of the silence where altars were, of the valley where queens lie buried.
Panic threatened him, but he grimly attacked the ghostly menace, and conquered. His natural courage returning, he paced slowly forward along the silvery road that stretched to the gorge in the mountain. He stopped.
"My God!" he cried aloud. "What is the matter with me? What does it all mean?"
The moon-bathed landscape was swimming around him. A deadly nausea asserted itself. He had never swooned in his life, but he knew that he was about to do so now. He turned, and began to stagger back to the tent.
Music aroused him — a dim chanting. Wearily he opened his eyes. Reflection was difficult, memory defied him; but he seemed to recall that at some time he had returned to the tent.
Yet he found himself in the temple!
That it was the Temple of Medinet Habu in which he stood, he was assured, although, magically, its character had changed. Yes — this was the Treasure Room, the scene of his excavation; but it was intact! The roof had been replaced. The apartment was filled with ancient Egyptian furniture. The air was heavy with a strange scent.
He was crouching like a spy, concealed behind a sort of screen. It was of carven wood, not unlike the mushrebiyeh screens of later Arab days; and through its many interstices he had a perfect view of the apartment.
Two women and a Nubian eunuch were in the room. The women were dressed as Desmond had never seen living women attired in his life; yet he knew and recognised every ornament, every garment. The exquisite enamel jewellery, the scanty robes upon their slender ivory bodies, belonged to the Eighteenth Dynasty!
One, the small and more slender of the two, was of royal blood. This he knew by her dress. She spoke urgently to the other, whose face Desmond had not seen.
"Be quick, Uarda! I distrust him! Even now he may be spying upon us!"
The woman addressed turned — and he beheld Mme. de Medicis!
"Give me the casket!" she said.
The first speaker took up a beautifully carven box of ebony and ivory, and placed it in the hands of the woman whom she had addressed as Uarda. Perhaps the judgment of Paris, the immortal shepherd, might have awarded the golden apple to the royal lady; but in the eyes of Desmond, watching, half stupefied, the movements of these two lovely Egyptians, incon-testably the fairer was she whom he knew, in life, as Mme. de Medicis. He watched her greedily.
Somewhere in the great temple palace voices were chanting, sweetly.
The Nubian took the casket from the hands of Uarda and descended into a pit revealed by the displacement of a massive couch. Desmond, watching the women as they bent anxiously over the cavity, fell forward.
"Desmond Effendi!"
Desmond raised himself. Alt Mahmoud was supporting him.
He looked out from the tent to where rosy morn tinted the rugged lines of Medinet Habu.
"Effendi! I warned you! I warned you! And now you are stricken with fever!"
Desmond got to his feet. Clutching the tall Egyptian, he stood swaying for a moment, striving — wildly, at first, but with ever increasing self-control — to assemble the facts — the real facts — of the night.
Fever? No! In a flash of intuition the truth came to him. While he and Alt Mahmoud laboured through the previous day, some one — some one — had found and doctored his whisky. Even now he could recall the queer tang of it, which, in the tumult of mind that had been his at the time, he had ignored.
He had been drugged! But his dream — his dream of the Princess Taia and of her confidante? His strength was returning with his clarity of mind. He shook off the supporting arm of AJi Mahmoud. He uttered a loud cry, and went staggering madly through the mighty courts of the temple.
His excavation below the floor of the sanctuary had been completed during the night. It opened, as he had conjectured, into a small square chamber — which was empty! * * *
Paul van Kuyper stepped from the small boat to the deck of the dahabeah, bowing low to his beautiful hostess. Even in the desert. Mynheer van Kuyper contrived to preserve the manners, and, in a modified degree, the costume, of a fashionable boulevard lounger. As he stood there in the blaze of noonday sun, he was as truly representative of one school of archaeology as Brian Desmond, working barefoot with his Arabs at Medinet Habu, was representative of another.
Van Kuyper's brown eyes flamed with admiration as he bent over the little white hand of Mme. de Medicis. She was seemingly unaffected by the great heat; she looked as cool as a morning rose. Hers were the toilet secrets of Diane de Poic-tiers, and the love lore of Thais.
Attended by four waiters from the Winter Palace, they lunched, and talked of many things; but always Van Kuyper's brown eyes spoke of passion. Yet, when at last they were alone, with coffee such as may only be tasted in the East, and cigarettes of a sort that never leave Egypt except to go to Moscow:
"Quick — tell me!" he whispered, and glanced furtively around him. "What occurred last night at Medinet Habu?"
"How should I know what occurred, monsieur?"
Languidly Mme. de Medicis swept her black lashes upward, and languidly lowered them again, veiling the amber eyes.
"Ah!" Van Kuyper laughed. "But we understand each other! We are old allies, it is not so? When I learned from Abdul, who had been watching Desmond's camp since the work began, that the shaft was an old one, I followed the arranged plan. On Tuesday night he was nearly shot by Ali Mahmoud, Desmond's headman; but he brought great news! You received my letter?"
Madame inclined her head languidly.
"I have it in my bureau."
"Good! You had worked wonders thus far. Nearly a week ago the camp at Medinet Habu became deserted at night. Even the ghafir fled. How you worked upon the fear of the natives I do not know, but you succeeded. Only Ali Mahmoud and Desmond remained. As I told you, I took a double precaution. Desmond's buried bottle is a byword among the excavators. While he completed the clearing of the shaft, Abdul dealt with this matter!"
"Excellent!" madame murmured.
"Your reports of Desmond's progress reached me daily, and last night I acted. Abdul and Hassan es Suk were watching. Ali Mahmoud came to you here, with a note. It was genius!"
"It was merely coincidence."
"What? You did not contrive it? No matter — it was good. Shortly afterward, Desmond succumbed to the drug, and Hassan came to fetch me."
"So?" madame murmured, dropped her half-smoked cigarette into the little brass tray.
Van Kuyper glanced at her uneasily, but proceeded:
"We opened the door. It was stiff work; but what we found, you know. I merely peeped at the contents of the casket, but madame" — he seized and kissed her hand — "the cheque for a thousand pounds which reached you recently was not too much! Sail for Cairo in the morning. There will certainly be the usual official inquiry. I saw the casket safely on board your boat, and returned to my camp. Transport has been arranged to Alexandria, where my patron has a yacht lying."
"So?" madame murmured again, and delicately lighted a fresh cigarette. "Those Arabs are such liars!"
Paul van Kuyper bent forward, resting his manicured hands upon his knees. He had detected a coldness in the attitude of the beautiful woman. Always she was difficult, but today she was incomprehensible.