alley, which
had been the underground cemetery for countless centuries of the
tomb-builders of Egypt.

When he was almost dressed and the sun was high in the heavens and its
power was beginning to warm the night-chilled valley, a stone was flung
into his tent. "Come out, you lazy beggar! The coffee's getting cold."

It was Lampton's voice and Lampton's nicety of aim. He had not been up
since dawn; his boy had only brought him his cup of early tea half an
hour ago, yet he was bathed and shaved and as neatly dressed as the
most fastidious woman could desire.

"Right-ho!" Michael shouted back. "Don't wait for me."

"I should jolly well think I won't! Who'd be such an ass?" There was
the best of human fellowship in Freddy's voice, but he knew his friend
too well to risk the chance of spoiling his coffee by waiting for him.

After stretching out his arms and opening his lungs to the fresh dry
air of the newborn day, Freddy turned into the dining-room. The
mess-room and common sitting-room of the camp was in a wooden hut.
Lampton's bedroom was at the back of it, as was also the one which had
been set apart for his sister; it by right belonged to the
Overseer-General and Controller of the Excavations and Monuments of
Upper Egypt. Margaret Lampton was to use it and her brother was to
evacuate his room when the overseer announced that he was coming to pay
one of his visits of inspection to the camp.

Michael Amory lived in a tent, as did one or two other Englishmen who
in busy and prosperous years helped in the work of excavating. At the
present moment they were slack, which meant that funds were low and
there was no fine work to be done which necessitated the individual
spade and pick work of European Egyptologists. A new site was being
cleared, so that the work had consisted for some time of the first
clearing away of sand and stones and the debris which had collected
during the thousands of years that had passed since the tomb which
Freddy hoped to discover had been carved in the bowels of the earth,
and the Pharaoh had been laid to rest in it. At such times there was
little work for experts to do, so the camp shrank and left Lampton, who
was the head of it, and one of England's finest Egyptologists, alone
with his native workmen.

He had allowed his old Oxford chum, Michael Amory, to join him on
condition that he put in so many hours' work every day in connection
with the excavations. Michael's stipulated