outside the door."

"I don't see how any one can," Michael said. "It is all so exquisitely
evident. The desolation must be so terrifying, like living in this
lonely spot with no watch-dogs to keep off evil-doers. It takes great
courage to live on one's own strength, one's own material self."

They had parted, Margaret going to her room, Michael to his tent.
Freddy, who was almost dressed, saw two figures approaching, wrapped up
in big coats.

"That's a good job!" he said. "The sunrise has made them friends
again." He was out in the desert the next moment, hearing the
roll-call of the workmen, who had all ranged themselves up in a line
near the hut.

CHAPTER IX

One evening, some weeks later, when the trio, Margaret, Freddy and
Michael, were busily engaged in sorting and cleaning the day's finds,
which had been more than usually interesting, Margaret held up for
inspection a tiny alabaster kohl-pot, which she had freed from the
incrustations of thousands of years. It was exactly similar to a
little green glass bottle which she had bought in the bazaar at Assuan,
in which the modern Egyptian, but more especially the Coptic, women
carry the kohl which they use for blacking their eyes and eyebrows.
Margaret showed Freddy the bottle, which led to a discussion about the
similarity of the customs of the modern Egyptians and those in the
pictures in the tombs, whose decorations always reveal the more human
and intimate side of the life of ancient Egypt than the decoration of
the temples.

"They were as vain and fond of making up as any woman of to-day,"
Freddy said. "We find no end of recipes for cosmetics and hair-dyes
and restorers. One popular pomade was made of the hoofs of a donkey, a
dog's pad and some date-kernels, all boiled together in oil. It was
supposed to stop the hair from falling out and restore its brilliancy.
There is another, even more savoury, for hair-dying."

"Do you suppose they still use that receipt?" Michael said.

"I shouldn't wonder. Customs never die in Egypt--they have had the
same superstitions and the same customs for thousands of years. The
Copts have clung more jealously to them, of course. The Moslem
invasion did a little to change some of them, but not many."

Margaret listened while Freddy explained how the Moslems, after the
Arab invasion, behaved with regard to the festivals and superstitions
of the pagans very much in the same way as the Early Christian church