pton said he could not live without.

"Meet your sister?" Michael said. "I will, if you can't, but
where?--and won't she expect you?"

"She ought to be on the ferry at five o'clock--I've made all the other
arrangements, but I do wish you would meet her there and bring her up
the valley. I simply can't, and Margaret knows that she is only
allowed to come here on condition that her visit makes no earthly
difference to my work. I daren't leave the men alone to-day--there's
too much lying about. We are getting pretty 'hot' and they know it."

Michael looked up eagerly. "By Jove, is that so?"

"Getting hot" was expressive of getting close to a find. It was the
old saying which they had used as children when they played
hide-and-seek.

"Yes, I think we are on the right track and I want to get ahead, so if
you will go down to the ferry and fetch her up here I'll be awfully
obliged to you."

"Right you are, old chap. I'll be there at five o'clock, and if she's
not punctual I'll do a bit of sketching. You're sure everything else
will be all right?"

"I don't think she'll be late, because she is to be in Luxor by eleven
o'clock. She is to rest there until it gets cooler and Abdul is to
bring her over the river from the hotel. The donkeys will be at the
ferry to meet her. Mohammed is very anxious for her to ride his camel"
(Mohammed was the sheikh of the district); "he thinks it more proper
and fitting for my sister to make her entry into his district on a
camel, but I don't feel certain that Margaret would appreciate the
honour. He is keen to 'do her proud.'"

"Good old Mohammed!" Michael said. "He has a great sense of dignity
and convention."

"And of hospitality," Lampton said. "He never forgets that as the
sheikh of the district he is its host as well."

That was all that was said about Margaret's arrival. The two men
lapsed into silence until breakfast was over. If they had been two
women discussing the coming of a man in their midst, there might have
been more to say on the subject. In silence Freddy lit his cigarette
and wandered into Margaret's room. It was as bare and plainly
furnished as a convent cell or a room in a small log-hut in a
frontier-camp in Canada--just the necessary bed and table, a washstand
and one chair. It was scrupulously clean, and the white
mosquito-curtain, which was suspended from the roof and dropped over
the little iron bed like a bride's veil, gave the room a pleas