"By the scattered jewels and the way the mummy was lying. Why should a
skeleton be inside a royal tomb? Why should the mummy be out of its
coffin and partly unrobed? We have actually found before now plans
which the sextons and the guardians of the tombs had made for
themselves, of all the tombs in the cemetery which was in their care.
They knew how they could be entered one from another. Of course, this
valley is different. The tombs are isolated and carefully hidden. It
was never a public cemetery."

"Was Akhnaton's tomb intact? Had it been robbed?"

Freddy laughed. "Back again to the tabooed subject?"

Meg laughed too. "We shan't fight this time, I promise."

"His city and palace and tomb were utterly desolated, but his mummy had
been taken away from his own tomb, before it was desolated, and brought
to his mother's."

"Oh, you told me--I forgot." Into Meg's mind came again the words
spoken by the sad voice, "My earthly body was brought to my mother's
tomb in this valley."

When the night's work was completed, Meg voted that they should sit for
a few minutes in front of the hut and try to get the "mummy-shell" and
the microbes of Pharaonic diseases out of their nostrils. Freddy had
never allowed them to sleep right out in the open, much as they had
wished it. It was not safe, even with the dogs and his trustworthy
house-boys. He would not hear of it; and he was wise.

Gladly he agreed to refreshing their lungs with the beautiful night
air. Indeed, they were all three so happy together and there was so
much to talk about and discuss, that bed seemed a bore. Physically
tired as they were, owing to the nervous excitement in the atmosphere
of their day's surroundings, sleep seemed very far off.

"Just half an hour, Freddy," Margaret said, as she threw herself down
on a long lounge chair, and clasping her hands behind her head, gazed
up to the heavens. "How glorious it is!" she said. "I'm so happy."

They all three lighted cigarettes and smoked in silence. Freddy was as
happy as Meg; Mike was restless.

At the end of the half-hour Meg got up and said, "Who'd exchange this
for a city? Freddy, you ought to get to bed--you're dead tired,
really."

He rose reluctantly. "I suppose I must." His thoughts were on the
morrow's work. If the tomb was going to be a really big thing, it
meant a lot more to him than Meg understood. He was very young; he had
not as yet struck any remarkable find; he