of his own, or
indeed any friends who loved him. There was scarcely a soul in his old
home who remembered his existence. The man who had guided the camel at
the well had ceased to cause even his late master a passing thought.
The native teacher who had instructed him in the Koran in his boyhood,
along with the other village children, and who had first inspired him
with the desire to study the Sacred Book at el-Azhar, had long since
gone to that world where "black faces shall turn white and white faces
shall turn black."

As Michael retraced his steps circumspectly through the class-rooms of
the university and across the open court, where the afternoon sun
almost blinded him--the darkness of the old man's cell made it seem
even fiercer than it had been in the morning--his mind was filled with
a thousand thoughts. He was much more restless than he had been on his
arrival. Had he done wisely in paying this visit to the visionary?
Was he only adding unrest and bewilderment to his soul?

The old man's last words had been to counsel him to follow the dictates
of his own conscience, which was God.

"On this journey, which will lead you into the Light, a child of God
will guide you, a child of God will point out the way." These had been
his last words.

Michael knew that with Moslems the expression "a child of God" is
generally applied to religious fanatics, and to simples, people who
have not practical sense to enable them to enter into the struggle for
existence, people who have, as the Western world terms it, "a screw
loose."

"A child of God will lead you. To him has been revealed this ancient
treasure, which the desert sands have guarded for unnumbered years."

Michael wondered if he was mad or dreaming. To believe a single word
of the mystic's advice seemed rank folly; but here again he was brought
face to face with a fact stranger than fiction. This African had
spoken of a King who had been God's messenger before the days of Moses
and Christ. He was totally without learning, except in the Koran; he
was ignorant of the existence or personality of the great heretic
Pharaoh: of Egyptian history he knew nothing. Yet what he had said and
visualized fitted in with Michael's theory and belief that Akhnaton had
buried a great hoard of gold and jewels near his capital of
Tel-el-Amarna. Nor was Michael alone in his belief in this theory.

As the gate of the university court was closed behind him, Michael took
a