t, I cannot. Having come together we must
separate no more. Oh! Olaf, you do not know what a life has been mine
during all these dreadful months. When I escaped from Musa by stabbing
the eunuch who was in charge of me, for which hideous deed may I be
forgiven," and I felt her shudder at my side, "I fled I knew not whither
till I found myself in this valley, where I hid till the night was gone.
Then at daybreak I peeped out from the mouth of the valley and saw the
Moslems searching for me, but as yet a long way off. Also now I knew
this valley. It was that to which my father had brought me as a child
when he came to search for the burying-place of his ancestor, the
Pharaoh, which records he had read told him was here. I remembered
everything: where the tomb should be, how we had entered it through a
hole, how we had found the mummy of a royal lady, whose face was covered
with a gilded mask, and on her breast the necklace which I wear.

"I ran along the valley, searching the left side of it with my eyes,
till I saw a flat stone which I knew again. It was called the Table of
Offerings. I was sure that the hole by which we had entered the tomb
was quite near to this stone and a little above it, in the face of the
cliff. I climbed; I found what seemed to be the hole, though of this I
could not be certain. I crept down it till it came to an end, and
then, in my terror, hung by my hands and dropped into the darkness,
not knowing whither I fell, or caring over much if I were killed. As it
chanced it was but a little way, and, finding myself unhurt, I crawled
along the cavern till I reached this place where there is light, for
here the roof of the cave has fallen in. While I crouched amid the rocks
I heard the voices of the soldiers above me, heard their officer also
bidding them bring ropes and torches. To the left of where you stand
there is a sloping passage that runs down to the great central chamber
where sleeps some mighty king, and out of this passage open other
chambers. Into the first of these the light of the morning sun struggles
feebly. I entered it, seeking somewhere to hide myself, and saw a
painted coffin lying on the floor near to the marble sarcophagus from
which it had been dragged. It was that in which we had found the body
of my ancestress; but since then thieves had been in this place. We
had left the coffin in the sarcophagus and the mummy in the coffin, and
replaced their lids. Now the mummy lay on the floo