ain hint of flexibility.

"The appalling wonder of it consumed me; fear, incredulity, terror,
apathy succeeded each other; then slowly a fierce shrinking happiness
swept me in every fiber.

"This marvelous death, this triumph of beauty over death, was mine.
Never again should she lie here alone through the solitudes of night and
day; never again should the dignity of Death lack the tribute demanded
of Life. Here was the appointed watcher--I, who had found her alone in
the wastes of the world--all alone on the outermost edges of the
world--a child, dead and unguarded. And standing there beside her I knew
that I should never love again."

He straightened up, stretching out his arm: "I did not intend to carry
her away to what is known as Christian burial. How could I consign her
to darkness again, with all its dreadful mockery of marble, all its
awful emblems?

"This lovely stranger was to be my guest forever. The living should be
near her while she slept so sweetly her slumber through the centuries;
she should have warmth, and soft hangings and sunlight and flowers; and
her unconscious ears should be filled with the pleasant stir of living
things. . . . I have a house in the country, a very old house among
meadows and young woodlands. And I--I had dreamed of giving this child a
home--"

His voice broke; he buried his head in his hands a moment; but when he
lifted it again his features were hard as steel.

"There was already talk in the bazaar about me. I was probably followed,
but I did not know it. Then one of my men disappeared. For a week I
hesitated to trust my Arabs; but there was no other way. I told them
there was a mummy which I desired to carry to some port and smuggle out
of the country without consulting the Government. I knew perfectly well
that the Government would never forego its claim to such a relic of
Egyptian antiquity. I offered my men too much, perhaps. I don't know.
They hesitated for a week, trying by every artifice to see the treasure,
but I never let them out of my sight.

"Then one day two white men came into camp; and with them came a
government escort to arrest me for looting an Egyptian tomb. The white
men were Joram Smiles and that Eurasian, Emanuel Gandon, who was partly
white, I suppose. I didn't comprehend what they were up to at first.
They escorted me forty miles to confront the official at Shen-Bak. When,
after a stormy week, I was permitted to return to Sais, my Arabs and the