As soon as Taia reached the steps she began to descend them, but Craig
wasn't so docile. He told himself that this was his last chance; once
below, surrounded by numbers, there might be no opportunity to strike
for freedom. His eyes narrowed as he groped for a plan. If he could
butt his brawny captor, strike him fairly in the solar plexus, and,
while he lay helpless, cut his bonds with the sword....

He whirled around. Reverting to football tactics, he tensed his lean,
hard body and plunged squarely at Shabako.

The Pharaoh was taken completely by surprise, and went sprawling; but
the sword did not pitch from his hand. He had received a stiff, shrewd
blow, but only a glancing one, for he had twisted his body at the last
second. Now, sputtering with wrath, he scrambled to his feet and
whipped back his blade for a killing slice at the American.

It was Taia who saved him, then. In a flash she threw herself against
the sword arm and deflected the sweep.

"Wait, O Pharaoh!" she cried breathlessly. "The priests will claim
this stranger; 'tis they who must decide his fate! Do not kill him
here!"

Shabako's face was livid with wrath; rage choked him; but he paused.
The girl's aptly timed words had told. He was obviously not decided as
to what to do. There was a pause, while the sword pointed straight at
Craig's chest; then, grumbling, the Egyptian let down his weapon.

"But try no more of thy tricks, dog!" he said harshly. "Else thy death
come before its time!"

Taia glanced appealingly at Wes. Her eyes were half-frightened. Craig
smiled wryly. "Lead on!" he said.

* * * * *

Years of time fell away with each of their descending steps. Egypt
stirred under the dust of the centuries; Egypt lived again, though in
a sad mockery of her former glory. It was like a descent into a new
world, yet a world that was, at the same time, as old as man's
civilization....

Fifty or more steps they trudged down, then came suddenly to two dark
corridors, both of which slanted steeply into the bowels of the earth.
The one they took was mystic with deep shadows thrown by flaring oil
lamps, cunningly imbedded in the walls of rock; and immediately into
Wes's mind came the memory of a corridor he had once walked through in
old Egypt, a corridor that pierced to the heart of a pyramid and the
somber vault of a mummy who had once been revered as the Pharaoh
Aknahton. In his nostrils now there seemed to be that