gent man, who
had a genuine appreciation for antiques--he was a clever hand at faking
them and did a good business with tourists--but at heart even he
doubted the sincerity and single-minded purpose of the British School
of Archaeology in Egypt, and "Mistrr Lampton's" absolute
clean-handedness in the business.

Freddy had never left the camp for more than half an hour since the
excavation had become "hot." It was a strenuous time.

Naturally Margaret's thoughts were centred and engrossed in her
brother's work. She could scarcely hold her soul in patience while the
deep shaft was being cleared, a long and tiresome job. But at last
they could count the time by days before the entrance to the tomb would
be reached.

The little store-room in the hut was packed full of boxes which held
the small finds. Margaret's work for some days past had been to piece
together (Freddy had taught her how) the tiny fragments of a smashed
vase which her brother had found. The pieces were all there, for it
had been discovered in a little hollow in the sand. The conventional
decoration was of an unique type; and on it was traced a branch of a
plant which seemed to Freddy to resemble with extraordinary exactness a
branch of the Indian fig, the prickly pear, so familiar to all
travellers in Southern Italy. As the Indian fig was not introduced
into Egypt until the Middle Ages, or so it had generally been supposed,
for it was not indigenous, Freddy was anxious to find out if the
decoration on the vase was going to prove that after all it was known
to the Egyptians long before it was brought over from America. He also
held that there was something in the theory which has of late become
current that camels may have been known and used in Egypt from very
early times, that their absence in all pictorial art in temples and
tombs may be owing to the fact that the Egyptians divided animals into
two classes, the clean and the unclean; that neither into temples nor
into tombs could the unclean be introduced in any form of art
whatsoever.

These were the sort of discussions with which Margaret had already
grown familiar. She felt that in piecing together and sketching as
accurately as possible the cactus-like branch of the little plant
engraved on the broken vase, she was actually helping to forge a link
in one of the minute chains of Egyptian archaeology.

Her brother's memory amazed her and his intelligence stimulated her.
He had been such