Meg
could not sleep; the overseer's shrill whistle for the roll-call of the
workmen had banished her last hopes that a little sleep would come to
her before the exciting day began.

The clear whistle called the straggling figures together. They were
still indefinite objects, moving white columns in the darkness which
heralds the dawn. They were to begin work earlier than usual; Meg
could see no signs of the coming day in the sky.

She sprang out of bed, glad to begin some practical work to banish the
confusion of thoughts which had made her brain too active for sleep.
Before she had her bath or dressed, she felt that she must breathe the
cool, pure air outside the hut for a moment or two.

During the night her thoughts had been mastered by a consciousness of
the fact that after the great day, after the tomb was satisfactorily
opened and Michael had accomplished the necessary work in connection
with it which Freddy might demand of him, he would start out on his
desert journey. She could not and would not hold him back. Things too
delicate and indefinite to be described had gathered and accumulated,
strengthening his determination to leave the valley and start out on
his apparently objectless journey. As the accumulation of atoms has
formed continents, so the accumulation of thoughts becomes a thing
which controls our destinies.

The treasure-trove of gold which had been hidden by Akhnaton the
Dreamer was now as real to Michael as the gold-mines in California were
real to the miners of the '49 rush. He had visualized it over and over
again. He was undaunted by the fact that many visionaries had seen
their King Solomon's mines equally clearly; but how many have reached
them? He was satisfied that, though his journey might prove a complete
failure from Freddy's point of view, until he made it any work he tried
to do would be a more complete one. There are treasures laid up in
heaven far beyond the value of rubies and precious jewels, and the
Kingdom of Heaven which is within us Mike was determined to find.

Meg had given her abundant sympathy, but advice she had none to offer.
The thing was beyond her, taken out of her hands; it belonged to the
part of Michael which she loved and admired but did not fully
comprehend--the superman. Her practical common sense was her
stumbling-block; it held her with the chains of caution and the doubts
of a scientific trend of mind, which demands practical proofs before it
ac