very long time they wait.
Lady she stays inside, gentleman he go up the valley."

Instantly life was real again, and Meg a living, angry woman. "She"
who stayed inside could only mean Mrs. Mervill. The tomb was
forgotten, as was the royal bride. They belonged to the past; the
present was all-engrossing.

The present hour was the living reality and Michael, her lover, and her
own love were the things that mattered, the woman in the hut the one
brilliant vision. Life was vital, urgent. A gnat's life would be long
enough if it was to be passed with the woman whom she knew, in the
coming struggle, would fight with tools which she, Meg, would not dare
or deign to touch. As vivid as her vision of the tomb was her memory
of Millicent Mervill's beauty. She could see it illuminating their
desert hut; she could feel it eclipsing her own less vivid colouring as
the sun had eclipsed the rays of Akhnaton.

Mike looked at her. Meg's cheeks were pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.
He hated the woman inside the tent. What had she come for?

A silent kiss separated them. With the kiss Meg's heart took courage.
It left no room for fear.

[1] The description of the interior of this tomb is taken from various
reliable accounts of the interior of the tomb of Thiy. As Queen Thiy
was the mother of Akhnaton, her tomb must have been discovered before
the events described in this story, otherwise they could not have known
that Akhnaton's mummy had been found in his mother's tomb.

When the tomb was first examined, the mummy which had fallen out of the
coffin was supposed to be that of Queen Thiy. The light of
after-events and of scientific research have proved that the mummy was
that of a young man of about twenty-five years of age. The conclusion
is that Akhnaton's body was brought from his original burying-place
near his "City of the Horizon," and placed in his mother's tomb in the
Western Hills.

The name of Akhnaton had been erased from the coffin, but it was still
readable on the gold ribbons which encircled the body.

CHAPTER XIV

When Michael entered the sitting-room of the hut, Millicent Mervill was
reading one of Freddy's French novels. There had been plenty of time
for her to powder herself and cool down and settle to her liking her
dainty person. She looked as fresh and cool and pink as a bough of
apple-blossom.

She greeted Michael with a charming mixture of friendliness and
discretion. She had brou