Elizabeth Hoy - Shadows on the Sand

Alison had been offered a wonderful opportunity to work on an archaeological expedition nearCairo, and she was sure she would love every minute.

But the domineering Scott Crane seemed determined to spoil everything. How dared heinterfere!

OTHER

Harlequin Romances

By ELIZABETH HOY

433—BECAUSE OF DR. DANVILLE

483—MY HEART HAS WINGS

903—SO LOVED AND SO FAR

1031—FLOWERING DESERT

1132—DARK HORSE, DARK RIDER

1226—HONEYMOON HOLIDAY

1286—BE MORE THAN DREAMS

1368—MUSIC I HEARD WITH YOU

1397—IF LOVE WERE WISE

1520—INTO A GOLDEN LAND

1538—IT HAPPENED IN PARIS

1605—IMMORTAL FLOWER

1695—THAT ISLAND SUMMER

1769—THE GIRL IN THE GREEN VALLEY

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SHADOWS ON THE SAND

By

ELIZABETH HOY

HARLEQUIN BOOKS

TORONTO WINNIPEG

Original hard cover edition published in 1974 by Mills & Boon limited.

© Elizabeth Hoy 1974

SBN 373-01825-8

Harlequin edition published November 1974

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have norelation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They ate not even distantly inspired byany individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, isregistered in the united States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.



Printed in Canada

CHAPTER I

It was one of those wet autumn mornings when the last vestiges of summer foliage fluttered from thedripping London plane trees. Alison had to queue for a good twenty minutes for her West End boundbus so that she arrived late at her office in Kensington—an office housed impressively in a large buildingall but rubbing shoulders with the Victoria and Albert Museum. But as the headquarters of the learnedInstitute of Archaeology it had every right to its distinguished venue.

Usually Alison experienced a small thrill of pride as she mounted the marble staircase to the first floor.But on this chilly Monday morning she felt lifeless and dull, and the prospect of hours of shorthand andtyping, filing and cataloguing under the eagle eye of Miss Bexley did little to cheer her. In the cloakroomshe hung up her wet raincoat, changed her shoes and shot a disheartened glance at her reflection in themirror over the wash-basin. The long-lashed, dark blue eyes looking back at, her held a glint of mutiny.Her golden-brown hair being limp and damp was, she decided, 'horrible'.

'You're late,' Miss Bexley said predictably as she entered the long bright room which housed the outeroffice staff.

Miss Bexley who supervised everything and everyone, including the august Professor Ross himself, MissTweedy who typed the long reports which came in from the various centers of scientific research, andAlison, who was invariably addressed as Miss Gray. It was that sort of office, nobody ever usedChristian names, not even for little Miss Smith, the teen-age office girl who kept the post book, stampedthe letters and made the tea.

Miss Tweedy was already banging away with deadly efficiency at her typewriter, not stopping to giveAlison as much as a glance of greeting as she took the desk next to her. With a suppressed sigh Alisonremoved the cover from her own typewriter.

'The Professor rang for you five minutes ago,' Miss Bexley announced in a reproachful tone.



'My bus was late,' Alison snapped, snatching up her notebook and pencil.

'One should make allowances for such eventualities on a wet morning,' Miss Bexley returned coldly.Alison flung her a scathing look. Fifty if she was a day and her entire life spent sitting behind an officedesk. With the blindness of her own nineteen years Alison decided she would rather be dead than suffera similar fate.

The Professor, a neat, small grey-bearded man of scholarly mien, unruffled by her belated appearance,began dictating letters to her straight away—learned letters to learned bodies and societies. But Alison'sshorthand was used to the technical terms and she scribbled away in her notebook effortlessly. Five longletters and three shorter ones. Thinking that was the lot, Alison stood up to go, but the Professor held upan arresting hand.

'There is one more letter... a rather personal one. I have had a disturbing telephone call from El Quaynthis morning. Dr Irvine who is in charge of the dig there has had an accident and has had to be taken to ahospital in Cairo. I want to send him a word of commiseration.’He placed his fingertips together andruminated in silence.

El Quayn. Wasn't that the place where an important dig was in progress? Alison mused. And hadn't theyrecently come across special exciting excavation, or something? Miss Tweedy had typed a long reportabout it and given it to her to check for literals. It was memorable too because Professor Ross had senthis own personal secretary out to work for the doctor, a distinguished archaeologist. It was to be atemporary assignment—just for the winter digging season. And of course Miss Phisby had jumped at it.A winter in the Egyptian sunshine!

Lucky Phisby, Alison thought wistfully. Dumpy, dreary, uninteresting Phisby, almost as old as MissBexley, sunning herself in Egypt right at this moment. Because it wasn't very easy to find temps whowanted to go as far a field as Egypt. And the Professor had unselfishly decided that he could manage fora time with the staff in the outer office.

Besides Miss Phisby had worked long and faithfully for him and the trip would be in the nature of abonus. Why couldn't he have sent me? Alison enquired inwardly of whatever Fates who might have beenlistening.

Back at her typewriter the morning passed quickly. Miss Bexley went out to lunch at twelve noon, MissTweedy and Alison at one o'clock. They never left the office empty during working hours.



To make up for her lost moments in the early morning Alison cut her lunch hour short and was back inthe office at a quarter to two. To her astonishment she found Miss Phisby there talking in a loud excitedway to a stunned-looking Miss Bexley.

'I simply had to get away. I couldn't stand another minute of it!' Miss Phisby sounded as though shewere going to burst into tears. 'The miles and miles of sand, the dreadful burning sun, the Arabs— basketboys they call them; having to be paid every evening. In rags, most of them . . . dirty!' She shuddered.'Nothing will ever induce me to go back.'

'So you walked out at a moment's notice,' Miss Bexley said in a shocked voice. 'Just as poor DoctorIrvine had his accident.'

'It wasn't an accident.' Miss Phisby covered her face with her hands. 'It was that dreadful tomb. Wehave no business to be disturbing it. The Arabs —not the basket boys, but the more influential Arabs inthe little town near by—are angry about it. To persist with the dig, they say, will bring death andmisfortune. Then these great rocks suddenly tumbled in on Dr Irvine and crushed his foot... right there inthe dig where the locals think we have no business to be. Oh, it was all so spooky and terrifying! Andafter the doctor was hurried off to hospital there was Scott Crane to put up with.'

'Scott Crane ?' Miss Bexley echoed.

'The young man who is supposed to be second in command and in fact does most of the commanding.An impossible person! Just because he's a geologist as well as an archaeologist he thinks no end ofhimself. Arrogant, aggressive, no manners at all. And now that the doctor is in hospital he thinks thewhole place belongs to him. I can't tell you how rude he was to me! Even without the Arabs and thespookiness I don't think I could have stood another day of him.'

Miss Bexley shook her head. 'You might have given us time to find a replacement for you. I don't knowwhat the Professor will say . . . he's out at lunch now, of course.'

But just at that moment his bell rang, the three pips which were the signal for Miss Bexley. She jumpedup to obey the summons.



Miss Phisby had gone rather pale. 'Tell him I'm here . . . break it to him gently before I have to see him.Tell him how impossible it was...'

Miss Bexley nodded and hurried off to the inner sanctum. A few moments later she reappeared andcalled to Miss Phisby.

'Gosh!' Alison murmured to herself as the flustered Phisby staggered to meet her fate.

Miss Tweedy, returning from lunch, was regaled by Alison with the sensational story—Phisby walking inout of the blue, having fled from Egypt in a panic. 'Got in by air this morning.'

It was a lengthy session in the inner office. But at last the two women emerged; Miss Bexley with a smalltight mouth, signifying disapproval, Miss Phisby looking chastened but relieved.

'Miss Gray,' Miss Bexley said sharply, causing Alison to give a guilty start, 'the Professor would like tosee you ... at once.'

Automatically Alison picked up her notebook.

'I don't think you'll be needing that,' she heard Miss Bexley murmur as she went towards the inner officedoor.

The Professor at his desk motioned her to a chair. He was smiling in an ingratiating way, looking at herfor once as if he really saw her as something more than a shorthand writing machine.

'I've got to produce a replacement for Miss Phisby at El Quayn ... at once,’He said. His smile becamemore persuasive. 'How does the idea of a winter in Egypt appeal to you, Miss Gray?'



AN INCREDIBLE THREE days later Alison found herself in a rather ancient hackney cab being drivenacross desert land by an elderly Arab wearing a white robe and a dark head-shawl, bound in thetraditional manner about his brow. Dusk was thickening over the eerie landscape—a vista of emptiness.Sand everywhere, in hillocks and hummocks, in great flat stretches, in mysterious shadowy hollows. Theheadlights picked out the indefinite track which served as a road, over which the Arab drove at areckless speed.

Supposing he decided to murder me here in this lonely place, Alison thought nervously. 'It will be quiteall right to take a cab from the taxi rank at the station,’ Phisby had told her. 'It isn't a very long drive tothe archaeological expedition's compound.'

Before that there had been the flight to Cairo and then the slow journey by train to a little town called ElGazah. Miss Phisby had described each phase of the journey, making it all sound so simple; hurryingAlison off before she could change her mind about undertaking it.

Not that she would; she had enjoyed the bustle of preparation; the persuading her parents and familythat the project was feasible—a definite step upwards in her humble office career. 'And think of thecolour, the sunshine, the whole novel experience,' she had begged.

A winter in Egypt! It would be madness to turn it down. Then there had been the ordeal of the injectionsnecessary for foreign travel, balanced by the delights of last-minute extravagant additions to her limitedsummer-weight clothing.

And now here she was on her way . . . nearly at journey's end. Phisby had told her of the endless sortingand cleaning of the treasures brought to light at the dig—which was about a quarter of a mile away fromthe dwelling place in the compound—seals, jewels, pottery, relics from lives lived thousands of yearsago, miraculously preserved in the airtight underground tombs and caverns produced by the naturalsubsidence of the earth's crust over the centuries. She hoped she would be able to take part in some ofthe more directly archaeological work, as well as typing the endless reports, seeing to thecorrespondence, keeping the accounts. It would be one of her duties to pay the small army of Arabdiggers every evening.

Phisby had explained about the currency; dinars and fils; a thousand fils to a dinar, and the dinar was atpresent pegged to the pound.

She had also given a brief resume of the group of archaeologists and assistants engaged in the work.



There was Jim Ransom who photographed all the finds and classified them, helped by his wife Lena, whoalso had an eye to the housekeeping. Then there was Tony Lawton, a skilled young archaeologist whoactually took part in the manual labour of digging, because so much had to be done with extreme care. Inthis he was supervised and assisted by the great Mr.. Scott Crane, who, according to Phisby, wasaltogether too big for his boots since Dr Irvine, the chief, had gone to hospital.

'If he takes to you you'll be all right,' Miss Phisby had added reassuringly. 'But he and I loathed oneanother on sight. I just could not take his arrogance after my dear old considerate Or Irvine.'

But it was not altogether personalities which had sent her rushing home, she had emphasized. ‘I think,'she had said rather wistfully,’I was just too old for the job; the violent change from everything to whichI'm accustomed. The climate, the Arabs, the food ...the loneliness of the desert. You're young, MissGray. To you it will all probably be a great adventure.'

She had talked, rapidly, feverishly, trying to gloss over the impression she had first given the office thateverything at El Quayn was impossible. Now she must make them see that things were not as black asshe had painted them. Whatever happened Alison Gray must be persuaded to go there. There wasn'ttime to hunt round for anybody else with the necessary qualifications. Miss Gray, after all, had beenworking in the archaeological atmosphere for the past two years, and her secretarial ability, the Professorsaid as they discussed the matter, was outstanding—a remark which caused Miss Phisby a pang ofjealousy. The sooner she got back to her old easy relationship with her employer the better.

She enjoyed the prestige of being his personal secretary. It had been mad of her to agree to the Egyptianinterruption of her comfortable well-ordered life.

Alison had listened to the glowing reappraisal of the El Quayn scene with inner amusement. If only poorold Phisby realised how unnecessary it was! She would have jumped at the chance of the adventureeven if conditions were worse than Miss Phisby had implied in her earlier outbursts to Miss Bexley.

But now the reality of the adventure was beginning to dawn upon her. Her mother, Alison thought,would have a fit if she saw her driving away into the seemingly endless desert with this weird-lookingArab, while the night sky darkened. Headlights switched on revealed rocks like crouching wild animals,patches of weird-looking bushes which she was later to learn were camel thorn. And presently far awayon the horizon a string of lights became visible.

'El Quayn.’The driver pointed to it. 'The village. But first we come to the place where live the learnedones who make the digging.'



His voice was low and musical. It was the first time he had spoken. He had turned his head momentarilyto smile at her, a reassuring smile. A gentle soul, she felt now; she need not have had her foolish nervousqualms about him.

They were longer approaching the string of lights than she had expected. Distances in the desert, shewas to discover, were deceptive. But at last the shape of a dwelling place loomed up against theshadowy background of sand. Alison leaned eagerly forward in her seat and made out the flat-roofed,one-storey building, built Arab fashion round a central courtyard or compound. Other smaller buildingswere dotted about, and in a very short time they were swinging through the gateless opening into thecompound. There seemed to be a great number of windows, all blazing with light, opening on to a deepverandah.

At the sound of the approaching car a young man emerged from one of the lighted up rooms on to theverandah. He wore an open-necked sand-coloured shirt and sand-coloured cotton trousers; his thickuntidy hair was sand-coloured too, and he was sunburned almost as black as the Arab driver, who wasstepping from his seat to open the door for his passenger. But the young man was before him.

'The replacement ?’He said on an odd note of astonishment as Alison stepped out of the cab. 'We didn'tknow you'd be coming today. You've arrived much sooner than we expected. If we'd realised we wouldhave sent someone to El Ghaza to meet your train.'

'It was quite all right,' Alison assured him as he shook hands with her. 'Miss Phisby briefed me prettythoroughly before I started. There were no complications.'

'Good! You had a pleasant journey, then. My name is Tony Lawton.'

'Alison Gray,' Alison murmured, completing the introduction.

It was a little odd that the expedition personnel had had no warning of her coming, but she supposedthere had not been time. A moment of confusion followed while she tried to make out what she owed thedriver in the unfamiliar currency.



'I'll see to this.' Tony Lawton stepped in.

Paying the man, he spoke to him in Arabic. But Alison's attention had already been diverted by theopening of another door along the verandah. This time it was obviously Mrs. Ransom who emerged. Shewas not nearly so middle-aged—at least in appearance—as Phisby had made her out to be. Fairly talland slim, her long fair hair loosely tied back, she approached as Tony and Alison were mounting thesteps to the verandah, Tony carrying Alison's two suitcases. Staring at them in the oddest way, sheexclaimed, as Tony had done, 'We weren't expecting...' and then broke off.

'Miss Gray,' Tony announced firmly. 'Mrs. Lena Ransom.'

Mrs. Ransom held out a hesitant hand, her expression one of bewilderment. But she managed to smileand murmured a hope that the journey had not been top tiring.

Puzzled by the oddness of her welcome, Alison uttered her conventional assurances. Perhaps thejourney had been tiring, although she denied it. But suddenly the exuberance which had carried her all theway was deserting her. She felt flat and curiously blank, as though she had come up against someimponderable obstacle. For all their polite show of greeting, it was painfully clear that neither TonyLawton nor Mrs. Ransom was really pleased to see her.

'Where shall I put Miss Gray's cases?' Tony was asking.

'I'm not sure,' was Mrs. Ransom's indecisive reply. 'I'll have to reorganise a bit... Ah, Scott!' She turnedtowards a tall man striding along the verandah towards them. In the light streaming from the manywindows Alison saw that he was brown-haired, of broad shoulder, slim-hipped athletic build;good-looking in a rugged sort of way.

'What in heaven's name ...!’He began, staring at Alison.

'Miss Gray,' Lena Ransom introduced the newcomer. 'She has just this moment arrived.' And then asthe tall young man continued to stare she added,’The replacement.'

A term Alison was beginning to hate. It made her sound like a piece of machinery.



'Good God!' was Scott Crane's reaction.

Grey eyes under dark level brows raked Alison from head to foot—a look that made her feel singularlydefenseless. 'What on earth are we going to do with you, Miss Gray? I sent Ross a lengthy cable the daybefore yesterday, stating quite specifically that I must have a male replacement for Miss Phisby, whomade it abundantly plain that this is no sort of job for a woman. Under no circumstances will I considerworking with one again, especially one as young and as raw, if I may say so, as yourself.'

'No cable arrived before I left,' Alison said shortly, distinctly ruffled by the adjective 'raw'. Evidently thisCrane type was as rude as Miss Phisby had said.

'Unfortunate,’He snapped. He turned to look at the El Ghaza taxi maneuvering its way out of thecompound. For a moment it seemed as he might be going to recall it, but it had already swung throughthe exit and was accelerating.

Riveting Alison once more with his cold glance, he said, 'I'm sorry, Miss Gray, but I'm afraid I shall haveto return you from whence you came. You'll be no earthly use to me. I'll have a transcontinental wordwith Professor Ross on the phone in the morning, whatever the cost to our not too plentiful expeditionfunds.’ He made it sound as if it was all Alison's fault.

She felt a knot of tears in her throat and swallowed painfully. It was all so disappointing, so horriblydifferent from what she had anticipated—interesting people, interesting work, the novelty of being inEgypt and even perhaps helping at the dig. At that moment she hated the arrogant young man whounconcernedly planned to bundle her off, shuttling her back across the world like an unwanted postalpacket.

Sensing her distress, aware of the unfortunate overtones of the situation, Lena Ransom put a kindlyhand on the girl's arm. 'Come along in, my dear. You must be worn out and I'm afraid this isn't much of awelcome for you. But let's not worry any more about it tonight. Tony,' she added over her shoulder asshe led Alison indoors, ' would you mind bringing Miss Gray's cases to our quarters? She can stay withus tonight.' And then in an aside to the gimlet-eyed Crane, 'Can't we sleep on this, Scott, and see how itlooks in the morning?'

'I don't sleep on problems; I solve them,' Crane returned curtly, and walked away.



Following Lena Ransom, Alison found herself entering a comfortable sitting room. Later she was torealise that the walls were of rough concrete and the floor was of the same material covered with roughmatting. But at a first glance the brightly-lit room with its armchairs and bookcase and small oriental-styleoccasional tables seemed homely and welcoming. But best of all was the fire of logs on the stone hearth.The chill of an autumn night in the desert was already penetrating. Travel-weary and bewildered by herequivocal welcome, Alison found the fire comforting. Moving towards it with a murmured,' Oh, hownice!' she spread out her hands to the blaze.

'Our temporary home,' Lena said. 'It's all very rough and ready, I'm afraid, but we do our best to makeit cosy.' Cosiness in the desert was the last thing Alison had expected, but then everything was proving tobe so different from what she had imagined.

'We were lucky to be able to rent this building for the expedition,' Lena went on. ‘It's built Arab style,with many separate sections, so that we can all have our own quarters without for ever being on top ofone another. I had planned to put the new arrival the other end of the compound where Tony and Scotthave their quarters, but now if it is necessary I shall have to think of something more suitable. For tonightyou can have our little spare room, which is really Jim's study, but there's a comfortable divan in there.'

Just for tonight, Alison thought. In spite of that qualifying 'if it's necessary’ there weren't going to be manymore nights at El Quayn. In fact it was pretty certain that there wouldn't be. Scott Crane hadn't struck heras a man who would easily change his mind, and he had taken a dislike to her on sight— if dislike wasn'ttoo personal a word.

He had simply decided she would be no use to him. She wondered how long it would be before herhomeward flight could be arranged, and bleakly faced the prospect of her ignominious return to theInstitute office. Her family too would be surprised, disappointed for her. The whole thing wasunspeakably humiliating.

Picking up the suitcases which Tony Lawton had deposited in the living room, Lena led the way to thestudy-cum-bedroom.

'There's a bathroom just along the passage,' she explained. 'You'll want to freshen up after your journey.You would probably have liked a bath, but I'm afraid you won't have time for one. We eat at aboutseven and time is getting on. There's a communal dining room where we all share the evening meal—achance to get together socially after the work of the day. Our separate quarters don't have adequatekitchens, just a small corner furnished with electric kettle and a small electric stove where we can make



breakfast and our snack luncheons, besides the odd cups of tea . . . If you're sure you have all you neednow . . .' She turned to leave the room. 'I'm just off to the kitchen to make sure Abdul, our cook, isready to serve the meal. He's an excellent cook, but like most Arabs a little erratic about time.'

Left alone, Alison looked about her with an oddly trapped feeling, as if the circumstances which wereclosing in on her were palpable walls. She didn't want to eat in the communal dining room where, nodoubt, she would once more be confronted by that unpleasant young man, Scott Crane. Hungry as shewas after her long day of travel she would rather have gone supper less to bed. But if she suggested thisthere would be explanations and fuss; the kindly Lena Ransom having to bring a tray of food to the study.Nor would her excessive fatigue seem altogether natural.

Modern high speed travel wasn't all that exacting, and the train journey from Cairo had been verycomfortable—in an air-conditioned carriage where a dainty tea had been served to her. She hadenjoyed it in a state of mindless euphoria, feeling that she was on her way to the mystery and magic of thedesert... and a whole host of novel and delightful experiences. Whereas...

With a shrug she banished her unhappy thoughts and opening one of her suitcases produced her spongebag, brush and comb and make-up case. The light in the bathroom was not shaded and did nothing toflatter her reflection in the mirror over the washbasin. But throughout the apartment she had noticedcrude, strong single bulbs swinging from the ceilings with only the cheapest of plain white shades. Whenshe had washed in a desultory way she creamed her face, dabbed on a little powder and renewed herpale lipstick. The effect was wan and colourless, but she didn't care.

Luckily she had the sort of long dark eyelashes and well-defined eyebrow line which didn't need muchemphasis. Her hair, which was thick and golden-brown and inclined to curl, redeemed the drab effectwhich she had decided her appearance this evening produced. Not that she cared what she looked like.If she were a ravishing blonde, sizzling with sex appeal, the horrible Scott Crane would still look rightthrough her ... and send her home.

Returning to her room, she almost bumped into a plump good natured-looking man who wasapparently making for the bathroom she had just vacated. He held out his hand. 'You'll be Miss Gray.I'm Ransom Jim Ransom. Delighted to meet you. Lena has been telling me about your arrival.'

He sounded genuinely pleased to see her, his round face beaming. Why couldn't he have been in chargeof the expedition instead of Scott Crane? Alison wondered bitterly.

Back in her room she put on a light jersey wool dress of turquoise colour, caught loosely at the waist by



a silver chain belt which hung in loops almost to the hem of the short skirt. There was a silver bracelet tomatch the chain. Though why bother with ornaments? She asked herself. Only that it was an evening mealand presumably one would be expected to appear in something less informal than the suit in which shehad traveled on her long journey from London, sitting up all the one night in the plane.

'How nice you look!' Lena greeted her when she joined her in the living room.

They set off at once for the communal lounge, a large room with an adequate dining space opening outof it. Tony Lawton and Scott Crane, both with drinks in their hands, rose politely as the women entered.They were still dressed in khaki-coloured cotton garments, but these were freshly laundered and the longpants were a little more formal than the shorts they had worn earlier.

'What will you have ... a sherry?' Tony asked the two women.

'Sherry will be lovely,' Lena agreed, and Alison added a quiet 'Yes, please', and seated herself besideLena on a wide settee before yet another log fire which she confessed she was glad to see. 'I had no ideait would be so cool in the desert,' she confessed.

'It's only after sundown,' Tony assured her, handing her glass of sherry. 'At midday the temperature issizzling. You just wait!'

For what? Alison wondered bitterly. A plane back to London?

Then Jim Ransom joined the party and soon they were sitting down to a dish of some kind ofunidentifiable meat served on a bed of savoury rice.

'Goat,' Tony informed Alison briefly as he handed her portion.

'I beg your pardon,' Lena put in with mock indignation. 'It's kid, if you please! Tender and delicious.'

There were vegetables to go with it, obviously out of tins, courgettes and young leeks. Dessert was



ice-cream and tinned guavas, followed by biscuits and cheese.

'Goat again,' Tony announced, cutting Alison a generous portion. Coffee was served in the loungesection of the long room, everyone sitting round the fire companionably.

Throughout the meal Scott Crane had not addressed a single word to Alison, had indeed scarcelyglanced at her, save for one piercing, assessing look when she first came into the room. Systematically hehad ignored her, though she had been aware of his presence.

Now, seated by the fire, she listened to his account of the day's work at the dig. Much of it wastechnically above her head, but she gathered they had recently come upon an exciting development—theapproach to an underground chamber which might be leading the way to a tomb or a series of tombs.There was some unrest among the Arab diggers, who in their superstitious way dreaded the possibility ofsacrilege. Alison remembered Phisby's hints of the accident to Dr Irvine which might not have been anaccident.

Supernatural forces, she had seemed to imply, rather than sinister action on the part of the nativeworkers.

The conversation turned to the increasing number of small objects being uncovered; ornaments, dishes,pots, statuettes and the inevitable seals covered with hieroglyphics; all of which needed sorting, classifyingand cleaning, to say nothing of the necessary cataloguing.

'A pity we're without a competent secretary at the moment,' Scott Grant contributed, giving Alison aninimical glance.

'But I am a competent secretary,' she longed to say only in the face of those glacial eyes she did not havethe courage.

It was late when the conversation ended and the group broke up. She would go straight to bed, Alisontold Mrs. Ransom. Listening to the evening's discussion had only increased her depression. The work atthe dig had sounded so fascinating, but she was not to be allowed to take part in it. All she wanted nowwas to lose herself in sleep and let the morning come—when Crane would phone the Professor inLondon and her fate would be decided. She had little doubt what it would be. Crane was determined toget rid of her and she couldn't imagine the mild and gentle Professor Ross standing up to him.



But when she got into bed round about ten o'clock she found that sleep eluded her. After tossing andturning for the best part of an hour she got up and drew back the curtains on her French windows. Mostof the lights in the compound had gone out. Beyond the flat-roofed building she could see the desert,flowing away in undulating hillocks into an ink-blue sky. It was all remarkably clear, and presently sherealised that it was being illuminated by a crescent moon which was just rising above the horizon. As itrose higher the whole scene was bathed in unimaginable beauty. The great stretch of sand looked likepale gold water, dark shadows moving across its surface.

Unable to resist the magic of the scene, Alison slipped a light coat over her nightdress and went out onto the verandah. The crisp air was delicious, the silence profound. Almost without thinking, impelled bythe magnetism of the moon, which seemed to be floating towards her, she ran down the verandah stepsand crossed the compound. In a moment she was beyond its confines, infinity stretching before her.This, she thought, could be her one glimpse of an Egyptian night. By this time tomorrow she could well beon her way home ... to a London office and suburban home.

The sand, still holding the heat of the day, was warm to her bare feet. As she breathed in the heady airan indefinable ecstasy filled her, the vastness of the night enfolded her. She did not feel herself to be aloneany more—she was part of the beauty and mystery of the immeasurable universe. Lost now to alldictates of caution, she pressed on, moving towards the horizon where the golden moon hiking. Its lightpouring full on her face made her feel curiously elated. Moon madness, she thought, and laughed softly,aloud, glad she had come out of the house and given herself up to this moment of witchery.

'What on earth do you think you're doing, wandering about the desert at this time of night?’ The harshmasculine voice crashed into her peace, wrecking all fantasy. Stark reality was coming across the sandtowards her in the person of the abrasive Mr. Scott Crane.

'What induced you to come out alone at this hour, not even keeping to the desert track? Are you crazy?And in your bare feet! Do you know there could be adders lurking in this sand? '

She shrank from the anger in his eyes, realising with a pang how justified it was. It was silly of her tohave embarked on this midnight walk. She drew her light dust-coat closely about her, shrinking intoherself. Scott Crane was so right—and she was so wrong! 'I just came out to look at the moon,' sheoffered inadequately. 'I didn't mean to walk so far... but it was all so beautiful.'

They looked at one another in an odd riveting silence. Once again she was filled with a disturbingawareness of his presence, and her nerves tingled.



'How . . . young are you? ‘He taunted her.

'I'm twenty,' she answered, adding on the few weeks which would bring her to thatrespectable-sounding age.

He grunted. 'I should have taken you for seventeen—an immature seventeen at that.' For anothermoment he glared at her hopelessly and then with a shrug said, ‘I suppose I ought to take you back toyour room, but I can't be bothered, or hindered, retracing my steps in order to play nursemaid to you.Neither can I leave you to make your way back alone. So you'll have to come with me. I'm just goingalong to the dig to make sure the night guards are well and truly on the job. Come along! '

He touched her arm lightly. 'And try not to walk on any adders. I know it would be one way ofdisposing of you, but I should prefer something a little less dramatic'

CHAPTER II

They walked on in silence, Alison's bare feet slipping in the loose sand. She had to make an effort tokeep up with her companion's long impatient strides, and in the end she almost had to trot. The moonlighthad lost its magic now; she felt flustered and humiliated. Scott had reason to be annoyed with her forwandering off into the desert at this time of night. She could so easily have lost her way and she didn'tknow the first thing about the wild life of this country. There might have been jackals— human oranimal—on the prowl, to say nothing of the adders.

They had reached a rise in the rough terrain and she could see lights a little way ahead, not the brightlight of electricity, but a fainter glow, close to the ground, as if from the kind of lamps contractors place inthe road when constructions are in progress. Beyond that there were palm trees and in the moonlightAlison could make out a huddle of roofs and the spire of a minaret.

'The village of El Quayn,' Crane announced. 'It's about a half a mile away. Most of my workmen comefrom there.'



Alison offered no comment to this information. If she was leaving tomorrow the whereabouts of ElQuayn couldn't have mattered to her less. She was unlikely to visit it. Nor did she care if the high andmighty Scott Crane's workmen hailed from the place. 'My' workmen, he had called them, though nodoubt it was his chief, Dr Irvine, who had engaged them and was responsible for them.

‘They aren't a bad bunch of chaps, ’He was continuing. 'Desperately poor like so many of the lessfortunate in rural areas and glad to be earning a regular wage. For the most part they're honest. It's thethieves from outside we have to guard against.'

'Thieves?' she echoed.

'Archaeological excavations have been fair game to the locals since the first batch of eager foreignersturned up in Egypt with their picks and spades. And indeed before that, way back in the mists of time,tomb robbing was a lucrative business for the natives. We dig up some quite valuable objects, you know... or didn't you? Perhaps these facts don't penetrate to the consciousness of the clerks in the Londonoffice who handle our reports.'

Clerks! She could have hit him.

'Of course I've read some of the reports and records,' she said. 'At least, I've typed them. But,' sheadded, she hoped loftily, 'one's consciousness is on the accuracy of one's typing, and at the speed atwhich we have to go there's not much time to brood over a report's content.'

'In other words,’ He said, 'like so many of your kind, you work mechanically.'

Before she had time to think up a suitably crushing retort to this jibe they had reached what wasobviously the dig. Enclosed by a dry-stone wall was a cavity about twenty feet square, and of a depth itwas difficult to assess in the half light. All Alison could make out was a flight of rough stone steps leadingdown into utter darkness. At the head of the steps two figures in djellabahs and white head-shawlssquatted by the oil lamps which Alison had seen from a distance. One of them nursed a rifle, the otherpuffed at a long pipe, which he hastily concealed in his flowing garments as Crane approached.



‘They will have their odd puff of hashish,’ He grumbled, and broke into a flow of Arabic.

The two men stumbled stiffly to their feet and answered him, good-natured grins showing white teeth inbrown faces. So whatever Scott had been saying to them couldn't have been too severe, in spite of thehashish. The exchange didn't take long, and ended in a murmur of Moslem blessings from the two guards.

'That's it, then,' Scott Crane said, leading Alison back on to the rough roadway. A stiff wind wassuddenly coming over the sand, which made a soft hissing sound, and all at once it was bitterly cold. Allthe more aware of the chill after the heat of the day, Alison shivered.

'Well, what do you think of our dig?' Crane was asking her.

'I couldn't see very much of it,' she answered, 'but those steps descending into the gloom weremysterious and inviting.'

'You're shivering,’ He remarked, looking down at her. 'What have you got on under that thin coat?'

'My . . . nightie,' she answered indistinctly, no longer able to conceal the chattering of her teeth.

'Good heavens, girl, you do need a keeper, don't you?’ He stopped in his tracks, whipped off thecardigan he was wearing and draped it round her shoulders.

She drew it close about her gratefully, with an embarrassed word of thanks. The warmth of his bodylingering in the garment's woolen folds gave her a disturbing sense of intimacy with him. She wished shehad never embarked on this nocturnal voyage of discovery, an impulsive action that made her lookfoolish and irresponsible, and would only confirm Crane in his opinion that she was wholly unsuited tobeing in any way a help to him.

As if following her train of thought he said, 'Your friend Miss Phisby was bad enough with her terror ofspooks and things that go bang in the night. But you with your foolhardy courage could be even more ofa menace. Wandering about the desert alone at the dead of night!’ He shook his head despairingly.'However, we'll soon have you safely back in your suburban home. Ealing, I guess, or thereabouts.'



'Wembley,' she corrected reluctantly.

'Exactly the same thing.’ He nodded as if she had confirmed some dire suspicion.

He didn't speak again until he left her at the verandah steps. The compound was in complete darknessby this time. 'Can you find your way back to your room?’ He asked with a tinge of impatience —as if, inall conscience, he had had enough of her.

'It's the third door on the left,' she told him, and in the moonlight he could see the door open, as she hadleft it when she came out, meaning to be away only a few moments.

‘I shouldn't make a habit of leaving that door open if I were you, especially at night,’ He advised in arather weary tone. 'And don't sleep with it open.'

‘I'm not going to,' she all but snapped back at him, annoyed that her carelessness should be putting herso much at his mercy.

'Phisby's spooks might pay you a visit,’ He mocked —a jibe she ignored.

‘Thank you for coming to my rescue,' she managed. ‘I'm sorry I was a bother to you. I won't gowalkabout at night again.'

‘You won't have the chance, my child, if I know anything about it. I'll have you safely back in Wembleyas quickly as I can.' With a brief goodnight then he strode off across the compound to his own quarters.

It was only when she reached her room that Alison realised she was still wearing his cardigan, and forsome obscure reason the blood rushed to her cheeks. She might not, like Phisby, believe in thesupernatural, but she felt very strongly at that moment that something of Scott Crane's personalityexuded from his cardigan. The sense of his presence seemed to fill the room, making rational thoughtdifficult. She took off the cardigan, handling it gingerly, and hung it up on the back of a chair. Thenbrushing the sand from her feet and discarding her coat she got into bed.



It was a relief to relax, to be able to sort out the events of this strange long day—which had begun in ajet plane over the Mediterranean. But before she had got very far with her survey of her adventuressleep had overtaken her.

She was awakened by somebody coming into her room and started up to find broad daylight and Lenaapproaching the bed with a tray of tea things in her hand.

‘I didn't wake you before,' she said. ‘You were sleeping so soundly when I crept in to collect Scott'scardigan.' She laughed at the mixture of expressions which raced across Alison's sleepy face—surprise,embarrassment, guilt. Her glance went to the rush-bottomed chair from which the cardigan haddisappeared.

‘He came along about seven o'clock and asked me to retrieve it for him, explaining about your midnightadventure, and how he'd come across you wandering about the desert clad in little more than yournightie.' Lena laughed. ‘It wasn't a very wise expedition!'

Waves of shame washed over Alison. ‘It was the moonlight,' she offered miserably. ‘I just popped outon to the verandah to have a look at it and the beauty of the scene lured me on. I didn't mean to go so far... I know it was silly of me.'

‘It was rather,' Lena agreed. ‘But not to worry. Scott was mostly amused about it, I think. He's a kindperson under that rather abrupt manner of his. Jim and I have often worked with him before— and withDr Irvine. Our last dig was in Iran, We were exactly the same group then, including Tony. Then Scottwent to help out with some abstruse problems at the Institute of Antiquities in Cairo. He's quite the mostbrilliant authority on all matters connected with our branch of archaeology.'

No man, Alison thought privately, had the right to be so brilliantly clever and so good-looking, soprofessionally successful. No wonder his handsome head was swollen!

‘There you are, my dear.' Lena handed her the cup of tea she had poured out while they had beentalking. She set the tray on the little table beside the bed.



‘Thank you so much,' Alison murmured. ‘What time is it? '

'Getting on for nine. We've had breakfast long ago—life starts early here. Scott was down at the dig atfirst light, and needed his cardigan to combat the morning chill.'

‘I ought to have given it back to him last night,' Alison reproached herself. She had done just abouteverything wrong since her arrival at El Quayn— and indeed her arrival had been the biggest gaffe of all.

‘If you'd like a bath I'll run it for you now,' Lena was saying. 'Our geyser is rather a haphazard affair.Abdul will give you your breakfast in the living room when you're ready.'

Half an hour later Alison, bathed and dressed and feeling rested and restored, was sitting down to abreakfast of tinned grapefruit and scrambled egg on toast served with fragrant coffee. Lena had goneacross the compound to what she called the studio to help her husband sort out some negatives ofpictures he had taken the day before.

After she had eaten Alison returned to her room, feeling lost and uncertain. Should she begin repackingher suitcases at once? She wondered bleakly. Had Scott spoken to Professor Ross in London yet? Wasshe to be bundled off to England at once? It would be a simple matter for the implacable Scott Crane totelephone Cairo and book her flight.

Aimlessly she drifted out on to the verandah and saw a flight of steps leading to a flat roof. Ought she toexplore it? Curiosity overcame her and a few moments later she found herself standing on a wideexpanse of sun-warmed concrete, looking out over the surrounding countryside. The view was superb.Lost in wonder, she gazed out over the rolling sands of the desert; silvery and golden in the morning light,and where hillocks of sand or rock obtruded there were hollows of mist blue shadow.

The air was crystal clear, the sun as yet only pleasantly warm. In the distance she could see therooftops of the village dominated by the towering elegance of the mosque's minaret. The dig was notvisible. The compound beneath seemed utterly deserted until she saw Lena emerge from a doorway onthe far side and cross towards the verandah steps. Alison hurried down from the rooftop to meet her,glad of someone to speak to in this lonely, silent place. She seemed to be existing in a vacuum at themoment, lost and without direction. When would she learn her fate? She wondered again impatiently.

‘Would you like to have a look round?' Lena greeted her cheerfully.



But it was without much interest that Alison followed her guide. The layout of the building could matterso little to her now. Scott Crane's and Tony's quarters were indicated to her briefly. Then they came tothe large well-equipped kitchen where Abdul greeted them with a toothsome smile and murmured 'Salaam!'

They lingered in the photographic studio with its modern equipment, then moved on to the workroom, itsshelves stored with ancient treasure trove—tarnished jewellery, ornamented pottery, statuettes, a jumbleof broken pieces known as ' shards’ in various baskets.

‘They all need cleaning, sorting and labeling' Lena sighed, ' but neither Jim nor I seem able to get aroundto it. Miss Phisby was supposed to be helping with it, but in the end she seemed scared to touch anythingwhich came from the underground chambers. Tombs, she called them, though these things are not fromtombs at all, but picked up in the loose earth the men discover as they go deeper and deeperunderground.'

Alison looked about her wistfully. It was a pleasant workroom and the shelf of books on Egyptologywas inviting. She could have learned so much here. But at least when she got back to her London officeshe would take a much sharper interest in the reports which arrived from El Quayn.

'Our midday lunch is more or less a snack affair,' Lena explained when they were once more back in herquarters. 'Scott and Tony usually take sandwiches to the dig with them, so we don't really get togetheruntil evening and then foregather in the main living room, which is partly a dining room, for a good dinner.'She gave a comfortable motherly smile.

‘I see that my men folk have a really substantial meal at night, and afterwards we sit and talk overcoffee.'

Wouldn't Scott Crane be back from the dig until this evening, then? Alison wondered bleakly. What ofthe urgent call to London which would seal her fate? It was cruel of him to leave her in this suspense. Shehad little appetite for the cheese and salad and fruit which she ate with Lena and her husband. They weredrinking postprandial coffee on the verandah afterwards when Scott appeared, coming across thecompound towards them.

He had emerged from a part of the building which Alison had not visited with Lena. ‘I wonder what



he's been doing in his office?' she murmured now— without any real curiosity. 'Are you looking for somelunch?' she called to him.

'No, thanks, I've already eaten, but that coffee smells good.’ He lowered himself into a rattan chair andunsmilingly accepted the cup of coffee Lena had poured out for him.

Didn't he ever smile? Alison wondered, uncomfortably aware of the hurried beating of her heart. If hehad been in the office it might mean he had been phoning London. Why shouldn't she ask him outright ifhe had yet spoken to Professor Ross at headquarters? But the words stuck in her throat. It wasridiculous to be so in awe of this young man. Who was he, after all, but the stand-in for the absent DrIrvine? And why should her pulses flutter every time he came near her?

It wasn't only the question of her return to London that was disturbing her—it was the man's whole aura,an impelling force which seemed to emanate from him. Furious with herself for being so easily affected,she gulped down the last of her coffee and over the rim of her cup met a pair of steady grey eyes fixedpurposefully upon her.

‘If you've finished your coffee, Miss Gray, I would like to have a word with you in my office.’ He stoodup, putting down his own empty cup.

Alison got to her feet, her knees weak beneath her. ‘I'm ready now,' she said in a voice that didn't seemto belong to her.

It was the nervous tension of the last few hours telling on her, she assured herself— nothing to do withScott Crane, save incidentally. From the moment she arrived in El Quayn she had been beset byuncertainties and doubts.

'Have you spoken to London, then?' Lena blurted tactlessly.

Scott looked at her coldly. ‘That's what I want to talk to Miss Gray about,’ He conceded, leaving theleading question unanswered. ‘I'll discuss the matter with you and Jim later.'

‘It seems such a pity if she's come all this way for nothing,' Lena murmured in her kindly way—an



interjection Scott ignored, as he led the way down the verandah steps, Alison following him.

In silence they crossed the compound, the midday sun blazing down on them. Should she apologise fornot having returned his cardigan last night? Alison was wondering. But before she had time to make upher mind about this they had passed through what was obviously the outer office into the sanctum wherein Dr Irvine's absence Scott reigned. It was pleasantly cool in here, with the green Venetian blinds drawnand an electric fan revolving.

'Sit down,' Crane ordered curtly, as he lowered himself into the swivel chair behind the spacious desk.

He picked up his pipe and clenched his teeth on it, the line of his jaw hardening. For what seemed a fullmoment he stared at Alison in silence, the grey eyes unwavering; her own glance slid away uneasily fromthe sheer dislike which seemed to radiate from the pitiless survey. If he was trying to intimidate her hewas succeeding. She felt, she thought, like a trapped mouse faced with a particularly determined cat.And yet, oddly, it wasn't entirely an unpleasant sensation. There was an odd stimulation about it, a senseof challenge. For a split second she forgot she was waiting for him to announce her fate.

'Well, Miss Gray,’ He brought out at last with maddening deliberation, ‘It seems that your shorthandand typing are impeccable, your speeds more than satisfactory, and that you've been standing in aspersonal secretary to Professor Ross during Miss Phisby's absence in a way which left nothing to bedesired. Ignoring the costly minutes ticking away on the international line, our London chief sang yourpraises. He furthermore pointed out to me that in this modern world of false values ourselves, like mostscientific bodies, are kept by contemporary society woefully short of funds. Having spent a. considerableamount on your fare out here he feels it would be unacceptable in the eyes of the Committee if you werenot to be given a chance to prove your worth….or otherwise.'

He picked up the pipe which he had abandoned while making this speech, and glared at it.

'So there it is!’ The grey eyes flashed at her with naked hostility. ‘It seems I'm to be lumbered with you.But don't forget that you're here on trial ... and I'm not an easy taskmaster. I expect a good deal more inthe way of common sense generous than you've already shown.'

The colour fluctuated in her cheeks. Astonishment and anger flared within her. How dared he talk toher like this! 'Lumbered' with her, indeed! The cat and mouse feeling had vanished now and she wantedto fight back. Perhaps too Professor Ross's warm recommendation of her work had bolstered up hercourage. And she was to stay at El Quayn. The high and mighty Mr. Scott Crane had been overruled.Elation sent her courage up another couple of notches.



She said, ’If, as you so elegantly put it, you're to be lumbered with me, don't forget I'm equally to belumbered with you. Circumstances are forcing us to work together and in this situation I don't think it'svery helpful for you to speak to me as you have done —warning me, threatening me almost . . . decidingI'm completely without good sense simply because in an unwary romantic moment I ventured out alone inthe moonlight last night.'

He seemed shaken for an instant at this unexpected outburst. Then he laughed 'Good!’ Hecongratulated her unexpectedly. ‘If you're short on common sense at least you have plenty of spirit.’ Heleaned across the desk towards her, his amused glance mocking her. 'Do you often have unwaryromantic moments?'

Her brief flare of resistance subsided in disgust. He would always get the last word, this man. And itwould be a clever last word—never kindly, or tolerant and understanding. She made no attempt toanswer his sarcastic question but meeting his gaze levelly waited for whatever he had to say next.

He flicked at a heap of papers on the desk before him impatiently ‘There's so much I ought to tellyou….this boring initiation business all over again, just as I thought I'd broken the Phisby in successfully.But I haven't time to spend in the office just now. I ought to be back at the dig. In what we're doing therejust now every moment is precious.'

He stood up 'Perhaps the best thing would be to take you along with me, let you hang around and seewhat you can pick up in the way of general information. You might get the hang of our work morequickly that way ... reports of our finds which you read in London don't seem to have made muchimpression on you.'

‘I very rarely had time to read them,' Alison defended herself. ‘They were not my province.'

'Well, they will be here. It will be part of your work to put them together from my rough notes. Let's beoff, then,’ He urged as she got to her feet. ‘I'll just tell Lena you're a fixture ... for the time being; and thenwe'll be on our way. You'll find the estate car just outside the compound. Get into it and wait for me, Ishan't be a jiffy.'

It was a rough ride to the dig and the springs of the obviously ancient car were not all that they mighthave been. Several times Alison was flung against the driver's muscular shoulder, and murmured her



embarrassed apologies—of which he took not the slightest notice. Nor did the jerky contacts with herseem to have any effect. ‘The Rocky Road to Dublin,’ He sighed at one point. ‘But it isn't far—actuallywell within walking distance. However, the old bus saves valuable minutes. I only walk to the dig in thequiet of the evening when the day's work is done, the moon in the sky and I have a bit of time on myhands. Then I enjoy the solitude of the desert.’ He turned to give her a sardonic grin 'One of thoseromantic moments we were talking about just now.'

She longed to offer a pert reply, but stifled the impulse. Being pert with Scott Crane might be rather likeplaying with a tiger. She had made her one tentative stand against him this afternoon . . . let that beenough for the moment. In any case they had arrived at the dig, bumping down the last sloping bit ofrough road to a scene of activity. A row of basket boys was emerging from the depths of the dig, theirbaskets loaded with what looked like nothing more than dust and rubble. These they emptied out on to agrowing mound by the roadside. The air was filled with dust and it was very hot.

'Come along!' Scott urged Alison as she got out of the car, his hand closing over her bare arm.

CHAPTER III

He did not relinquish his hold as he hurried her over to the rough flight of steps which led down into thedig. When Alison tried to disengage her arm he held her even more firmly.

'Don't panic,’ He said. ‘I'm not making a pass at you. This is not one of my unwary romantic moments.In fact I'm being strictly practical, not wishing to have you on my hands with a broken ankle—on top ofall the other drawbacks you present. These steps are dangerous until you've learned how to negotiatethem.'

He was right, of course, for more than once Alison stumbled as they descended and would have fallen ifhe had not been supporting her. But he needn't have been so unpleasant about it. Broken ankle indeed . .. and saying outright that her presence in El Quayn was 'a drawback'.

'Always take these steps slowly and watch where you put your feet,’ He counselled, as he released her



at the bottom of the descent. Was she going to be visiting the dig frequently, then?

She looked about her at the tangle of passages which opened out on all sides, leading away into asubterranean world from which came the sound of pickaxes being wielded.

‘You have electricity!' she marveled at the lights as they moved towards one of the largest and loftiest ofthe tunnels.

'A portable plant generates our power,’ He explained shortly. They had reached a kind of centralchamber with a shored-up ceiling in which Arab workers were busy with crowbars and picks, clearingthe way to yet another tunnel.

From somewhere in the labyrinth Tony Lawton emerged, stripped to the waist, a trenching tool in hishand. 'We've just about reached that insuperable barrier you suspected,’ He began, and then realisingAlison's presence broke off to say in a tone of some surprise, ’I see you've brought the new assistantalong . . .'

‘The new assistant,' Scott Crane muttered. ‘That's just about what she is—unfortunately. Professor Rossin London has decreed that Miss Gray must have her chance—partly because it wouldn't be easy to findthe kind of male secretary I'd visualised, and partly on grounds of economy. You know how the Instituteis always pleading poverty? So there we are. Miss Phisby's successor is at least to have a trial.'

'Good. I'm so glad.' Tony gave Alison the kind of friendly grin she sorely needed at that moment. ‘Whatare you going to do with her right now . . . start her off digging?’ He suggested jokingly.

But Grant didn't smile. ‘I thought she might have a go at sorting some of the rubble. Perhaps Ransomwould show her how to go about it. I'll join you in a moment, Lawton,’

He ended, guiding Alison through a narrow low-ceilinged way into a roughly boarded enclosure whereJim Ransom was busy with camera and flashlight. On a deal table before him various objects werespread out—bits of pottery, small vases, tarnished ornaments; bracelets and necklaces.

Repeating what he had already told Tony Lawton, Crane handed Alison over to Ransom's care. 'She



could rummage in that junk for you . . .’ He indicated a couple of large baskets filled seemingly withearth and stones. To have to 'rummage’ in the uninviting mess wasn't a very appealing prospect. And theway Crane had handed her over for the job, without so much as a glance in her direction, made her feelonce more like some unwanted parcel he was disposing of. But Jim Ransom's kindly words of welcomedid something to restore her morale. He would be very glad of her help, he said.

'Every worth-while object we uncover in the dig has to be photographed, labeled and catalogued,’ Hetold her. ‘The less valuable items I photograph down here. The boys bring in their baskets two and threeat a time and Lena and I go through them— when she has time to join me—a job which perhaps you willbe able to help us with from time to time. May I say how glad I am that you're joining us,’ he ended.

As she thanked him for his kind words Alison felt a glow of warmth and for the first time let herselfrealise all that her London superior's decision meant to her. Even if Scott Crane might be a difficult manto work for she was here in Egypt with a whole world of fresh experiences awaiting her. And apart fromScott she liked the other members of the team— was sure she would get on with them.

The next couple of hours passed in a flash. Jim Ransom showed her what he wanted her to do and soonshe was groping in the dusty earth and stones which filled the baskets, uncovering trophies of allkinds—ear-rings which might have been worn by girls of her own age four thousand years ago, variouscups and vessels, the fragments of pottery called shards which brought the domestic life of thoselong-ago people vividly to life. As she handled them she felt herself lost in timelessness, mysteriously intouch with the spirits of the people who had used these pathetic everyday things in the shadowy dawn ofhistory.

When she tried to express something of these thoughts to Jim Ransom he nodded sympathetically. Butuncovering shards and ornaments was the less important part of their work. 'Scott thinks we're on tosomething exciting in this dig. There could be an important tomb beyond the barrier of rock which at themoment is holding us up. Unfortunately there's certain reluctance on the part of the Arab workers topenetrate beyond where we've gone, which means Scott and Tony dare not take their eyes off them.'

He explained to her that there were two categories of workers; the ordinary Berber Arabs from thesurrounding desert and the more highly skilled, a distinctive tribe called Sgergati, who wore clean whitehead-shawls and black cloaks fastened round the waist with leather belts and pouches. These men wereemployed when the going was critical and the careless wielding of a pickaxe might do irreparable harm.

‘You'll easily distinguish them when you're paying the wages,' Jim told Alison. ‘The Sgergati earn muchmore than the Berber labourers, whom, by the way, you pay every evening. The others are paid weekly.You'll soon get the hang of it. Lena will show you the ropes when she doles out the pay packets atsundown this evening.’



It was just at that moment Alison lifted a beautiful piece of rich blue lapis lazuli from her dusty basket andheld it up to the light. It might have been part of the buckle of a belt worn by some long-dead high-bornlady.

‘It seems to be mounted in gold,' she told Jim, indicating the tarnished metal setting.

He hurried over to examine the object and excitedly agreed that the metal indeed was gold. ‘Whichmeans if this is the flotsam from some tomb it could be a pretty important tomb. This confirms our hopesthat we're on the way to uncovering some unique finds, even the coffin of the member of some royalfamily of one of the distant dynasties. Indeed Dr Irvine was pretty sure of this.' He broke off to giveAlison a hesitant glance. 'Perhaps I ought not to tell you this, but there were murmurs among the workersas the doctor pressed on with his exploration and it was just as he was almost in sight of what could havebeen the doorway of the tomb that, apparently without reason, an enormous fall of rock fell from theupper levels and crushed the bones of his foot. It's still touch and go if he'll be able to keep that foot.'

'How awful for him!' Alison exclaimed, and uneasily recalled Miss Phisby's reference to an accident thatcould have been 'no accident', a remark she now repeated to Jim Ransom.

He nodded ruefully. ‘It was that which finally sent her panicking back to England at a moment's notice.And of course some of the men share in her panic, believing the fall of rock to have been supernatural.There's much superstition in these parts, a firm belief in the occult, and the power of the dead issomething to be reckoned with. I don't know if you've ever read of the number of people directlyinvolved with the unearthing of the tomb of Tutankhamen who came to an untimely end? '

'Yes, I have,' Alison agreed. ‘The ancient stories were all recalled in newspaper articles when theTutankhamen exhibition was on at the British Museum not so long ago. In matter-of-facttwentieth-century London one didn't take those stories very seriously.'

Jim Ransom shook his head. ‘There's nothing matter-of-fact about the atmosphere out here and like it ornot one comes across some pretty odd evidence of happenings for which it's not easy to account inrational terms.’ He broke off with a shrug. 'Perhaps I ought not to be talking to you like this—but it's aswell for you to realise the sort of thing we're up against. You may hear hints, even threats of mysteriousmisfortunes which hang over us.'



‘I don't understand Arabic,' she told him.

'Oh, they'll make you understand all right if they want to. Many of them have a smattering of English andFrench. I'm afraid they realised they drove poor Miss Phisby away and may try the same tactics on you. So be warned.'

Alison felt a shiver of chill in the damp little underground enclosure. But it wasn't exactly an unpleasantsensation. The spice of a danger as novel as occult happenings stimulated her sense of adventure.

‘What does Mr. Crane think of all this?' she asked.

Jim laughed. 'Need you ask? He's absolutely unmoved by the mutterings and threatening, and indeed themen realising this seldom try them on him. He has assured himself that the fall of rock which woundedIrvine was caused by simple geological reasons. He's a brilliant geologist as well as an outstandingarchaeologist, you know.'

‘I did know,' Alison nodded gravely.

Was there any skill at which the great Scott Crane did not excel? She wondered a little hopelessly. Itwould be a comfort if in some things at least he could be inexpert, liable to make mistakes. But shecouldn't imagine him ever being caught at a disadvantage.

Burying her hands wrist-deep in the dusty basket, she came up with a necklace of red carnelian beadselaborately set. It came away from the rubble looking curiously bright, as if it had already been cleaned.Did she imagine a strange light radiated from it? 'Oh look!' she cried to her companion and on an impulseheld the beautiful necklace against her slender throat.

There was a simple catch which she was able to fasten, but as she did so the oddest sensation came toher as if hands were closing round her throat. With a stifled exclamation she tried to undo the necklace,but now the mechanism of the fastening defeated her. For an instant a strange unreasoning terrorpossessed her. And it was just at that moment Scott Crane appeared, bending his great height under thelow timbered lintel of the little enclosure.



‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ He demanded of the white-faced Alison. The sensation ofsmothering was becoming almost unbearable. Her hands tore frenziedly at the necklace.

'She's just come up with a remarkable trophy,' Jim Ransom said.

'And she's trying it on, presumably,' Scott Crane added drily.

‘I can't get it off!' Alison gasped.

'Come here!' Scott Crane moved towards her and helplessly she turned her back to him while he liftedher heavy hair from her neck and felt for the troublesome fastening. In an instant he had unclasped it, hisfingers hard and cool against her hot neck.

She thanked him, filled with annoyance that he should have caught her in such an invidious position.Whatever had induced her to try on the beautiful necklace? Her neck still tingled from its impact. Or wasit the touch of Scott Crane's fingers? Once more she had made a fool of herself in his cold grey eyes. Butfor the moment he was not interested in telling her so, being absorbed in studying the glowing crimsonstones.

'This will warrant one of your best colour films, Ransom!’ He declared. 'A perfect piece ... all of fourthousand years old. And look at the mechanism of the fastening—the entire setting in pure gold.’ Thetwo men bent over the jewellery.

Then Scott handed it back to Alison. 'You'll take all the pieces you have uncovered, shards and all, tothe workroom at the compound and Lena will show you how to classify and catalogue them, after they'vebeen cleaned and photographed.’ He was speaking in his usual dictatorial way, but suddenly his tonesharpened.

'And kindly refrain in future from childishly playing with the objects you handle. If you'd damaged thatnecklace or its fastening, so help me, I'd have shipped you straight back to London no matter whatProfessor Ross might have to say!'

She shriveled before the blaze of anger in his eyes, once more feeling utterly humiliated. All because in an



unthinking moment she had fastened the necklace around her throat. Would she ever be able to doanything right in the pitiless sight of this man? Fate seemed to be making certain that she would not.

'Give her a chance, Crane,' Jim Ransom was interjecting in his kindly way. 'She's only just arrived here .. . it's all completely strange to her.'

‘In which case I should have thought she would have taken things a bit cautiously, instead of which shegoes blundering about walking off into the desert at midnight.'

‘I know!' Alison broke in resentfully. ‘I've told you I'm sorry about that, Mr. Crane. It wasn't a crimeneither is admiring a necklace, surely. But I'll try to be more careful in future. El Quayn, you must admit,is a big change from Wembley.'

He seemed mildly startled by her self-defence.

'I'll say it is! As long as you accept that fact and realise that when you're handling our finds you're nottoying with beads on a Wembley Woolworths' counter. The objects we retrieve are all of intrinsic-value,even the humble pieces of pottery—things lost or discarded four thousand years ago. Don't they conjureup any reverence in you? What of the girl who last wore the carnelian necklace, for instance . . .'

Alison looked at the necklace she was holding with an inward shudder, remembering the crazy sensationof hands around her throat.

She turned to Scott Crane, her blue eyes wide. ‘It might be all too easy for me to imagine the girl wholast wore this necklace . . .'

‘Don't leave it to imagination,’ He counselled. 'Find out about her and her kinds. Read thearchaeological books on the office shelves. Study the kings of the Fourth Dynasty who built the GreatPyramids. Read of the golden age of Amenhotep, the love story of Osiris and his wife Isis, and how tothis day Osiris is believed to rule over the underworld. For in the Egyptian mythology there is no death .. . hence the elaborate rites of preservation, the golden coffins, the caskets of worldly possessions laidwith each sleeping soul in its immobility.’ He broke off with a gesture as if deploring his eloquence.



But Alison's mood had risen to meet his own. She felt as if music and mystery had called to her, echoesof imperishable loves. Picking up a fragment of dark brown pottery, she gazed at it, once a part ofsomebody's kitchen jug to be filled with wine or milk. 'The little broken bits of history and human hearts,'she said softly, hardly knowing she spoke aloud.

There was a moment's silence and she was aware of the two men looking at her in some surprise.

'We'll make an archaeologist of you yet,' Jim Ransom declared smilingly.

Scott Crane offered no comment, but his glance burned into her with a fresh intensity, as if perhaps forthe first time he was aware of her as a person, not just a tiresome 'replacement'.

Then he turned to Ransom. ‘What I really came along to ask was if you would bring your gear andphotograph the section of the wall we've just uncovered at the end of the main passageway. There areevidences of script on it which the camera may bring out.'

'Can you get on with your sorting while I'm gone?' Jim asked Alison.

'Of course,' she nodded.

THE FOLLOWING DAY her secretarial duties began in real earnest. Immediately after breakfast ScottCrane summoned her to his office and instructed her as to her routine duties. He would dictate a batch ofoverdue letters and then perhaps she could be looking through the long report of the activities at the digwhich had accumulated untyped since Miss Phisby's departure.

'You'll find all you need for your work in the outer office,’ He told her. 'To give Phisby her due she didbring her work up to date before she walked out, and she left everything in apple-pie order. A competentmachine rather than my idea of a personal secretary. What I need is an understandingpresence—someone who will almost know what I'm going to say before I've said it, and then rememberseverything with unfailing accuracy. In short, a sympathetic memory.'



Alison's eyes widened. He didn't want much, this demanding young man!

'Don't look so scared,’ He urged impatiently. 'Just do your best and let's see where we go from here.'Leaning back in his swivel chair, he began to dictate.

He was a considerate dictator, sensing her pace, adjusting himself to it. In spite of her antagonismtowards him she felt warmer, even grateful. The sympathetic presence bit of his speech had stuck in hermind. It seemed to have envisaged an odd sort of union between them. And for the moment they wereworking together smoothly, intimately. All the friction between them seemed to have fallen away.

It was with a curious sense of anti-climax she made her way to the outer office presently, her notebookhalf filled with the accumulation of letters. Feeling a little lost, she uncovered the typewriter—it was as ifshe had left part of herself in the big bright room with its occupant swinging in his swivel chair. But soonshe was hard at it, transcribing her notes. When Scott passed through her office on his way to the dig shedid not glance up; her head was bent over her machine.

It was lunch time when she had finished, and she ate with the Ransoms. Tony and Scott had takensandwiches with them to the dig. After coffee and a brief rest on the verandah Lena suggested Alisonmight like to spend the afternoon learning how to catalogue the numerous objects which were waiting onthe shelves of the workroom. But though she would have enjoyed this task Alison explained that shereally ought to get on with the typing of the long report.

Lena was disappointed, but remembering that the end of the week was drawing near agreed that Alisonought to stick to the report. On Saturday Scott would be making a visit to Cairo to see how the Doctorwas progressing. 'And he'll want to take the report with him,' Lena announced.

So all through the heat of the afternoon Alison pounded away at her typewriter, filling quarto page afterquarto page with the fascinating account of the expedition's recent activities. She wished she could havepaid more attention to the content of the document and less to the mechanical skill of getting every worddown accurately.

Scott Crane's handwriting was strong and clear, but there were numerous insertions and additions andshe had to be careful to fit them into the right places. Mostly the report dealt with the progress beingmade towards the hidden tomb—if it was a tomb. But there was still much strata obstruction—at whichpoint Scott had gone into a spate of abstruse geological detail.



The sun which had beaten mercilessly on the flat roof of the single-storey building all the afternoon wasbeginning to abate a little when, her task at last finished, Alison folded her arms on the top of thetypewriter and laid her weary head upon them. Her golden-brown hair flopping about her shoulders wasuncomfortably hot. She would have to do something about it—cut it all off, she thought desperately, or atleast wear it tied up in some cooler fashion.

Startled, she felt a hand resting lightly upon her head. She sat upright with a jerk to find Scott Cranestanding beside her. He had come into the room soundlessly shod in his soft-soled sand shoes.

'Now what's going on—why this collapse? ‘He demanded in a tone less gentle than that fleeting touch ofhis hand.

‘I was just relaxing a minute ... I've finished the report.' She indicated the neat pile of closely typedpages. 'And the morning's letters are in this basket.' She leaned across the desk to pull the Out baskettowards her.

'Good heavens!' was Scott's response to all this. ‘You don't mean you've completed my report as wellas the letters? Let's see what your work is like ...’He picked up the top couple of letters and surveyedthem suspiciously. 'Bring the lot into my office,’ He ordered, preceding her with the typed report in hishand.

For the next half-hour he was busy signing the letters, and glancing through the typed report, Alisonstanding wearily by his side. The chair which had been placed at the other side of the desk during herearly morning session was now missing.

'Do you think,' she murmured at last, ‘I might be allowed to sit down while you're signing the letters?'

'Good lord, girl, of course!’ He looked round vaguely for the missing chair and then went across theoffice to fetch it from where it stood under the window.

She sank down on to it thankfully and for a moment Scott Crane forgot his preoccupation with theletters to give her a searching glance.



‘You're whacked,’ He pronounced. ‘But I don't expect you to kill yourself like this. There was alltomorrow in which you could have tackled the report which I want for Dr Irvine when I visit him at theweekend. The great mass of letters I gave you would have been more than enough for today. I wish,’ Heended, ‘You had some sense of proportion.'

So she had done the wrong thing again! Too disheartened to apologise, she fought back the tears.

'Not but what you've done me proud,’ Her companion was adding on a note of approval. 'Not amistake in the entire batch.’ He pushed the signed letters towards her. 'And as far as I can see the reportis equally perfect. Ross was right when he said your shorthand and typing are flawless.'

Alison gave a big tired sigh. 'So there is something right about me!'

'Something,’ He conceded with the suspicion of a twinkle in his eyes. 'But as I tried to make youunderstand this morning mechanical perfection isn't enough in this job. I want your heart and soul as wellas your head. We aren't a manufacturing company, you see, dealing with engine parts ormerchandise—but with human history. Not only ancient history, but human. That's the indestructiblefactor in all our work—the common humanity which for all the thousands of years which have passed hasnot fundamentally changed. We're investigating people, young Alison, not ghosts. The immortals of mythand legend, clothing them once more in the flesh and blood which we share with them in a timelessdimension.'

Once more she felt behind his words the stirring appeal behind the dry bones of archaeology.

For what was left of the afternoon she folded the letters into their envelopes, stamped them and enteredthem into the post book. There was a post office in El Quayn, Crane had told her. She could driveherself down there to the post office where she could despatch the mail.

'You'll find the Citroen in the courtyard,’ He went on, adding on a note of sudden doubt. 'Presumablyyou can drive? '

She was able to reassure him.



‘You'll have to hurry if you're to be there in time to help Lena dole out the day's pay at the dig.'

He was off then, without having told her exactly where El Quayn was situated, though she had a roughidea that it lay to the east. Also there were one or two packages which would have to be weighed beforestamping. How would she cope with these formalities? Did the post office officials understand English?

Lena and Jim were shut up in the darkroom, developing negatives of the photographs Crane would needto take to Dr Irvine at the week-end, so she could not turn to them for help.

In some trepidation she set off, noticing how the shadows were already lengthening across the sanddunes. Was she taking the right road? She wondered as she battled with the unfamiliar controls of theFrench car. But as there was only one discernible track she decided to follow it. Soon it was leading herpast the dig.

To her surprise Scott Crane was waiting for her there, hailing her with an uplifted hand as sheapproached. Tall and imperious, deeply sun tanned, he stood bathed in the golden evening light. Like astatue, she thought—he could have been one of the ancient dynastic princes for whose tombs hesearched. Indeed, Alison noted, there was something faintly Egyptian about his high cheekbones, hisaristocratic nose with the delicate nostrils; and the beautifully cut mouth was as relentless as the mouth ofany Sumerian monarch. The way he held his head, his impassive expression.... only in his eyes lifeburned, erratic, unpredictable. But she was not going to be intimidated by them. Jamming on the brakes,she came to a stop at his side.

'Do you always brake in that violent fashion?’ He asked.

'No,' she all but shouted at him. ‘But I wasn't expecting you to spring up out of the sand!'

He was opening the passenger door, getting in beside her. ‘I thought I'd come to the post office withyou, since it's your first visit there.'

‘Thanks,' she responded shortly, and started the car with a slight jerk. ‘I haven't driven a Citroenbefore,' she confessed.



‘Then you're doing very well. Would you like me to take over? '

'No, thank you, I'm all right. Only I'm not quite sure of the way.'

'Just follow this track—there is no other way. And make it as snappy as you can.' He glanced at hiswrist-watch. ‘The post bus leaves in a quarter of an hour.'

So it was all hurry for the moment and she had no time to take in the unexpected greenery of El Quaynas they approached. Vaguely she was aware of palm trees, grotesque banyan trees, patches of greengrass in their shade. She had a swift impression of little black goats nibbling the green grass, donkeysidling unshackled along the sides of the road.

Hens squawked, geese cackled before the car which cruised slowly down a narrow street betweenrows of low white domed houses and open-fronted shops. They came to a square with more palm treesand a stone water trough. The post office had barred windows and was painted a bright blue, whiteArabic lettering across its facade. Scott Crane was warmly greeted by the postmaster, an elderly Arab inWestern dress.

'My new English secretary, Miss Gray,' Scott introduced Alison.

The old man murmured 'Enchante, mademoiselle!', and thereafter the conversation was carried on insimple French of a kind Alison could easily follow.

The postmaster was Cairene, that is he hailed from Cairo, Scott explained when they had left the postoffice. Most shopkeepers and officials in the Egyptian capital spoke some French, Scott enlarged. Butforeign languages were not encouraged; a strictly nationalistic mood prevailed.

Returning along the narrow street, Alison had more time to look round her as Scott was now at thewheel. He wasn't the kind of man to take kindly to a passenger's role.



‘If we didn't have to get back for the wage-paying I could have showed you the canal which supplies uswith water in this district.' A rough waterway, he went on, from the great life-giving Nile. It was the canalwhich gave El Quayn its brave little show of grass and trees.

‘The Nile!' Alison sighed longingly. ‘Is it far from here? I'd love to see it.'

‘It's quite a distance away,' Scott told her. ‘But you certainly ought to see it before you go back toEngland.’ But he didn't suggest how. And it was clear he was still hankering for the day she would bedone with El Quayn.

When they got back to the dig Lena was already paying out the wages. A queue of men in an assortmentof shabby garments topped by the invariable Arab head-shawl presented themselves one by one at thetable where she sat doling out the day's earnings.

There was a chair ready for Alison by her side. As she took it she heard Lena tell Scott that a messagehad come from Dr Irvine in Cairo. ‘He wants you to take Miss Gray along with you when you go to seehim this weekend. He wants very much to meet her—and incidentally, he has a few important letters hewould like to dictate to her.'

Cairo! With a catch in her breath Alison looked up at Scott Crane and met frank consternation in hisreturning glance.

'Take Miss Gray?’ He echoed incredulously. 'Has Irvine forgotten it's a three-day trip, allowing for theeight hours' driving it takes each way ? It means Miss Gray will be taken away from the very necessarywork which awaits her here. And furthermore that I shall have to arrange accommodation for her at thehotel where I shall be staying.’

CHAPTER IV



But there was no time to discuss the matter; the Arab workers were pressing forward for their nightlypay. With an impatient gesture Crane left the two women and made for the interior of the dig. The roughlittle table at which Lena and Alison sat had been placed just outside the opening to the site, their canvaschairs set lopsidedly in the loose sand.

Lena had pushed the big ledger over to Alison and was instructing her how to make the entries—somany dinars to each man, entered opposite his name. But all the names were so much alike—every manseemed to be either a Mohammed or an Ali, with an occasional Ahmed to break the monotony.

'Don't worry,' Lena counselled when she pointed this out. 'As they all get exactly the same amount itdoesn't greatly matter which name you put the dinars against.'

The sand was hot under Alison's sandaled feet, but now the sun had set it was growing rapidly cooler,otherwise it would have been an impossible place to sit.

Breathing in the rapidly freshening air, Alison savoured the strangeness of her situation. Here she was inthe middle of the desert paying the wages of Arab workmen! A week ago, sitting at her desk inKensington, she never would have believed such a thing possible.

The dust-stained hands stretched out for the money struck her as pathetic. Such thin, work worn handsand the faces above them were even thinner, lit by dark alert eyes. They were all small men, bundled upin their old coats and the occasional traditional djellabah. Did they, she wondered, get enough to eat? Butthe archaeological society would surely pay its workers adequate wages. It was not so much privationwhich produced these men as the generations of struggle in a hostile climate. Behind them the desert wasrapidly darkening, as the swift twilight fell. Now the sky was ablaze with the last of the afterglow, deepcrimson staining paling sky and silver sand.

There was too much to see ... to feel, Alison thought with a catch at her heart. And the day aftertomorrow she was to go to Cairo with Scott Crane. It took a whole day's driving to get there, he hadsaid, with unspoken distaste for his prospective passenger. It wasn't going to be a very pleasant journey,but she couldn't stop herself looking forward to it with an odd tingling excitement. Perhaps because shewould be on her way to Cairo—the great city on the banks of the Nile. She had a swift vision of itsoriental splendor, all domes and spires and minarets. But there would be modern streets, wide andelegant as Parisian boulevards, lined with fabulous shops and glittering hotels. A majestic capital dreamedup by long-dead kings.

When they got back to the compound Alison found that her room had been changed. 'Now that you're a



fixture,' Lena explained, ‘I have given you a corner to yourself. It wouldn't have been very comfortablefor you camping out in Jim's study.'

Her 'corner' proved to be a simply furnished bed-sitting room with an adjoining shower, at which Alisonmarveled.

‘Thanks to the canal which runs through this area,' Lena reminded her.

Water from the Nile, Alison realised, that great river, once regarded as a god, and for centuries darkwith strange, sometimes cruel customs. And here she was, Alison Gray from Wembley, privileged towash in its water. It seemed too extraordinary to be true.

But I'm romanticising everything, she scolded herself. Phisby would never see her daily ablutions likethis. Yet in the end it was the fathomless mystery of Egypt which had sent her running back to London infear: Dr Irvine's accident—which had been ' no accident'. On Saturday she would see him.

The intervening day threatened to drag a bit, until Scott, who had run out of letters to dictate, set her towork in the room adjoining the office, cleaning and labeling the roughly dusted objects which had beenbrought from the dig, and were apt to accumulate.

Ready for his morning in the depths of the dig he, like Tony, was shirtless, so tanned indeed that his firmlean torso hardly suggested nakedness. Though Alison had scarcely noticed Tony's customary lack ofcovering, she found Scott Crane's unclad state embarrassing.

Standing over her in front of the crowded shelves, he showed her what he wanted her to do. Already theday was warming up, and remembering the previous day's unbearable heat Alison had divided her thickhair into two plaits which she had pinned in a coronet around her head.

'And no trying on necklaces or ear-rings,’ He was reminding her unkindly when his glance, focusingmore closely upon her, held a personal glint. ‘What's happened to the Goldilocks of yesterday? ‘Hedemanded with a grin of amusement.

Alison flushed angrily. ‘Why do you always talk to me as if I were about ten years old?'



The grin widened. ‘I'm sorry. It wasn't meant to sound like that. It's just that I liked your hair the way itwas yesterday. It's very pretty hair.’ He nodded condescendingly as if the compliment were a concessionfor which she should be grateful.

‘I plaited it because it was too hot,' she conceded, softened in spite of herself by his flattery.

He nodded. ‘I can imagine . . . that golden-brown shawl hanging about your neck would be a bit muchin this climate. You're learning sense, young Alison!'

‘I don't have to learn it... I've got it,' she shot back at him. 'Just because I've put a foot wrong once ortwice since I arrived here it doesn't mean I'm lacking in sense. If you had any understanding or toleranceyou'd realise what an upheaval it was, my being hurried out here at a moment's notice . . . suddenlyfinding myself in the Western Desert . . .' She had to pause for breath.

'So I have no understanding or tolerance,’ He repeated. 'Well, well! Perhaps you can teach mesomething of those admirable qualities.'

But once more he was mocking her.

'Now,’ He went on, 'perhaps we can turn our attention to the only thing which really matters to me ... thework I want you to do for me.’ He indicated a basket of dull-looking oblongs of stone of various sizes inwhich she could see raised but meaningless patterns.

‘These are seals,’ He explained. 'Every door, every cupboard, every jar in our ancient world wasfastened with one of these seals, all of different designs, indicating the status of the owner. A kind ofexclusive signature, which we have to try to decipher. If you hand me that tray of plasticine I'll show youwhat I mean.'

For the next few moments Alison was completely carried away by the varied seals and thearchaeological method of deciphering them. Having rolled out a piece of plasticine about the same sizeas the seal he had selected, Crane pressed it on the plasticine where the design at once becameapparent. In this case it was two lions in combat.



'Probably the insignia of some dynastic dignitary,’ He pronounced. ‘But quite ordinary people alsoowned seals. Women put them on their pots of sweet-smelling ointments and beauty creams, even ontheir preserves—and all of them date back four thousand years or so.'

Alison was enthralled. She looked at the basket of seals and spread out her hands. ‘I'm to bring all thosedull stones to life,' she marveled. 'Uncover secrets four thousand years old!'

'Exactly.' His glance was quizzical. ‘But don't get too romantic about it. Clean each seal scrupulouslybefore you decipher it, and afterwards place the seal and its transcription on one of the trays you will findstacked on that shelf over there. They all have to go to Ransom to be photographed.'

He turned back at the door as he was about to leave her. ‘If you can classify any of the seals so muchthe better. Put them on separate trays, one for military seals, one for domestic, one for agriculturalsubjects, one for animals and so on.'

Throughout the morning Alison was absorbed in her task. She found the seals fascinating; there wereshepherds with their sheep, women making butter in primitive churns, strange horned creatures, half man,half animal; gods, Alison decided, and gave them a tray very much to themselves. But it was the humblerseals which pleased her most, giving glimpses of the unimportant lives which had come and gone in themists of time.

There was one seal depicting a man and his dog, another of a pampered-looking cat, a woman sitting ather loom weaving, a man played a flute—Alison delighted in them all. They took away the rather lostfeeling which at times assailed her as she surveyed her alien surroundings. It was as if these long-deadpeople offered her friendship across the centuries. They made her forget Scott Crane and his caustictongue. How that man could loom if one allowed him to! An oppressive personality.

But over dinner that night he praised her for her achievement with the sorting and cleaning anddeciphering. He had visited the workroom after she had left it in the late afternoon and could find no faultwith all she had done. ‘Your classification of the seals was surprisingly accurate,’ He commended her.

A word of approval at last! Alison's spirits soared.



'Better go to bed early,’ He ordered rather than advised when the meal ended. 'We shall be starting offfor Cairo at first light. I'll give you a call...'

But in the event there was no need for him to call her. Alison was up and dressed when he tapped at herdoor. ‘I'm on my way,' she assured him.

‘I can give you a quarter of an hour,’ He answered from the other side of the closed door. ‘There'll besome coffee for you over at my pad . . . the small suite at the end of the verandah.'

She had packed the few things she would need the night before and laid her clothes out ready—anunobtrusive navy blue linen dress, sleeveless, with white trimmings. There was a cardigan to match for theearly morning chill and a light summer coat of pastel blue to wear during the drive. Hesitating over herhair—Scott hadn't liked the plaits—she bundled it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck and wasinstantly furious with herself for considering Scott Crane's likes or dislikes. Just because he had had thenerve to be insolently personal!

He was brewing coffee in a minute kitchen beside his bed-sitting room when she joined him. They drankit standing. Alison was aware of the keen look he threw at her, as if assessing every detail of herappearance. But he made no comment, merely reminding her that she would need to bring the smallportable typewriter and some headed note-paper as well as her shorthand notebook since Dr Irvine hadsaid he would want to give her some letters.

‘I left them ready in the office last night,' she was able to tell him in a pardonably smug tone. ‘I assumeyou've got the report you prepared for the Doctor? '

He nodded. ‘It's in my briefcase,' and added as he led the way out into the courtyard, ‘That's exactly thekind of thing I want you to do ... keep an eye on my doings and be, as I said, my sympathetic memory.'

She felt ridiculously elated by his praise. A sympathetic memory; what an unusual way to put it. ButScott Crane was no usual employer, unpredictable as the early morning shadows running over the paleworld of sand. They drove in silence while the sun rose behind them, warming the landscape to life.After about an hour they stopped at a wayside village for breakfast. There was a huddle of the usualsmall white houses built round a small oasis which had produced a few scraggy palm trees and a drift ofgrey camel thorn. Women were drawing water from a well, filling the big ochre-coloured jars which theywould carry home on their shoulders in the immemorial way.



They ate on the verandah of a small inn; slices of flat pancake-like bread with honey and glasses of minttea.

The more I see of life in this country, Alison thought, the more I fail to imagine Phisby surviving it for aday. It must have been anathema to her.

Back in the car they settled down for another long session of driving through featureless landscape.Alison began to feel sleepy, but it would never do to doze off. Although the front seat of the Citroen waswide and she was keeping carefully to her side of it, she might in unconsciousness slump over on to herpartner's shoulder. The thought disturbed her and she became increasingly aware of the man beside her.Large, vital, he seemed to suggest a battened-down impatience—a stifled dynamo, a hint of fires bankeddown. The last person in the world in whose company she would want to fall asleep. But why, inheaven's name? Why did she let him matter to her so much?

‘Thank God,’ He said suddenly and fervently, ‘You're not the sort who chatters all the time on a trip likethis.'

‘You aren't so very talkative yourself,' she retorted.

He laughed. 'Well, whether you chatter or not you always seem ready to come up with the pertresponse.'

‘I'm sorry,' she murmured in so offhand a way that it could not be taken for an apology. ‘I didn't mean tobe pert.'

'Just annoyed. What is it about me that annoys you so much? It's very evident.'

She drew in an outraged breath. ‘You aren't very perceptive, are you? Ever since I arrived in El Quaynyou've done and said everything you could to make me feel I wasn't welcome.'

'Well, you aren't,’ He returned coolly. 'But there's nothing personal about it. You happen to be an



incident in my long-fought battle with headquarters in London.'

'A pawn in your game,' she suggested.

'A very pretty little pawn!’ He slid her impudent glance.

‘I hate being talked to like that,' she said furiously, her cheeks going crimson.

'Talked to like what? '

‘Like a silly little woman.'

'That's the last way I would have described you,’ He assured her. And leaving this somewhat obliqueremark in the air he concentrated upon his driving in silence.

The road was good at this point in the journey, the big car hummed along with a mesmeric effect. SoonAlison was dozing, but when she finally subsided into sleep she made sure with her last consciousimpulse that she slumped in the direction away from Scott Crane.

A hand laid lightly on her knee awakened her some time later. ‘You sleep very prettily,' a deep voiceinformed her. ‘But I thought you'd better know we're approaching Arvat, the town where we stop forlunch.'

She sat up feeling tousled and at a disadvantage. ‘You sleep very prettily‘ Indeed! Another cheapcompliment, flung at her in a way which could only humiliate her. Never for one moment does he cease totalk down to me, she thought, and wondered that the discovery should bring her such resentment.

The town when they came to it was little larger than the village where they had breakfasted. They ate ata wayside hotel; greasy stewed lamb, and beans. Alison longed for fresh green salad and ice cream, butdid not dare to say so. Scott seemed to take the appetising food for granted. They exchanged no morethan the few remarks the occasion demanded.



Scott seemed preoccupied, unconcerned with her presence. Indeed, she thought, she might not haveexisted. Oddly, this made her feel foolishly self-conscious. Now and then she stole a glance at theimpassive face opposite her. It was a clever face, self-absorbed, confident—the face of a man for everconcerned with the scientific problems presented by his daily work.

Suddenly the brilliant eyes were focused on her, seeing her, a glint of amusement or mischief in theirdepths. She felt her colour mount and was furious with herself.

'Alison,’ He sighed with a wry shrug, ‘I wish you wouldn't look so adorable. You distract me . . . and Ican't afford to be distracted.'

It was so unexpected that she couldn't think of a suitably crushing reply. In any case the waiter waspresenting the bill. And in another moment they were once more on their way.

The desert had now turned into a savage landscape of sandstone hills and sharp pointed rocks and itwas almost unbearably hot, even with the roof of the car pushed back.

'Only another couple of hours,' Scott assured her, as if sensing her discomfort, 'and we shall be atjourney's end. It's been a long tiring drive for you. I can't think why Irvine subjected you to it. Curiosity,I suppose. He couldn't wait to see the replacement the London office had sent out to us. Even from hishospital bed the old boy has to have a finger in every pie.' He sounded disgruntled, resenting the fact thathe had been forced to bring her along with him on this Cairo trip.

‘You mix your analogies,' Alison wanted to say to him. 'Am I a replacement or a pie?’ Replacement! How she hated that impersonal designation.

Trying to think of some even more crushing way to phrase her question, she glanced at her companion.He looked tired, and she saw him stifle a yawn.

‘Would you like me to take a turn at driving?' she asked.

‘Thanks, but no. I'm hopeless as a back-seat driver . . . especially with a female at the wheel.'



Was there any need to be quite so offensive about it? Really, this man was impossible! She maintaineda hurt silence as they sped on their way— completely wasted on the tactless, egotistical Scott Crane. Theonly person he was ever aware of was himself.

At one point along the way Alison glimpsed a signpost at a divergent road saying in English, ' GizaPyramids and the Sphinx.’ But she did not draw Scott's attention to it. He would only remind her that shewas not a carefree tourist and that a visit to the hackneyed Pyramids was not on their itinerary.

Very soon after this they were crossing the Giza Bridge on to the Island of Roda, and there was thegreat sweep of the Nile. Cairo! Impressions crowded in on Alison. The trees, the sudden green . . .crossing the Island, she saw flowers, gardens. They turned down a wide road where set in their lawnsand palm trees were impressive buildings. One of them Scott said was the hospital where later on hewould visit Dr Irvine.

‘But first we'll check in at our hotel.'

They left the Island to cruise along a wide corniche, lined with embassies and hotels. They stoppedoutside one of the least opulent-looking. But entering it Alison was impressed with its solid British stylecomfort. 'Lots of the British Embassy folks stay here,' Scott told her. ‘It's perhaps one of the last relics ofthe English influence which was once so strong in Cairo.'

There was no trouble in booking a room for her. 'We can provide a single room for the lady next to yourown, sir, ‘The reception clerk announced, with a mild leer in Alison's direction.

Going up in the lift she was once again too vividly aware of her companion, and of the hint of intimacy intheir situation—only that, as usual, Scott was looking at her as absently as if she didn't exist. 'As soon asI've had a shower and a drink, I'm going over to the hospital,’ He told her. ‘I'll leave you to your owndevices. Order some tea, have a little stroll if you feel like it on the banks of your wonderful Nile. I'll seeyou in the foyer about seven-thirty and we can fix up about dinner.'

The pageboy who carried their luggage ushered Alison into her room. There was, she saw to her vaguelyrealized relief, no communicating door. Though why on earth did she have to think of that! If there hadbeen three communicating doors Scott Crane wouldn't have noticed them. Firmly she put him out of hermind and after a much-needed freshening up enjoyed her tea in the large ornate lounge, a handsome



sloe-eyed waiter setting a lavish array of good things before her—appetizing little savoury sandwiches,luscious unfamiliar pastries, a dish of fruit, and the tea which came out of a heavy silver teapot wasrefreshing. In spite of the English decor of the hotel the clientele were of various Middle East origins, witha sprinkling of German, French and Italian tourists.

When she had disposed of three cups of tea and an assortment of cakes and sandwiches Alison decidedto take Scott Crane's advice and have a sightseeing walk. Leaving the hotel, she chose a wideimportant-looking street which led away from the river. Here the busy pavements showed the samemixture of races as the hotel lounge. The shops were modern, but the skyline was embroidered with anintricate design of delicate spires and towers and minarets.

In a side street she found large old houses with balconies and harem-like shutters of elaborate design.The creepers hanging over the balconies had been burned black by the scorching wind blowing in forever from the surrounding desert. Even at this evening hour she could feel it and began to wish she hadwalked by the river instead, where there would always be a hint of freshness in the air. But presentlywhen she came to the great Liberation Square she found fountains and lawns and flowers, and astraw-thatched summer house where she could sit and watch the passers-by, Arab nursemaids withbeautiful Arab children in western dress. Sometimes they were accompanied by their mothers clad in thelatest Parisian styles. She was struck by the classic beauty of many of the faces around her—nursemaidsand mothers alike had the same proud bearing.

As she turned back towards the hotel there was the beauty of the sudden sunset across the river, thewhole sky suffused in deepest rose, palm trees darkly outlined against the glow. Great native boats,feluccas, laden with holidaymakers, cruised past the luxury hotels, their tall sails flapping gently in theevening breeze.

When she got back to the hotel Scott Crane was waiting for her in the foyer. Nervously she wonderedif she had kept him waiting, but a glance at the clock over the reception desk reassured her. It was notyet seven and he had arranged to meet her at half-past seven.

'Come and join me for a drink,’ He invited, ' and tell me what you've been doing with yourself. I'll orderfor you,’ He announced imperiously as a waiter appeared beside the table they had chosen. ‘It's anEgyptian aperitif,’ He explained when the drink was put before her. It was rose-coloured, rose-flavored,iced and delicious.

Alison's account of her little expedition of exploration sounded rather tame when she related it.



‘I'll take you down some of the streets of Old Cairo presently,’ He promised. ‘I thought we would eatout ... in one of the small restaurants on the river bank. It will be more interesting for you than the ratherordinary atmosphere of our hotel.'

So there would be no need for her to change, she thought regretfully. She had brought a pretty dresswith her, just in case. In case of what, she wasn't quite sure, but vaguely she had visualised some smartcosmopolitan hotel or restaurant; perhaps even a dance band. What would it be like to dance with ScottCrane? Though she could hardly imagine him descending to such frivolities. Tonight it's going to be ' OldCairo ', she decided, with echoes of Ancient Egypt on the side.

Archaeologists, steeped in antiquities, weren't exactly the kind of men you stepped out with for anamusing evening. Nor was she stepping out with Scott Crane. He was her employer, lumbered withher—as he had once inelegantly put it, not only during office hours, but now on this lambent evening bythe Nile waters.

But lumbered or not, he seemed resigned to piloting her down the narrow streets, where lights blazedand the shop signs were all in Arabic script. There were booths and stalls crammed with beads, banglesand decorated combs and souvenirs of every kind to attract the tourist. Here native dress predominated,the long striped robes and turbans, the head-shawls and djellabahs.

‘You like necklaces, don't you?' Scott remarked at one point, stopping by a garishly lighted stall. Thenecklace he picked out was an imitation of the scarabs sometimes discovered in the digs. These werepale green in colour, each one bearing a different design of birds or beetles or flowers, linked togetherwith metal loops—an inexpensive ornament, but attractive.

‘I wish you wouldn't,' Alison murmured diffidently as he paid for it.

'Turn round,’ He commanded, ' and let me fasten it in place.'

Automatically she obeyed and her heartbeats not quite even. Beneath the folded knot of her hair hedeftly clipped the necklace into place.

'Now I hope you won't be tempted to experiment with our precious carnelians,’ He said, spoiling the giftof the necklace for her completely. Though later when she examined it in her bedroom she wasenchanted with the novelty and elegance of its design.



Leaving the crowded streets they came out once more on to the corniche which bordered the river. Asthey strolled along its banks Scott spoke of his visit to the Doctor. The injured foot was still in plaster andit was not yet certain when he would be able to walk again. But he was making progress. ‘I'll take youalong to see him tomorrow morning,' Scott arranged.

Even by the river hot puffs of air were mixed with the cooler evening breezes. ‘The desert's way ofcooling off,' Scott explained. ' For it's all desert round about Cairo—The Western Desert to the left of usas we walk here, the wastes of Suez to the east.’

There were still late picnic parties sitting on the green banks, loath to return to the heat of the city behindthem. In the distance they could see the six-hundred-foot Cairo Tower on its floodlit island. Andpresently they came to an oasis of beautiful weeping willow trees and in the midst of them anopen-fronted restaurant.

‘The Cafe des Pigeons,' Scott announced,' where only grilled pigeons are served. I think you'll find themdelicious.'

From the table where they sat they could see the smoothly flowing dark water of the river, a great sweepof sky above it thickly sprinkled with brilliant stars.

‘They seem so much brighter and bigger than the stars in England,' Alison marvelled, her face lifted inwonder to the night sky.

‘It's the dry atmosphere that gives you that impression,' Scott explained. ‘It's hard for us from our wetclimate to credit it, but there are only a few moments of rainfall each year in this part of the world.'

'Don't spoil it all by scientific explanations,' Alison begged. ‘I think these stars are... magical.'

'Like the stars in your eyes at this moment,’ He supplemented. 'Oh, Alison, you're so young!' His voiceheld a strange note of regret and as their glance met across the table he seemed to be, for once,completely aware of her—a look of recognition of communication. Then the moment passed and awaiter was setting a dish before them.



The grilled pigeons were as tender as Scott had promised, though Alison felt faintly guilty at eating them.Why was it so much more acceptable to eat chicken? She wondered. They drank the mild Egyptian wineand the evening went its enchanted way.

Alison spoke of the striking looks of the young waiter who had served them. 'So many of the faces I sawon my afternoon walk were beautiful,' she added. ‘The nursemaids, the mothers and children . . .'

‘The pure Arab type,' Scott said. 'Or like our waiter, Nubian—a patrician people with great dignity ofbearing. Cairo is a mixture of races and classes with the middle class Egyptian the dominant one, sincethe aim of modern Egypt is to produce an egalitarian society. But I'm boring you,’ He interruptedhimself.

'No, no!' she returned a little too quickly and not quite convincingly.

‘You see beautiful faces,’ He went on, ' where I see history.'

‘I would like to see it that way too,' she told him a little wistfully. His learned approach seemed toremove him so far from her humble orbit.

But the evening was over as he stood up abruptly, saying perhaps they had better be on their way. 'Wemust be up early tomorrow—get to the hospital before the heat of the day, and also to allow you time todo any work Irvine may have for you.'

As they walked back beside the wide mysterious river Scott laid an arm lightly about her shoulder—afamiliar gesture absent-mindedly offered. No doubt it meant nothing to him. Why should it? And whyshould her foolish heart respond? Yet as she watched the golden moon rise above the dark palm treesshe felt utterly at peace, lost in the beauty of the night and in the strange sense of harmony which for themoment bound her to the man at her side.



CHAPTER V

It was half-past eight the following morning when Alison reached the hotel dining room. The Monsieurhad already breakfasted and gone out, the waiter informed her, as he guided her to the table marked withthe number of Scott Crane's room. Had she overslept, Alison wondered nervously, and had Scottalready set off for the hospital without her? She remembered how early life started at El Quayn, and nodoubt it would be the same in Cairo where folk would be equally anxious to get as much work aspossible done before the midday heat.

He could have sent somebody to my room to call me, she thought indignantly, or even come himself. Hewas far too hardboiled to shrink from the implied intimacy. But perhaps it suited his purpose better forher to be late in getting up. He would be able to grumble about her to Doctor Irvine, pointing out howunsuitable she was in every way for the work at the dig. He would point out how much more sensible itwould be to have some aspiring archaeological male student to undertake the secretarial work of theexpedition.

But even while she was piling up her case against him Scott came striding into the dining room, swinginga large straw hat in his hand. Bidding her quite an amiable good morning, enquiring how she had slept andnot waiting for an answer to either question, he planked the untrimmed straw down in the middle of thebreakfast table, narrowly missing the butter dish.

'To protect your rose-leaf complexion from the sun,’ He announced, making it sound like a sneer atrose-leaf complexions, femininity, the whole unacceptable business of young women who wormed theirway into the membership of a desert expedition. ‘I made an early trip to the nearest souk in order to getit for you. It's native-made, but none the worse for that; light, cool and wide enough to give you adequateprotection.'

‘You mustn't keep buying me things,' she faltered, thinking of the scarab necklace.

‘I don't "keep buying you things" ’He echoed impatiently. 'This hat is a must, if you're to be preservedfrom sunstroke. I can put it down to expenses incurred in the pursuit of our work. So there's no need foryou to go all coy and embarrassed about it. Try it on,’ He ordered.

Snubbed by his explanation and his reference to office expenses, Alison had not the spirit to demur,although one didn't usually try on hats in the middle of a meal in an elegant hotel dining room. Not thatthere were many people to care, or stare. She lifted the hat and placed it on her head, half hoping it



would be too big, too small—anything to defeat the condescending air with which he was watching her.But the hat fitted perfectly.

Ought she to have come equipped with a sun hat? She wondered uneasily. But Phisby hadn't saidanything about hats when giving her hurried advice as to suitable kit for El Quayn.

From the other side of the table where he had seated himself Scott regarded her in a bored fashion. ‘Itfits?’ He queried.

'Quite well,' Alison admitted grudgingly.

'Maybe it's hardly smart enough for the Cairo Corniche, but you'd better wear it today all the same. Itwas really for. El Quayn I bought it. But it can be pretty hot here in the city at midday.'

‘Thank you,' she managed. ‘It was good of you to bother.'

'Self-interest,’ He flung back at her. 'Purely self-interest. I don't want you coming down with sun-stroke.'

‘I won't,' she promised tersely—as if her word alone was sufficient to protect her from the African sunrays. ‘You were out very early,' she added a' trifle guiltily. ‘I hope I wasn't late in getting up ... that Ididn't keep you waiting.'

‘I don't wait for people,’ He snapped. 'I'd have roused you if I'd thought it necessary. But there was nohurry. We can't very well appear at the hospital until after the doctors have made their morning rounds.Meanwhile I'll have a cup of coffee if you'll pour it out for me. It smells very good.'

‘It is,' she agreed, and lifted up the heavy silver coffee pot with a hand that wasn't quite steady.

Why was it that this man always made her feel so, inept, as if she were utterly clueless? As far as hatswere concerned, she admitted, she had been, walking about in the desert heat bare-headed. Scotthimself and Tony always wore unbecoming floppy linen hats crammed down over their brows. Whateverelse about them went uncovered it wasn't their heads. But there was so much for her to learn in thisstrange world into which she had been flung at such short notice.



The provision of a sun-hat, however, ought to have occurred to her—Phisby or no Phisby. From themoment she had arrived in Egypt, Alison reflected glumly, luck had been against her. She couldn't doanything right—and Scott Crane took care that she should be aware of her shortcomings.

She took off the big straw hat and put it on the Boor at her feet.

‘You don't think much of my choice of headgear for you? ‘Her companion queried.

‘The rough straw prickles,' she said.

'Well, prickles or not, you'd better wear it today.’ He finished his coffee and stood up. 'We can walk tothe hospital presently,’ He said. ‘It isn't far. But we needn't go just yet. I'll meet you in the foyer at teno'clock.'

Alison filled in the half-hour which followed idling through back numbers of English newspapers in thelounge. But her mind wasn't on English newspapers. A mixture of emotions seethed within her,resentment predominating. The hat on the couch beside her began to assume exaggerated importance.She had been ordered to wear it, and Scott Crane had bought it for her because he thought it would bejust like her to go and get sunstroke, purely to inconvenience him. The truth was that he couldn't standher; every day he was 'lumbered' with her he would grow more impatient, more determined to supplanther with the male assistant upon whom he had set his heart.

They hardly spoke on their way to the hospital, and Alison in her mood of depression was toopreoccupied to notice the beauty of the great river by which they walked, or the animation of the sunlitcity all around them.

The hospital, when they reached it, proved to be the last word in modern design and equipment. DoctorIrvine—whom Scott addressed familiarly as 'Tim'—was waiting for them lying on a lounge chair on averandah overlooking river, gardens and flowers. He was small, plump, grey-bearded and radiated an airof cheerfulness in spite of his injured foot and incapacity. He greeted Alison with a kindliness andenthusiasm which instantly lifted her spirits.

'Professor Ross couldn't speak highly enough of your work,’ He told her. ‘I'm sure you'll be of thegreatest help to us at El Quayn.'



‘I hope I shall, Doctor Irvine,' Alison replied. ‘I feel greatly honoured to have been sent out here.'

‘It was brave of you to come, my dear.’ He indicated a chair for her nearby, and then turned to Scott,who had maintained a disapproving silence during the brief exchange.

I hope I shan't become a bone of contention between them, Alison thought. But suddenly her ownsituation seemed much more manageable; Doctor Irvine was so obviously on her side and he, after all,was the boss of the expedition. No matter how much he took upon himself Scott Crane wouldn't havethe last word.

From his briefcase he was producing his report on the recent work at the dig—which Alison had typed.It dealt among other matters with the attempt to get back to the mysterious door which had beenre-buried by the fall of earth and stones in which Doctor Irvine had been injured.

'Are the men working willingly on this piece of excavation? '

'Apparently,' Scott replied.

The older man shook his head as if in some doubt, and then extracted a sheet of paper from an envelopeon the small table at his side. He handed it to Scott without a word. Scott read the few words written onthe sheet of paper and frowned. ‘He who seeks gold finds death,’ He repeated then, aloud.

'So it's come to this now!’ He said with a shrug of despair. 'Anonymous threatening communications.When did this arrive? '

'By this morning's post. Perhaps it was sent by someone who knew you would be visiting me today.'

'He who seeks gold,' Scott repeated musingly. ‘It looks as if my surmise about that tarnished metal doormight have been right.'



The Doctor pursed his lips 'Well, there it is! One begins to ask oneself "when is an accident not anaccident?" I wish you would leave that section of the excavations alone for the time being. There areseveral other passages to be explored.'

Alison saw Scott set his jaw. 'This sort of thing...’ He flicked a scornful finger at the cheap notepaper,'makes me want to persist more than ever with our explorations. For one thing it seems to prove thatwe're really on to something worth while.' His expressive face lit up. ‘It could be a dynastic tomb of someimportance. The outer space we've already uncovered could well be some kind of anteroom or lightcourt, the place the soul of the deceased is supposed to await its return to its body. There are beginningto be interesting indications of murals on the fragments of wall we've already cleared. You'll find it all inmy report.'

'Better still, I hope I shall soon be able to see what you've done.'

‘You mean your discharge from hospital is imminent?' Scott marveled.

The Doctor nodded triumphantly. 'Not complete discharge, perhaps, but I might be allowed a spell atEl Quayn between the tiresome X-ray examinations of my injured metatarsals. This, I'm trying topersuade my doctors here, would be good for my general health. With suitable transport, I think I mightbe allowed a few days on parole, so to speak.'

'Suitable transport?' Scott echoed. 'A whole day's driving over the bumpy roads of the desert?’

'My good friend the Sheik Hassan Al Hamad will help out on that. He came to see me yesterday andhas put his private helicopter at my disposal. It would pick me up here in the hospital grounds, wheelchairand all, and deposit me on the compound at El Quayn. In fact it was Hassan who suggested the wholeidea of parole. It will be a fortnight before I have my next X-ray examination and I could easily spend itkeeping an eye on things at El Quayn.'

Scott remained silent for a fraction of a second too long. It was clear he was surprised and not entirelypleased by the Doctor's plan. When he spoke at last it was to say, ‘I don't see you being able to see verymuch of the dig from a wheelchair.'



‘I know,’ the older man sighed. ‘But at least I could hover on the outskirts. My wheelchair would fit intothe back of the estate wagon. And, ‘He added after a moment's thought, ‘if I couldn't do much at the digI could at least help Lena and Jim with the photographic work and classifying.'

Scott's face cleared suddenly and as he turned to the Doctor Alison saw that his eyes were bright andintent. ‘Why don't you ask Fiona to come out and have a spell with you at El Quayn? It would relieve themonotony of your convalescence and she would be able to ...'

'Look after the troublesome cripple.’ The Doctor finished it. 'No, my dear chap, I wouldn't dream ofsuggesting it to her. She's far too busy with her own affairs . . . her writing, her lecturing and her activesocial life. The last thing she'd want to do would be to leave it all and come to our El Quayn wilderness.'

‘You aren't certain of that,' Scott persisted. ‘I wouldn't mind betting you haven't even told her of youraccident.'

‘You win your bet,’ The Doctor laughed.

'Well, you ought to tell her. It's probably ages since you've written to her. And incidentally, I've broughtyou an air-mail letter from her, which arrived at El Quayn for you yesterday.' Scott produced a flimsyblue envelope from his pocket.

The Doctor looked pleased as he accepted it. ‘I'll write to her today, if Miss Gray will help me. I haveseveral letters to dictate . . .'

Scott stood up. ‘I'll leave you to it, then.'

For the next hour Alison was kept busy. The letter to Fiona, making light of the accident, wasaffectionate. Who was she? Alison wondered as she made her swift shorthand symbols. The questionwas answered when the Doctor ended his letter ‘Your affectionate Father.'

Fiona's surname, it emerged when he dictated the address, was Delaine. So she was married. Thoughthe way the Doctor had spoken of her had made her sound detached, independent of ties. Perhaps shewas a widow, or divorced, Alison speculated, and remembered the sudden eagerness in Scott's glance



when he had spoken of her.

Back at the hotel she spent a couple of hours after lunch typing the Doctor's letters. It was the hottesthour of the afternoon when she walked back to the hospital to show them to Doctor Irvine and get hissignature. Halfway along the Corniche she realised she had forgotten to put on the straw hat. But thewide river at her side breathed certain freshness and she kept as much as possible in the shade.

She found the doctor and Scott poring over a plan of the dig. Scott, she gathered from the conversationwhich her entrance had scarcely interrupted, was sticking doggedly to his resolve to press on towardsthe hidden door, ignoring the threatening note.

‘He who seeks gold finds death,’ He mocked. ‘Isn't that just what we're hoping for? A nicely mummifiedprince or even a king of the Fourth Dynasty.'

‘You're hopeless, my dear Scott!’ the Doctor-groaned. ‘Is it any use reminding you that you're not theonly person concerned? This threat could be directed at any member of the expedition.'

Scott seemed taken aback for a moment. He wasn't used to thinking of other members of theexpedition, it seemed; going his own autocratic, egotistical way.

'Look, Tim,’ He pleaded, 'this stupid note is clearly based on local superstitions. For some reason orother the tomb we're on to—if it is a tomb—is suspect, and the writer of the threat you got this morninghopes to scare us off by invoking the supernatural. The accident to your foot may have sparked all thisoff; the fall of earth and rock coming just when we were hearing the mysterious door has been taken forghostly intervention. But there's no evidence at all—how could there be?—that it was not a perfectlynatural rock fall, brought about by our tunneling. If it's of any comfort to you I'm making a very carefulsurvey of the stratification before going any further, making certain that there won't be anothersubsidence.'

The Doctor sighed and shrugged. ‘I'm not at all sure the writer of that note would be content to leave asecond catastrophe entirely to the spirit world. But on your own head be it.'

‘I've got a pretty hard head,' Scott laughed. ‘Whatever happens I can take it.'



'Famous last words,' said the Doctor wryly and then turned to the reading through and signing of theletters Alison had brought to him. ‘Thank you, my dear.’ He patted Alison's hand as he passed the signedletters back to her. ‘You've done very well. I hope you'll be happy with us at El Quayn,’ He addedkindly. ‘When I asked for a replacement to our rather temperamental Miss Phisby I scarcely hoped theywould send someone as charming and efficient as yourself.'

Alison went a little pink at this word of commendation and couldn't resist a triumphant glance at Scott,meeting the inevitable scowl.

'Altogether too charming,’ He mumbled. ‘What I feel we need at El Quayn is someone tough rather thanpicturesque. A male secretary would seem to be more suited to the rough life we have to live at the dig. It's hardly the place for a woman.'

'Lena Ransom seems happy enough,’ The Doctor suggested.

'Lena has a husband to look after her,' Scott pointed out. 'Also she's a mature and sensible person.'

The Doctor laughed. ‘You aren't being very gallant to our new arrival, making these invidiouscomparisons.'

‘I'm simply being strictly practical,' Scott declared.

The Doctor nodded. 'Perhaps a male secretary would suit you better since you've set your heart on it.But now Miss Gray has joined us, and I for one am only too glad to have her. From what Ross saysshe's more than usually competent.'

‘I suppose she is—in her actual secretarial duties,' Scott admitted grudgingly. ‘If her nerve can stand upto threatening letters and so on.'

A moment ago he had made light of the anonymous note—now he was using it to strengthen his caseagainst her, Alison felt. But she wasn't going to let him get away with it. ‘I'm not in the least frightened bythreatening letters, or local superstitions,' she declared. ‘I'm very proud to be here at El Quayn and



intend to stay here as long as my work is satisfactory.'

'Bravely spoken, my child.’ The doctor commended her.

They would take the mail straight to the General Post Office, Scott elected, when they had left thehospital. As they made their way back to the city centre along the river bank he spoke of the prospect ofthe Doctor's early return to El Quayn. 'Lucky he's got a helicopter to transport him. The medicos at thehospital would never have agreed to his making the long tiring journey by car.'

'A sheik with a helicopter!' Alison marvelled.

'One of the new oil millionaires,' Scott explained. ‘But quite unspoiled by his wealth. He's a goodtype—does all he can for local development and has contributed some funds to our digging expenses. Helives in an artificially contrived oasis the other side of the village, in a beautiful Moorish style housesurrounded by well kept gardens.'

They had come by this time to the hot congested streets, and suddenly Scott noticed in an impatientaside that Alison was not wearing her straw hat.

‘It isn't very comfortable,' she excused herself. 'The rough straw prickles. Perhaps I could find a draper'sshop where I could buy a piece of material to make a lining.'

‘I'll give you one of my thin cotton handkerchiefs, which would do admirably,' Scott suggested. Alisonwas surprised at his generosity until he added in a testy way, ‘It will save us having to waste time in somedrapery store while you fiddle about searching for exactly what you think you want. I know what womenare when they're let loose among bales of material.'

But before Alison had time to think up some crushing retort to this they had reached the Post Office,where he gave her a letter of his own to add to the pile she had ready for despatch. It was addressed,she saw, to Mrs. Fiona Delaine. She took it without comment, and wondered again what Scott Crane'srelationship to the Doctor's daughter might be.

That evening Scott decided once more that they would not dine at the hotel. 'With a decorative young



woman on my hands,’ He declared, 'we might as well step out. There's a French-style restaurant near theAmerican University which might amuse you.'

So there was to be a chance after all for her to put on her pretty dress. She took as long as she daredover her preparations for the evening—not that she was out to impress Mr. Scott Crane, she told herself,but he had called her 'decorative', and she must try to live up to the flattering adjective. She decided to lether hair hang loosely, brushing it until the gold lights in it shone.

The frock was white in light-weight Crimplene, with a low heart-shaped neckline and a short, flaredskirt. She wore as her only ornament the scarab necklace Scott had given her. When she joined him inthe foyer of the hotel he surveyed her for a moment in silence and then nodded his approval. 'Very, verynice!’ He pronounced.

As he guided her through the revolving doors she saw that a luxurious-looking hired car awaitedthem—the Citroen in which they had traveled from El Quayn having been left at a garage for overhaulafter the punishing journey.

The restaurant was all red plush and rococo decors with great branching crystal chandeliers. In spite ofthe chandeliers the light was subdued, intimate, subtly flattering. They ate exquisite seafood, then roastduck garnished with orange and pineapple. There was an elaborate salad to follow and the ice puddingwith which the meal ended was, Alison declared, ' out of this world '. It was an ideal meal for a sultryCairo evening, the wine which accompanied it as light and delicious as only Egyptian wines can be.

There was a dance band somewhere in the background. 'Shall we dance?' Scott suggested, as theytoyed with their coffee and liqueurs. 'We'd better have a little exercise after that enormous meal,’ headded unromantically.

But in the end there wasn't much opportunity for exercise. The floor was small and crowded, limitingtheir movements to a lazy shuffling along. He held her closely, at one point burying his lips in her flowinghair. ‘It smells of flowers and honey,’ he said softly.

Alison hoped he could not feel the tempestuous beating of her heart as she rested against him. A sweetdizziness pervaded her. It's the music, she told herself, the insidious Egyptian wine. Closing her eyes, shelet herself float away on the tide of enchantment. She felt oddly desolate when the dance ended and Scottwas leading her back to their table.



‘That wasn't much help to the digestive juices,’ he declared, still being determinedly unromantic. ‘I thinka walk back to the hotel would do us more good.' Alison realised with disappointment that there wouldbe no more dancing, that they were leaving right away. 'We have an early start in the morning,’ hereminded her.

It wasn't a very long walk back to the hotel— there really hadn't been any need for that luxurious carearlier in the evening. Alison wondered if the hiring of it and indeed the expenses of the entire eveningwould be entered against expedition accounts. It seemed hardly possible that the unforthcoming Scotthad been treating her.

Nevertheless she thanked him prettily for 'a delightful evening' when they reached the hotel and he hadescorted her as far as her bedroom door.

‘Thank you for coming with me,’ He returned with exaggerated politeness. 'And for looking socharming. You dress as efficiently as you type.' Not a very poetical way of putting it, perhaps, and he hadto add immediately afterwards, with a flick of his finger at the scarab necklace, 'Only this rather struckthe wrong note. It's too heavy, not vivid enough—with the white dress. The carnelian beads would havebeen better. I might have stretched a point and loaned them to you for the evening—only it might nothave been exactly tactful for you to wear them.'

'Tactful?' Alison echoed.

‘The ka of some lovely princess whose body we may find entombed behind the golden door—therepository of her soul. When the body dies, so the ancients believed, the soul finds a resting place insome beloved object cherished by the deceased during their lifetime, and there it awaits the ultimatereunion. One has to handle a ka warily... or better still, not at all.’ There was a mocking glint in his smileas he saw her eyes widen. 'Do I frighten you? ‘He asked.

She could not answer him for a moment, remembering the sensation of strangling hands round herthroat when she had put on the carnelian necklace. Once more she could feel them, stifling her breathing.Leaning against her bedroom door, she struggled against the strange sensation.

‘What's the matter?' Scott asked.



‘The ka,' she whispered. ‘It's such a weird idea.'

‘You're tired,’ He said. ‘It's been an exhausting trip for you.'

She could not bear the kindly concern in his tone.

'Egypt is so wonderful!' she whispered. ‘I'm not really tired, but there are so many impressions to takein. And tonight has been fabulous. Thank you again.'

'My pleasure!’ He murmured conventionally, but there was nothing conventional about the twinklingglance which accompanied the words.

In another moment he would be offering her the casual kiss which might have rounded off so manysimilar evenings for him. And somehow she could not bear that.

'Goodnight,' she murmured hurriedly, and going into her room shut the door firmly behind her.

CHAPTER VI

The long hot drive back to El Quayn proved to be something of an anti-climax. Scott was taciturn andpreoccupied and Alison developed a raging headache—for which Alison privately blamed the straw hat.Scott, true to his promise, had provided her with a soft cotton handkerchief from which to make a lining,but what with her late evening out and the early start the next morning she had not had time to see to it.So she had arrived in the foyer of the hotel before they set off carrying the hated hat in her hand.

Scott, of course, had instantly remarked on this. ‘If you think you're going to drive hatless in an open carthrough the desert during the heat of the day you're mistaken.’ He had taken the hat from her, ready no



doubt to cram it down upon her head, when he noticed that the lining had not yet been made.

She excused herself, saying she had had no needle and cotton to hand—which was true. But Scott wasnot to be deterred.

‘You can still improvise a lining,’ He declared. ‘Where's the handkerchief I gave you?'

‘In my handbag.'

‘Then hand it over.’ he held out an impatient hand, and taking the handkerchief fastened it, piratefashion, round her head and rammed the straw hat down on top of it. ‘The next time you join anEgyptian archaeological expedition,' he growled, ‘I hope you'll bring your nanny with you.'

All this was in the full glare of the foyer for the benefit of the reception clerks and the handful of guestswho were about at this early hour.

In this mood they had set out, Scott silent, Alison filled with resentment at being treated like a nitwit. Butthat, it seemed, was the role Scott had cast for her in his mind and he wasn't going to change that mindeasily. Also the pirate handkerchief and the hat on top of it were horribly uncomfortable—yet she did notdare to take them off. Her headache grew worse.

By the time they reached the wayside cafe of the greasy mutton and beans she had to confess she couldnot eat a mouthful. ‘I only want a long cool drink,' she begged.

'Not getting car-sick, are you?' Scott asked, sounding more disgusted than sympathetic.

‘I'm never car-sick,' she returned, and added with a flare up of spirit. ‘It’s this wretched hat andhandkerchief.' With a gesture of defiance she snatched them both from her head.

It was a little better without them, sitting in the welcome shade of the cafe's vine-covered verandah,drinking lukewarm mint tea—apparently the only beverage available—and Scott ploughing his way



through a ghastly plateful of stew.

When they went back to the car he did not insist upon the hat but pulled the sliding roof of the car halfway over so that Alison was in comparative shade. And, mercifully, a slight breeze got up. But herheadache grew worse. At intervals she closed her eyes against the glare. They were passing throughbarren, rock-strewn desert. Not a blade of green grew anywhere, not even the scanty camel thorn. Fromhorizon to horizon was stretched the unrelieved gold of rock and sand, the sky over it a brilliant, burningblue.

At one point Alison's aching eyes seemed to make out in the far distance a floating oasis of palm treesand lush grass. But as they drew nearer to it the whole thing dissolved ... disappeared. She had, Alisonrealised with a pang of discovery, seen her first mirage. What a cruel deception it would be to a lost foottraveler, half mad with heat and thirst. How could kings and their dynasties ever have existed in thisinhospitable terrain?

Trying to ignore her throbbing head, Alison put the question to Scott. But Egypt had not always been adesert, he told her. In ancient times there had been water, pastures and animals to kill for food. Shedozed a little, dreaming of that lost green world, and when she woke later it was to realise with a startthat she had keeled over and slept with her head on Scott's shoulder.

Mumbling her apology, she straightened up.

‘It's okay,’ he told her gruffly. 'Not to worry. If I hadn't been driving I'd have fallen asleep myself. Thisendless vista of sand has a hypnotic effect.'

But she was careful to keep awake for the remainder of the journey, wondering at his unusualtolerance. She must have been a dead weight lying against him in the heat of the afternoon. Why hadn't hepushed her over to her own side of the car? He could have done it gently, without waking her.

Stealing a glance at his rigid profile she was aware of the now familiar stirring of her pulses. Even in thethroes of a bad headache the pull of his personality could disturb her. It was his forcefulness, theaggressive quality of his masculinity. He was supercharged, she concluded, driven by some inner dynamothat overcame every obstacle which got in his way. Buried tombs, disaffected workers, threateningnotes: none of them could impede him.



When they reached the compound at last Alison stumbled out of the car. Now she knew the meaning ofthe phrase 'a blinding headache'. It really was blinding her. Her vision was dimmed.

Lena and Tony and Jim came running out of the house to greet them. Stupefied as she was with pain,Alison sensed the overcharged atmosphere. Something had gone badly wrong during their absence.

It was the dig. The Ransoms and Tony, all speaking together, poured out an incoherent story. Duringthe first night Scott had been away the passage leading to the 'golden' door had been filled up with earth.Either it was another mysterious fall in the stratification, or the stuff had been deliberately shoveled there.The guards declared that they had seen nobody, and having fallen asleep had not heard the subsidence ofthe earth.

'So it was our friends the spooks again,' Scott sneered angrily.

And now, it emerged, nobody could be found who was willing to remove the mounds of earth and rockfrom the site again. 'We've had a sort of frightened strike on all day,' Tony bewailed. ‘You'll have to seewhat you can do with the chaps tomorrow, Scott.'

'Perhaps we should change to another section of the excavating for a bit,' Jim Ransom suggested.

But Scott swung round on him indignantly, declaring that nothing would make him alter his plans. ‘Themore they try to hinder us, the more convinced I am that there's something worth while behind that halfburied door.'

Escaping from the discussion and the shade less heat of the compound Alison made for her room, wherepresently Lena came to her.

‘You look all in,' she said kindly. ‘Wouldn't you like to lie down while I bring you a cup of tea?'

'Tea would be wonderful,' Alison agreed, and sank down on the bed, her head in her hands. ‘It's thisraging headache,' she confessed.



When Lena returned with the tea she brought a clinical thermometer, and Alison submitted to having hertemperature taken. It was soaring! Alarmed, Lena fetched Scott. Almost beyond caring what happenedto her by this time, Alison felt his hard cool hand on her burning brow. Then he counted her pulse rate.'Touch of the sun,’ he pronounced in a grim tone. 'So much for the hat-less brigade! You'd better getbetween the sheets, and stay there until your temperature is normal. I'll look in on you in the morning. Nogetting up until I say so. Give her some of our heat-stroke remedies,’ he told Lena. 'A couple of thetablets and some salt tablets. She'll be a bit dehydrated.'

Dehydrated—it sounded vaguely alarming. But Alison was past worrying. She only knew in a far-offway that she had still further blotted her copybook by being careless about hats. Shivering violently, sheundressed and got into bed. It was bliss to lie still in the darkened room and Lena was sympathetic,washing her face and hands, bathing her brow in eau-de-Cologne.

Soon she slept, waking at intervals during the night to drink from the thermos jug of iced fruit juice Lenahad left for her. When she woke finally it was to see the morning sunshine glinting between the slats of theVenetian blinds. She felt cool and restored practically herself again. Sounds from the compound told herthe day was already under way. Her impulse was to have a shower and dress, but remembering Scott'sinjunction the night before she resisted the urge. 'No getting up until I say so.' She had better not annoyhim by disobeying this edict, though what right he had to order her about in this fashion she didn't know.

Anger swelled in her heart. The moments dragged. She was hungry. Inactivity became intolerable andshe was longing for a cup of reviving tea. To hell with Scott Crane!

Jumping out of bed, she shrugged on her flimsy dressing-gown and went along the verandah to Lena'slittle kitchen. Breakfast was laid on the table; tea-cups and a pot of freshly made tea, cornflakes, crispbread, honey, tinned milk. Then Lena appeared, hailing Alison's recovery with delight.

‘I'm quite better and I'm starving,' she declared.

She had just finished a plate of cornflakes when Scott came striding along the verandah from thedirection of her room. 'Now where's that girl gone!’ he was shouting. Putting his head in at the kitchendoor, he saw Alison at the breakfast table. ‘I thought I told you to stay in bed until I'd seen you,’ hestormed. 'And that was an order!'

‘The sort of order I don't have to take,' Alison returned calmly, 'since it doesn't concern my work foryou. I'm quite capable of knowing whether I'm fit to get up to breakfast or not.'



'Good for you, Alison,' Lena laughed. 'Don't let him trample on you.'

‘What is this?' Scott demanded, striding into the kitchen. ‘Women's Lib in the wilderness?’ he roundedon Alison. ‘You had a very high temperature last night, and if you have any sense, which I gravelydoubt, you'll go back to bed and stay there at least until lunch time. In any case I shan't have any officework for you until the afternoon. I'm too busy down at the dig.'

It was something of a concession—this explanation. Alison, biting into a well buttered slice of crispbread, felt a heady sense of triumph. It was as if her attack of fever had in some way freed her from hernervousness of this man. This morning she felt she was mistress of herself, and of the situation. Munchingher crisp bread, she looked up into the steady eyes regarding her. Something in the quality of theirexpression threatened to upset her newly found cool.

She became aware of her disheveled appearance; the flimsy dressing-gown half off one bare shoulder,her hair disordered. For a perceptible moment their glances held. The air seemed charged—but withoutanimosity. The look in the grey eyes of the man were challenging, demanding.

Then Lena broke the spell, saying in a conciliatory tone, ‘You'd better do as Scott says and rest thismorning, Alison. I'll bring the portable electric fan into your room and something for you to read.'

'Lena is right,' Scott nodded, and turned away.

When they thought he was out of earshot Lena said, ‘He doesn't mean to be unpleasant, Alison. It's justhis brusque manner.'

‘He does mean to be unpleasant,' Alison contradicted forcibly. ‘He's done nothing but try to make mefeel small ever since I came here. He's a domineering, bad-mannered man! The whole of it is that heresents the fact that Doctor Irvine overruled him when he wanted to send me packing back to London.For all his airs he isn't the real boss out here, and that enrages him. Every time he looks at me he'sreminded that Doctor Irvine has dared to cross His Royal Highness's will. So he takes it out onme—hoping perhaps to make my life so miserable that I'll be driven away like Miss Phisby. She warnedme about him ...'



A signal from Lena made her look round; Scott was standing outside the open door. With a plunge ofher heart Alison realised he had heard every word of her outburst.

‘You have a carrying voice,’ he said. ‘It drew me back from the verandah steps when I heard my name.'

'So you eavesdropped!' Alison exploded. She was so deeply in now that she might as well throw allcaution to the winds. 'Listeners never hear any good of themselves and I meant every word of it.'

She waited for the skies to fall, but Scott was laughing. ‘You remind me of a brave, spluttering, spittingkitten,’ he grinned.

A spluttering kitten indeed! ‘I'm glad you overheard,' she flung at him, close to tears of frustration andrage.

If only he wouldn't stand there grinning at her! She wished she had something to throw at him, andglanced speculatively for an instant at the packet of cornflakes.

Then Lena came to the rescue again with a gentle, ' Don't tease her, Scott.' She put an arm aboutAlison's shoulder. 'Come along back to your room and rest a while. You'll be sending your temperatureup again at this rate.'

Scott, with a final enigmatic glance, taking in flimsy dressing-gown, tousled hair, bare shoulder and all,turned on his heel and marched off across the compound. With a feeling of utter anti-climax Alisonsubmitted to being led back to her room and put to bed.

'Scott's not so bad,' Lena urged as she drew the cool sheets up over her. 'At least he's too big to holdyour outburst against you.'

‘He just laughed at me,' Alison gulped.

But surprisingly soon after Lena left her she fell deeply asleep. Perhaps the temperature had taken moreout of her than she had thought. Perhaps Scott had been right this time—about the necessity for a



morning of rest. She was glad all the same that she had let off steam and that he had heard her. It mightdo him good.

IT WAS WITH a feeling of expectancy that she presented herself at the office after lunch, but he wasnot there, and did not show up until the hour for the evening meal.

Beyond asking her in a casual way if she were feeling better, offering no explanation for hisnon-appearance at the office he launched into a description of conditions at the dig. The men weredrifting back to work—anxious to go on earning the money they so badly needed.

‘There's something odd about the whole business,’ he said. 'At times the job of excavation is a little tooeasy. I sometimes wonder if someone has been on the track of the golden door before us.'

‘I'll do my dictating as early, as you like in the morning,’ he told Alison when he said goodnight.

She wished he had been more explicit. 'Does he mean six a.m.?' she asked Lena.

'Oh, no, my dear. He'll be at the dig from six to eight at least. The coolness of the dawn hours is tooprecious to be wasted.'

So Alison, having already breakfasted, was in the office by eight. It was half-past when Scott turned up,a cotton jacket flung loosely over his unclad torso. With a cursory enquiry about her health and hardlywaiting for the answer he plunged into the dictation of a complicated report, relating the disruption of thelast few days. Then he gave her a batch of letters. It would keep her busy all the morning and part of theafternoon.

'Bring the letters down to me at the dig for signing,’ he instructed her. ‘The report you can leave on mydesk. I'll go through it when I have time. It's for Irvine to read when he gets back here in a few days'time, so there's no hurry. I can sign the letters on the wages table and then you can take them down tothe post office. Use the Citroen.'



As she typed the report Alison forgot her personal grievances. It was clear from what Scott had dictatedthat he believed he was on to something important in the gallery which had been blocked by the nocturnalintruders. Adjacent chambers in the same complex had yielded interesting finds; a wall covered withfaded murals depicting the lives of what might have been a minor royal family. And there were basketsfilled with statuettes and small objects, believed by the ancient Egyptians to have the power, wheninvoked, of coming to life and performing useful tasks for the deceased.

All these tokens of life with its hopes, fears and emotions—going back four thousand years. Her ownsmall affairs suddenly seemed to matter very little to Alison. As, for Scott Crane, it was cleat that hiswhole mind and heart were given to his preoccupation with the mysteries of an almost timeless past, andhis struggle to wrest its secrets from it. No wonder he could afford to laugh at her outburst yesterdaymorning! Whatever she said or did would be an irrelevance to him. But the remark about the 'spittingkitten' still rankled.

It was well on into the afternoon when she took the batch of letters down to the dig for Scott'ssignatures. She left the neatly typed report on his desk where it was to await Doctor Irvine's perusalwhen he returned to El Quayn in a few days' time.

The signing of the letters went off without incident. Scott seemed to be scarcely aware of her, standingat his side by the table at the mouth of the dig, waiting to tuck each letter into its envelope when he hadfinished with it. As usual there would be a little business to transact at the village post office—the buyingof extra stamps, the weighing of the heavier packages.

Alison set off with a sense of release in the Citroen, her day's work nearly over. Perhaps her bout of hightemperature had left her a little more easily fatigued than was normal.

The Arab postmaster was friendly and helpful; keeping her talking in a rather odd way after her businesshad been concluded. As his English was not fluent he usually kept his conversation strictly to the matter inhand. But today he wanted to know how she liked her stay in Egypt . . . what had she thought of Cairo?How did he know she had been there?

She had parked the car in the little square with its ragged palm trees and water trough. When shereached it she found that the two front tyres had been savagely slashed. Horrified, she stared at thedamage. The square, it struck her then, was curiously empty. There was no one about to whom shecould have turned for help.

Running back to the post office to consult the friendly postmaster, she found the doors had been lockedagainst her. Had he known of the plan to put the expedition's car out of action? Was that why he hadbeen so unaccustomedly garrulous today? A shiver of fear rail through her. What should she do? Would



there be any police in a village of this size? And if so how could she, with her lack of the native tongue,communicate with them?

Her only course, she concluded, was to get back to Scott as quickly as possible and report the matter.It would be impossible, of course, to drive the damaged car; the flattened tyres would never be able tonegotiate the loose sand on the unmade road. So she set out to walk. The early dusk was alreadythrowing long shadows over the surrounding desert.

The chilly wind of evening rustled in the sand. Alison hurried nervously on her way, oppressed by theatmosphere of antagonism which surrounded her. She thought of the deadly knife which had slashed thetyres and her footsteps quickened. Was that the robed figure of a man slipping away behind that outcropof rock on her left? Her breath caught in her throat. The flick of a djellabah came again, unmistakable thistime. What was its wearer doing there? Was he watching her? Did he still carry the knife which had cutthose thick tyres into ribbons?

She began to run, slipping on the shifting sand, which seemed deeper now. She had lost the ill-definedroad she realised, and was making for the trackless desert! Her heart pounded against her ribs as shestumbled and ran and stumbled again. Then, with a cry of unspeakable relief, she saw Scott looming inthe half light before her. With a cry she ran to him.

'Alison! What on earth has happened to you? You're way off the road, thank heavens I spotted you.'His arms were about her, supporting her.

His warmth and strength seemed to pour into her, reviving her. She leaned against him, letting the fearand the horror slip away.

'Someone slashed the tyres of the Cit while I was in the post office,' she gasped.

‘I knew something had gone wrong with you. I felt it in my bones,' Scott said unsteadily, as his armsdrew her closer.

Alison could feel the beating of his heart beneath the flimsy cotton jacket. She told him about the manlurking behind the rocks. There was no sign of him now, and she began to wonder if she had imaginedhim. But Scott was all sympathy.



'Poor Alison! You have had a bad fright. Let's get you back to the compound.'

She drew away from him with a long sigh. ‘I'm all right now,' she assured him. ‘If you put me on the righttrack I can make my way back alone, Don't you think you ought to go down to the village and see aboutthe car?'

'Yes, but I'll walk you home first and then take the estate car to the village. I'll get Tony to come alongwith me and see if we can ferret out just what's happening. We can report the matter to the headman ...a kind of policeman. But I doubt if it will do much good.’

He was leading her back to the road as he talked his arm about her shoulder. Things were gettingserious, he said. First the trouble at the dig, and now this. He would be glad when Irvine got back fromthe hospital. He was sorry, he emphasised, that she had had this alarming experience. 'Now you'll be asanxious as your predecessor, Miss Phisby, to get back to England,’ he said.

‘You mean,' she said sadly ‘You hope I will. You only want me out of the way, don't you? '

'For your own good, yes. But that doesn't mean I don't admire your pluck in having come here.'

'The brave kitten department,' she said wryly. 'It would take more than a couple of slashed tyres to sendme running home. I find it fascinating here, full of interest... in spite of...' She broke off in an embarrassedway.

‘In spite of me,' Scott supplied.

'Yes,' she confirmed sturdily. ‘In spite of you.'

He laughed. 'So you think I'm a bit of an ogre? You must agree in the light of recent happenings that thejob you're trying to hold down would be much more suitable for a young man.'

‘I don't see why,' she argued. 'Plenty of women have worked in the desert at the various excavations.



I've been browsing among the books on Egyptology on the office shelves, and there's one written by awoman who'd obviously spent months in remote places gathering her material.'

She felt his little shrug of dissent. ‘There are women and women—the tough types who can stand up tohardship and the other kind who, shall we say, are designed by nature for a gentler role.'

‘If you think I can't stand up to hardship . . .' Alison began, moving away from his touch.

‘That's exactly what I do think.’ he drew her back firmly into the shelter of his arm. 'And don't gounsheathing your kitten claws at me about it.'

‘I'm not a kitten!' Alison's voice rose indignantly. ‘Why do you forever talk down to me like this, justbecause I happened to make one or two mistakes ...?’

'Like walking about in the desert in your nightie the night you arrived, and scorning the sun hat I boughtfor you risking sun-stroke.'

'Only I didn't have sun-stroke,' Alison declared defiantly. 'Lena said I would have been much more ill if Ihad. It was the long hot ride through the desert that upset me.'

'Possibly it was. But that still doesn't put you in the Amazon class. Don't you realise that your occasionalmuddles and weaknesses are part of your attraction?'

Frustration seethed in her.

'I hate it when you talk to me like this,' she burst out. 'Type-casting me—the sweet, helpless littlewoman. How out-of-date can you get? That sort doesn't exist any more. Don't you ever meet anythingmore contemporary than your four-thousand-year-old ghosts? Women are individuals nowadays . . . ' She stopped for want of breath.

'Men's equals,’ he finished for her drily.



'Exactly.'

They had reached the entrance to the compound now, but engrossed in their argument stood still.

‘If only you knew how often I've had to listen to this nonsense,' Scott said with some bitterness, as if thediscussion had some personal implication for him. 'Because of course it is nonsense, and I wouldn't haveexpected it from you, of all people.'

An odd qualification, she was to ponder later. But now she demanded bluntly, 'Just why is it nonsense?'

He gave her an exasperated glance. 'Because it's totally unscientific. Women are completely differentfrom men, and as the French say, "Vive la difference!" But seriously, to expect them to compete withmen on general grounds is to ignore the whole pattern of evolution. Women are designed by nature forone type of fulfillment, men for another. The two sexes have different drives, even to some degreedifferently constituted brains. You can't suddenly, after something like fifty million years, turn the wholething round and expect men and women to fulfill the same role. If you do that what you get, quite frankly,are freaks.'

‘Thanks,' Alison said shortly.

Scott laughed. ‘I didn't say you were a freak,’ He corrected. ‘The whole point is that you so beautifullyare not.''

Darkness had fallen by now and the sky was alight with the brilliant stars of Egypt.

'Don't you see,' Scott said softly ‘that it's something very precious about you I'm trying to protect?'

Still with his arm about her, she turned to look up at him, trying to read his expression.

'Don't try to change yourself, Alison,’ He whispered. ‘You're as sweet as you are. And when you look



up at me as you're looking now there's only one thing I can do about it.'

Stooping, he kissed her full on the lips. She did not resist that kiss, perhaps she even returned it, thegreat silver stars whirling about her. Then with a little cry she tore herself from his grasp, ran across thecompound, up the verandah steps and into her room.

CHAPTER VII

Safely in her room Alison sent a dazed glance at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. There wasjust enough light from the lamp on the verandah outside to show a blur of a face illuminated by twoenormous shadowy eyes. She put a hand to the lips which Scott had just kissed. ‘When you look at melike that,’ he had said, ‘there’s only one thing I can do . . .' as if she had invited that unexpected andwholly disturbing salute. 'Don't try to change yourself, Alison; you're as sweet as you are.' A kiss for hersweetness, her accessibility. No doubt it had meant little to him; yet it had shaken her to the depths.

As if I'd never been kissed before, she upbraided herself, and switching on the light set about tidying herdisheveled hair. A dab of powder on her nose further helped to restore her morale. It had been ashattering afternoon—that terrifying walk home through the desert, with the road eluding her—and aghastly man in an Arab robe creeping behind in her wake. She thought of the slashed tyres andshuddered. What would Scott find when he reached the village?

Light footsteps along the verandah heralded the approach of Lena Ransom. 'My poor Alison!' sheexclaimed as she came into the bedroom. 'Scott has just been telling me of your horrible adventure. I'msure you could do with a cup of tea. I'll pop along to the kitchen and make one.'

‘What about the men's wages?' Alison remembered with a shock. It was long past the hour for the dailypayments.

'Tony and Jim have taken care of that,' Lena assured her. ‘When you didn't turn up at the dig at the usualpaying-out hour Scott began to worry about you. He couldn't think what had kept you so long postingthe letters.'



'I'm so sorry,' Alison murmured.

'My poor dear, you couldn't help it! You look all in, and no wonder. Come along to the kitchen now andwe'll have that tea.'

As they drank the welcome brew she spoke of Scott's reaction to the incident of the slashed tyres. ‘Icould see he was pretty disturbed. He and Tony have gone off in the estate car to see just how badlydamaged the Citroen is. They'll tell us all about it, I expect, when we meet at dinner time. Which remindsme—I'd better get over to the communal kitchen and see what the cook is doing about our meal. I'veordered kebabs and savoury rice.' She turned as she was about to leave. ‘If I were you I'd lie down andhave a bit of a rest.'

But Alison didn't feel like resting, stirred up as she was. She went over to the office and did a fewoutstanding jobs. But her thoughts kept wandering. How would she face Scott when she met himpresently? A stupid self-consciousness seemed to paralyse her at the prospect of having to see him,talk to him. With a sinking feeling she remembered how he had stressed—in the light of the afternoon'soccurrence—the unsuitability of her presence at El Quayn. 'Now you'll want to return to London likeyour predecessor,’ he had said, almost exultantly, welcoming her weakness.

Then they had had that silly argument about women's rights. The only right any woman of Scott's wouldhave would be that of unquestioning submission to her lord and master. Alison's indignation at thisconclusion came as a relief. That kiss hadn't changed anything. How could she have imagined for aninstant that it would? He was an impossible, domineering man. Any kindness or consideration he doledout would be on his own terms.

Fortified by these sensible arguments, she changed for dinner from her cotton jeans and shirt into a crisplinen dress. Then she did her face—carefully but unobtrusively.

It was something of an anticlimax when she reached the communal living room where dinner would beserved to find that neither Scott nor Tony had shown up. Nor had there been any word from them. Itwas more than two hours now since they had gone down to the village and it was plain that Lena and Jimwere beginning to be worried about them. Had something more serious than the tyre-slashing croppedup?

Alison's carefully built-up defences crumbled. Now she felt vulnerable and emotional again. If anythingwere to happen to Scott. . .



'We'd better begin without them,' Lena elected.

There was soup as a first course. Alison could hardly choke it down and dropped her spoon with aclatter when the telephone shrilled. Jim knocked his chair over as he hurried to answer it.

‘It's Scott!’ he told the watching women, his hand momentarily over the mouthpiece. ‘He's okay.' Quitea long spiel followed from the other end, Jim merely interrupting at intervals to say, 'I see. Yes. That'sfine, Scott.' And finally, 'Expect you when we see you, then.'

Returning to the dinner table, he told them that Scott and Tony, having seen the damaged car and beingunable to get any help from the obviously uncooperative inhabitants of the village, had decided to driveon and consult the Sheik Al Hamad—who was proving to be extremely sympathetic and helpful. Hewould, he had promised, send a couple of his own first-class mechanics along to assess the damage tothe car—for more than the tyres, it seemed, had been tampered with. Meanwhile Scott and Tony hadbeen invited to dine at the palace.

'And a sumptuous meal it's bound to be,' Jim ended a trifle wistfully. ‘They live on the fat of the land,those oil magnates. Scott,’ he added, ' said not to wait up for them as they expect to be home late.'

So it wasn't until the following morning that Alison encountered him—in the office where she wasawaiting his instructions for the day's work. The morning mail had arrived and had to be opened andsorted. Scott went through it with her in a hurried fashion, obviously anxious to be back at the dig, wherethe atmosphere, he reported, was a bit tense. ‘I think the chaps are a little ashamed of last night'sescapade, but they aren't saying who was responsible. I've got to watch them all pretty closely as we getnearer to that mysterious door. And incidentally, Alison, I think you'd better give the excavation site amiss for the next few days. I'll get Jim to see to the paying of the wages.'

She felt this was but another nail in her coffin. If it wasn't safe for her to go down to the dig she was thatmuch less use to him.

His manner towards her was abrupt and absent-minded, his thoughts obviously miles away from her onthe many problems which beset him. The kiss under the stars might never have happened— indeed, asfar as Scott was concerned it probably mattered less than nothing, a mild reaction to a slightly emotionalmoment. She had been in danger and for a brief interval he had become more acutely aware of her thanusual. Now she was back in her role as a piece of office furniture again.



He did ask her in a polite and distant fashion if she had recovered from her unfortunate experience theevening before. She assured him that she had, and in an equally polite and distant fashion thanked him forhaving come to her rescue.

That evening at dinner Alison listened to the men discussing the whole question of disaffection among theArab workers—at the dig and in the village. It was obvious that there was something in the excavationthey did not want to see uncovered. Most probably, the Sheik had suggested, it was evidence of a fairlyrecent underground robbery—such robberies were not unknown. Tombs or complexes undergroundcould be rifled by dishonest workers and the resulting loot sold to dishonest dealers in the Cairo curiomarket.

In this case it looked as if the robbers had been either frightened by something they encountered, orotherwise disturbed. The carnelian necklace was mentioned. It had, Scott reminded his listeners, beenfound with other small personal treasures of a feminine nature, scattered amid the loose sand and stones,as if it had been dropped by someone fleeing in a hurry.

The inference was that it belonged to somebody buried in the chamber behind the golden door—obviously a woman. Could she be a princess—a member of the important Fourth Dynasty?

'We must wait and see,' Scott summed it up. ‘But the appearance of that necklace is one of the reasonsI'm determined to complete this particular bit of excavation.'

A remark Alison was to remember later.

The next few days passed uneventfully. The crisis faded. The Arab diggers came punctually to work.The Citroen was back in service again. Ordinary routine was established. After a short time Alisonpersuaded Scott to allow her to resume her duties at the pay desk in the late afternoons. But she noticedhe watched over her very carefully while she was there and made sure she returned to the compoundwith either Jim or Tony or himself. She must never, he warned her, walk along the desert road alone atdusk. Was all this surveillance, she wondered, a bother to him? She could imagine him inwardly chafingat the responsibility he felt for her, longing for that independent male assistant upon whom he had set hisheart.

Correspondence was slack at that period and Alison spent much of her time helping the Ransoms withthe sorting and cataloguing of the objects which came in basket-loads daily from the dig. Anxious to learn



more about the background of her work, she now read several of the scientific books from the officeshelves. Scott seemed pleased about this, and finding her one evening after dinner curled up in anarmchair poring over a heavy tome on arte facts and burial rites, he asked her what it was aboutarchaeology that attracted her.

‘The lives of the people behind it,' she told him. 'So many of the things we come across underground areso humble and somehow pathetic—the little cups and bowls, most of them beautifully decorated. Theymust have been happy people to take such trouble over the small domestic things they handled everyday.'

'A profound deduction,' Scott smiled. ‘But don't get too sentimental over the life and times we uncover.They could be pretty savage.’ he told her about the Nile Maiden, a beautiful girl periodically chosen tobe sacrificed to the god of the Nile. 'Perfumed and bathed and dressed like a bride, all in white, she wasfeted for days, knowing all the time that at the end of it she would be flung into the river to drown.'

'Don't!' Alison begged. ‘It sounds so fiendishly cruel.'

‘It was cruel. Ancient Egypt wasn't all prettily decorated cups and bowls.'

Changing the subject, he spoke of Doctor Irvine's temporary return from the hospital. Lena was busywith her Arab helpers getting his rooms ready for him. And now Scott was wondering aloud what oughtto be done about turning the inner office over to him.

‘When we do,’ he went on, ‘I'll be taking over the outer office and you'll have to move into theworkroom. But we needn't worry about that just yet,’ he added with an air of relief. ‘The Doctor won'tbe fit to take the reins just yet.'

How Scott would hate being second in command again, Alison thought, and found a certain satisfactionin the prospect. It would do him no harm to learn a little humility—though she couldn't really imagine sucha thing ever happening!

He had gone off to the dig and Alison was busy with her routine work when the phone in the inner officerang. Alison hurried to answer it, thinking it might be some message from the hospital. It was a woman'svoice which spoke; a cool, low-pitched seductive voice. 'May I speak to Mr. Scott Crane, please?’ Itdemanded.



‘He's down at the dig,' Alison returned, wondering who was this woman who wanted him. ‘I'm afraid itwould take rather a long time to fetch him. Could you leave a message?'

There was a brief pause—a small sound of annoyance. Then, 'To whom am I speaking?'

‘I'm Mr. Crane's secretary . . . Doctor Irvine's, I mean,' Alison stumbled.

The voice said rather distantly, ‘I think I'd better speak to Mrs. Ransom if she's about. Tell her it's FionaDelaine on the phone ...'

Alison put down the receiver and raced across the compound to fetch Lena. 'Fiona Delaine on thephone,' she gasped,

'Good heavens, a London call! ' Lena dropped the pillowcases she was carrying and they ran togetherback to the office where the receiver lay mute and somehow ominous on what was still Scott's desk.

Lena picked it up. 'Fiona!' she cried. ‘Where are you? Cairo!' she exclaimed after a listening interlude.‘You're with your father? How marvelous! And you'll be arriving here with him tomorrow afternoon.Scott will be delighted. We'll all be delighted.'

After a few more welcoming words she hung up. 'Fiona, the Doctor's daughter, is in Cairo,' sheannounced unnecessarily. 'She'll be arriving with her father tomorrow. I must go and get another roomready for her.' She sounded genuinely pleased. 'Scott will be surprised.' She flashed an urgent glance atAlison. ‘I think you'd better take the Cit and run down to the dig and tell him that Mrs. Delaine is on herway.'

‘Is there a Mr. Delaine?' Alison blurted. For the life of her she couldn't have held the rather too personalquestion back. But Lena didn't seem to resent it.

‘There was' she answered significantly. ‘They divorced about a year ago. No one,' she added



cryptically, ' was very surprised.'

It was to Alison as though the unknown woman was already in the room—a mystery figure. The brilliantwriter and journalist too much occupied with her own glittering life to be summoned to her father'ssickbed. But now, in spite of her preoccupations, she was coming. And Scott would be pleased. Hadthe letter he had written to Mrs. Delaine a week or so ago had anything to do with her decision to dropall her London engagements and travel to Egypt? Alison wondered about this as she bumped over theuneven road in the rehabilitated Citroen.

A haze of dust hung over the entrance to the dig when she reached it. She went down the uneven steps.Half blinded by the brilliant sunshine she had left behind her, she peered into the gloom ahead. Alow-powered electric bulb picked out the opening to a tunnel where workers were collecting baskets ofearth.

'Mr. Crane!' Alison called, and almost at once be came, stooping under the low ceiling. He was nakedto the waist, a crowbar in his hand.

'Alison!’ he exclaimed. 'Now what is it?’ he demanded impatiently, as though she were in the habit ofinterrupting him in his all-important tunneling.

‘It's Fiona,' she began, and hastily corrected herself, ' Mrs. Delaine. She's just phoned the office. Lenaspoke to her. She's with Doctor Irvine in Cairo and will be coming here with him tomorrow.'

For the first time Alison saw Scott Crane nonplussed. For an instant he seemed incapable of speechand then he laughed, as if with pleasure. 'Fiona in Cairo? Who would have thought it? The old man willbe delighted. What a blessing we have that helicopter laid on—I can't see her putting up with the tediousjourney by road or train.'

But I had to put up with it, Alison thought. No helicopter for the humble secretary.

'Tony!' Scott turned back to call down the tunnel. ‘What do you think? Fiona is in Cairo and will be heretomorrow with the Doctor!'

There was a distant rumble of suitable exclamations, as Tony emerged from the tunnel, in the same stateof undress as Scott. 'Fiona!’ he gasped, as if the name held some special magic. 'Dropping down on us



tomorrow literally out of the skies.'

'Only wings are good enough for her ladyship' Scott laughed. 'Can you shore up that section I've beenworking on? ‘He asked Tony then. ‘I'm going back to the compound with Alison to see whatpreparations Lena is making for our honoured guest. She'll need a room with a shower.'

Back to the surface and the waiting Citroen Alison automatically got into the driver's seat. But Scott,behind her, muttered an unceremonious, ' Move over, there's a good girl. You know I can't stand beingdriven.'

How true, Alison thought, sliding with outward meekness into her allotted passenger seat. You hatebeing driven, but you like to drive everyone else. Slave drive, she exaggerated. For some reason shedidn't stop to explore she was utterly exasperated with Scott at this moment. His reaction to the news ofFiona's arrival annoyed her. It seemed excessive. For the first time she had seen him really stirred bysomething outside his work.

The rest of the day was taken up in a flurry of preparation. There were phone calls to the Sheik, whoconfirmed that the helicopter would be early in Cairo, bringing the Doctor and his daughter to El Quaynduring the afternoon.

Lena planned a festive dinner. Scott spent the afternoon with a couple of Arab workers contriving aseries of ramps so that the Doctor's wheelchair could be moved about the compound with ease.

Sleeping accommodation, it appeared, was stretched. Alison was asked by Lena if she would mindmoving back to the divan in Jim's den. 'Just for a few days, until we can think of somewhere to put Fiona.The only available room with a shower apart from yours is in the men's quarters. I don't suppose she'dmind having that, but just at first I feel she ought to be this side of the compound near to her father in casehe needs her help.'

Alison could only acquiesce. But why couldn't Fiona make do with the divan for a few days? Shewondered. Scott, she supposed, would not have approved—clearly determined that this latest additionto the expedition personnel must have the best. She found it difficult to concentrate on her work thatafternoon and was glad when it was time to go down to the dig and pay the men's wages.

Conversation over the dinner table that evening was all about the prospective arrivals—with theemphasis on Fiona Delaine. They all seemed especially interested in her and concerned for her. How longwould she put up with the isolation of life in the desert? Lena wondered.



'Fiona,' Scott remarked cryptically, ' brings her own life with her.'

The next day the sense of expectation seemed to invade everything and everybody. Scott couldn't settleto his work at the dig, inventing excuses to remain in the office, within earshot of the helicopter when itarrived. Everything must be in perfect order for the Doctor, he insisted, as he set Alison to the tidying ofshelves and a final furbishing up of the collected finds in the workroom.

When the whirr of the approaching helicopter filled the air in mid-afternoon he went hurrying into thecompound, to gaze up into the sky. Lena and Jim appeared on their section of the verandah. Tony turnedup too, with a handful of Arab workers.

Alison, looking out of the workroom window, wondered if the great mechanical bird would have roomto alight in the compound, but it came down without difficulty. She peered through the clouds of dustraised by the rotating blades. The Arab workers were hurrying forward with one of the ramps they hadcontrived, fitting it to the high exit of the helicopter, and in another moment they were manipulating theinvalid chair and its occupant down to the ground.

Frankly curious, Alison watched the little scene which followed. Everyone greeting everyone else ... theDoctor, the Sheik who had accompanied him on the flight, the slim dark-haired woman whom Al Hamadwas gallantly helping down the sloping ramp to the ground. It was a moment of joyful confusion andAlison felt a little bleak at having been left out of it, which was silly of her. All these people knew oneanother. She was the stranger in their midst.

Now Scott was kissing the dark-haired woman— Fiona—lightly, but with affection, and she waslaughing up at him. Now that the dust had cleared away Alison could see her clearly. There was nothingstrictly classical about the vivid heart-shaped face lifted to Scott, but it had its own arresting beauty. Heruncovered hair, worn shoulder-length, looked as if it were naturally curly; her eyes under thick lasheswere brilliantly green, her mouth small but mobile. The shapely lips parting in speech or laughter revealedvery white rather pointed teeth—predatory teeth, Alison thought, and knew she was being unnecessarilycritical of the new arrival, as if from the first she was determined not to like her, perhaps because of theimpression she induced of giving nothing away. For all the exuberance of her manner she had herselfcompletely, even coldly, under control. Nothing and nobody could really touch her. She wasinvulnerable.

They were all moving now towards the communal part of the compound, the Doctor submissively in hiswheelchair, which Scott was wheeling. Alison just had time to be impressed by the height and



magnificence of the Sheik in his silken robes before they all disappeared into the living room, where, sheknew, tea awaited them—drinks for the men, if they preferred, but the Sheik, Lena had told Alison,being a Moslem would not touch alcohol. What he liked at this hour of the day was mint tea—whichLena would make for him from the dried mint leaves she kept in her kitchen.

When the houseboy appeared, coming across the compound with Alison's tea on a tray, her sense ofostracism increased. But once more she told herself it was natural that she should be shut out at thismoment of reunion among friends. Sadly she returned to the typing of a spiel on the kings of the FourthDynasty which Scott had asked her to type out. All this preoccupation with the long-gone past when thepresent moment throbbed with such emotion—emotion it was perhaps best not to examine too closely.So short a time ago, Alison reminded herself, she had never seen any of these people at El Quayn—noweverything they did and said was becoming of such importance to her. She wondered why, and evadedthe answer.

Inevitably the evening hours drew on and it was dinner time. The Sheik and his helicopter had long sincedeparted, but Scott, Alison noticed, had not returned to the dig. It was Tony who had driven her therefor the evening pay-out. Now she was back in her room, deciding not to change for dinner— anunconscious gesture of defiance, perhaps. Let her afternoon cotton frock serve. Nobody cared what shelooked like.

In the living room when she entered it aperitifs were circulating and the conversation was animated, ledby Fiona, who was clad in one of those deceptively simple black dresses which cost the earth, her armsloaded with barbaric bracelets. Long ear-rings dangled against her cheeks, swaying as she turned herhead with characteristic animation.

'At last!' Doctor Irvine exclaimed as Alison entered the room. 'My charming secretary joins us. MissGray, my dear,’ he introduced her to his daughter.

Fiona, in the midst of a lively conversation with Scott, broke off to give Alison a cursory glance and abrief, 'Hullo, Miss Gray,' and thereafter ignored her.

She was surrounded by the three men—Scott, Tony and Jim Ransom—and was regaling them with anaccount of her encounter with the editor-in-chief of an important London daily. ‘I've persuaded him tocommission me to do some articles on the scene out here,' she announced with pride. ‘The changingCairo, with its emphasis on egalitarianism. In spite of which, I noticed, poverty still abounds in the backstreets and out here in the wilderness. The programmes that are scheduled will take time—but at leastthere are programmes.



‘I'd like to do some articles too on the conditions for women out here,' she went on. ‘I'm sure I couldfind endless material in the surrounding desert villages.'

So she hadn't come to Egypt just to help her father through his convalescence, Alison reflected.

‘You won't find any Women's Lib going on round about El Quayn if that is what you're hoping for,'Scott was warning Fiona with an indulgent laugh for her enthusiasms.

She shook her head at him, resenting the laughter. ‘That's all you know,' she challenged him. ‘I'vealready talked to the Sheik al Hamad about it and he tells me his daughters have all been to modernschools in Cairo and even to university.'

'From which,' said Scott, ‘they will contentedly return to their traditional role of marriage andchild-bearing.'

‘In the long term all that will change.'

‘Then to hell with the long term,' Scott said hotly.

'Now don't start one of your arguments, you two,' Lena interrupted. 'For one thing, all this discussion onthe status of women is such a waste of breath. I can never see what it's all about. Men are men andwomen are women. They don't have to be equal, whatever that means. They complement eachother—making a satisfactory whole. And to do that they have to be different. It's a very importantdifference, maintaining a balance. For one thing, men are naturally aggressive and whatever all the peacesocieties may say, they love fighting and wars. Women are all for security and safety. Maybe life needssome aggression, but it also needs aggression to be controlled, and that's where women come in. If theyturned into Amazons or whatever it is they want there would be unspeakable chaos. But luckily, oldMother Nature will see to it that this never happens.'

There was a moment of silence when she had ended this long speech and then there was a general burstof laughter.



'Good old Lena,' said Tony. ‘You always talk sense.'

Jim looked gratified at his wife's success. Scott remained stonily silent, while Fiona merely shrugged inher charming way and murmured cryptically, 'Maybe old Mother Nature has some surprises in store forus before she's finished with us.'

'All I can say,' declared Lena, having the last word, ‘is that I hope I won't be here to see them.'

'Come and sit by me, my dear,’ the Doctor invited Alison when they moved to the table to eat, andduring the meal he was careful to bring her into the conversation whenever he could—which was not veryoften, for Fiona held the floor, and there was no denying that she was amusing, indeed riveting in most ofwhat she said. She seemed to bring a breath of a larger and more diverse world into this rather cloisteredatmosphere of scientific research. At times even Alison was captivated in spite of herself.

Soon after the meal it was decided that the Doctor ought to get some rest after his tiring day. Assumingher daughterly role, Fiona went with him to his room to help him to bed, and it was then that Scott for thefirst time seemed to become aware of Alison's existence.

'Hullo, Mouse!’ he greeted her. 'How quiet you've been in your corner all the evening.'

She hadn't had a chance to be anything else, Alison might have pointed out. She would also have likedto tell him that she was a little tired of his animal analogies—a kitten one day, a mouse the next. Hewasn't really being very original. She would like to have told him that kittens grow into cats and cats canbe vicious and hurt. To hurt Scott, penetrate his armour of complacency would be a marveloussatisfaction!

'How did the kings of the Fourth Dynasty get on?’ he asked.

‘I've finished your notes,' she told him.

His eyebrows shot up. ‘What all of them? You're a marvel!' And now he was really looking at her,seeing her, his sweeping glance taking in her carelessly brushed hair, the blue cotton dress, her baretanned legs and sandals. Did she detect a certain softening in the shrewd grey eyes?



He said, ‘I haven't a great deal of mail to see to tomorrow, so perhaps you could have a bit of a restfrom all the typing. It might be a good notion for you to go with Mrs. Delaine when she starts off insearch of local colour. I don't like the idea of her going alone. You could drive her to some of the outlyingvillages.'

It ought to have been a welcome prospect—a morning free from the confines of the office, but for somereason Alison wanted to raise objections. However, she nodded her agreement instead. It was stupid toallow oneself to be swayed by emotional likes and dislikes—and to jump to the conclusion that shedisliked Fiona on so short an acquaintance was silly. She was here to work, she reminded herself, not toassess Scott Crane's women friends.

But when he had left them it was Lena and Jim who started assessing the newcomer. Lena had decidedshe would like a cup of China tea before going to bed and asked Alison if she would like one too. Alisondid not refuse.

As they drank the fragrant brew the Ransoms spoke of Fiona with unguarded frankness. What, theywondered, would she do, now that her divorce was through? Would she marry Scott? Once, it emerged,they had been engaged, but their violent disagreements had separated them.

‘You can see he's still crazy about her,' Lena supplied.

Alison's heart plunged in the most extraordinary fashion as she listened.

‘But you can see he still resents her preoccupation with her work,' Jim pointed out. 'Those snideremarks about the Arab women being home-makers . . .'

'Childbearing and child rearing,' Lena quoted.

‘You can't imagine Fiona settling down to that sort of thing,' said Jim. 'She's one of those unluckyindividuals who are supercharged.'

' Unlucky?' Lena echoed.



Jim yawned. 'Tiring,’ he said tersely. 'Over-stimulating. Living with Fiona would be like trying to exist ona diet of champagne, all effervescence and . . . emptiness. No wonder her husband couldn't stand it.'

'Jim!' Lena was shocked. 'And you couldn't take your eyes off her all the evening.'

‘I know,' Jim agreed. ‘That's exactly what I'm saying. She magnetises you, and then devours you. Fionauses people. She's never disinterested. Even coming out here to see her father is being made to serve herown wider purposes, advance her interests. Did you notice her with the Sheik at tea-time? Winding thepoor man round her little finger until she'd got him to the point where he was inviting us all to the palacefor dinner one evening. She wants to penetrate his fastness, satisfy her curiosity, see his womenfolk soshe can write about them, and in the end he'll be only too flattered to assist her in all this. She's so cleverwith people.'

'After all, it is her job,' Lena pointed out. 'All the same, you shouldn't be picking her to pieces like this infront of Alison; whatever will she think of you?'

Jim looked slightly abashed. 'We've known Fiona for ages,’ he explained to Alison in expiation, ' andbeing aware of her faults—if you can call them faults —doesn't prevent us from being very fond of her.Nor was I really criticising her—-just making comments. You can't apply the ordinary standards tosomeone like Fiona. She's by way of being a genius... and geniuses are never exactly comfortable peopleto have around.'

'As long as she doesn't hurt Scott,' said Lena.

Jim uttered a derisive sound. ‘He isn't the sort who gets hurt. But if anyone could penetrate his armourand bring him to heel it would be Fiona. I think they might make a very interesting and exciting go of it ifthey married. In fact I hope they will. Anyone can see they're in love with one another.'

CHAPTER VIII



The following day Alison, as already arranged, was delegated to accompany Fiona on her tour ofdiscovery in the district. Scott had outlined a possible route. There were two villages which might serveFiona's purpose, one on the banks of the canal which ran from the Nile, and the other in the oppositedirection, in the heart of the almost trackless desert. Fiona decided to choose the water-side village first.She was wearing a thin khaki cotton shirt with slacks to match. Masculine attire which seemed toemphasise her femininity, rather than diminish it. Scott, who saw them off, couldn't take his eyes off her.

'Take care of her,’ he urged Alison, who was driving. 'Keep an eagle eye on the track; it's easy to loseit. And, Fiona,’ he leaned into the car to put a caressing hand on her shoulder 'be on your guard with thatcamera of yours. Be tactful. Some of the more primitive types round about here don't like beingphotographed.'

She gave him a radiant smile and for an instant covered his hand with her own. ‘I'll be the soul ofdiscretion,' she promised him.

As soon as they had left the compound behind she began chatting in her fluent, amusing way. Everythingdelighted her this hot, golden morning; she was foil of life and enthusiasm, exercising her magnetism onAlison since there was no one more interesting available. And in spite of herself Alison was captivated.Fiona's friendliness, shallow though it might be, was irresistible. She spoke once more of her success ingetting a contract for a couple of articles on the status of women in the Western Desert. 'Written from theWomen's Lib angle,' she said ‘They should provoke discussion—which is what every newspaper editorwants.'

'Do you belong to Women's Lib?' Alison enquired.

‘I don't belong to anything,' was the defiant rejoinder. ‘I'm not the clubbable type . . . hate joining things.I just am Women's Lib. Human beings Lib if you like.' She laughed. 'Aren't you?' she challenged Alison.'Don't you believe in individual freedom?'

'Of course,' Alison agreed a trifle out of her depth. You couldn't settle a fundamental question like that ina sentence or two, offered from a driving seat in the middle of the desert.

'Equality between the sexes ... it's got to come,' Fiona went on, then broke off with an exclamation ofdelight as, rounding a bend among the hillocks of sand, they saw ahead of them the gleam of water andthe green of trees.



'El Gharda,' Fiona pronounced, studying the roughly sketched map Scott had provided them with.

It proved to be a village of narrow streets, radiating from a circular oasis of raggedy palm trees,surrounding a well. Slowly they cruised down a narrow lane, lined on either side with small square whitehouses and open-fronted shops. It was roofed over with straw matting that made a welcome shade,through which the slanting rays of the sun fell on the jostling crowd beneath—white-robed men,dark-cloaked women, donkeys with panniers on their back and the occasional disdainful-looking camel.El Gharda was in its way quite a busy little centre. Dark eyes glanced suspiciously at the big slowlymoving car and the two women who sat in it.

Alison was fascinated by the shops; dusky caverns of mystery in which the wares displayed could onlybe dimly seen—colourful mats, copper ware and pottery. There were stalls too of flyblown sweetmeats.In a cafe built on a raised platform men sat over glasses of mint tea, smoking long pipes.

‘I bet its pot in those pipes,' Fiona declared. ‘They all smoke it out here,' she generalised largely. ‘Thelords of creation idling their time away, while their women are at work in the homes and the fields ... ifthere are any fields! I'd like to get a snap of those junkies.’

But she didn't have much success. The men rose from their chairs to wave the camera away inindignation, with a flow of words neither girl could understand, though their dismissive meaning was clearenough.

Nosing along to the end of the street they followed a narrow 'corniche' by the wide canal, breathing inthe water-cooled air with relief. Here there were women filling their water pots in immemorial fashion,and once more Fiona produced her camera, this time with greater success; perhaps because she was soquick that the subjects of her pictures were not aware of what she was doing.

The drive to the second village on their itinerary took up most of the rest of the morning. It proved to bea sad and dreary place, an outpost of humanity lost in the drifts of sand. The pitiful little shacks whichserved as houses were shut fast against the noonday sun. Scrawny hens crowded into what shade theycould find. Tethered goats nibbled at the burned-up blades of grass on the margins of the road. One ortwo cautious faces peered at the strangers from doors held ajar for an instant, only to be quicklyslammed again, as if in alarm.



'This is hopeless,' Fiona grumbled. 'No newspaper would want pictures of a depressing dump like this,nor there anything that I can see to make a good story.'

Alison could think of a great many things which could be written about this lost village. Surely its povertyshould be made known, and the courage, the sheer tenacity of human life which persisted in outpostssuch as this. But she kept her own counsel.

‘What I've got to find some time,' Fiona declared as they headed for home, ’is a real Bedouinencampment. Those dramatic black tents, hung inside with colourful rugs . . . and the fierce, gorgeous,practically naked men with their rifles and daggers!' She seemed to lick her lips at the thought of them,her green eyes ablaze. ‘The Bedouin women, too,' she went on, ' all loaded with their traditional silverjewellery. It's all so alive... and sexy.'

She brought out the final word with relish. ‘It would make the most wonderful feature for a Sundaysupplement, if only I could get good enough pictures of it all. But the sort of encampment I have in mindwill probably take a bit of finding. We may have to leave the beaten track, so better not mention it toScott. He would only fuss.'

She seemed to take it for granted that Alison would continue to be her chauffeuse, or at least hercompanion, for before the morning was over she had taken over the wheel, saying, like Scott, that shepreferred to drive rather than to be driven. Of course she drove well, never faltering in following therather indistinct track. But you couldn't imagine Fiona doing anything inefficiently. Even so, Scott wouldnever agree to her driving about the desert alone, so she had better resign herself to tagging along, Alisondecided.

The next day, however, Fiona spent in looking after her father, helping him in his wheelchair to visit thedig. With the help of two of the Arab workers they were able to get the chair up into the back of theestate car, and when they reached the dig a ramp had already been contrived to take him at least to thefirst level of the excavation, where with Scott's help he was able to assess the progress which was beingmade towards the controversial 'golden' door.

Alison spent most of the day in the office. During the afternoon Scott joined her to do some belateddictating. They were hard at it when Fiona, who had come back from the dig and was going through thetreasure trove on the workroom shelves with her father, burst into the outer office, thoughtlessly breakingin on them in the midst of the dictation.

‘Look, Scott,' she cried, without any attempt at apology for the interruption, ‘I've found the most



adorable necklace among the junk on the workroom shelves. Do you think I might borrow it when we goto Sheik al Hamad's tomorrow evening?' She was holding out the carnelian beads.

'Good heavens, where did you find that?' Scott demanded, clearly annoyed. 'Not with the "junk" as youcall it?'

'Well, not exactly,' Fiona admitted. ‘It was lying apart on a little dish . . .'

‘Where I placed it for safety,' Scott said. ‘It could, because of its possible associations, be an object ofsome value, and like all objects of value will ultimately find its way to the Cairo Museum of Antiquities. Inshort, it's Egyptian Government property, like all else we dig up.'

Fiona made a grimace. 'How mean of the Government to grab everything after you've had the trouble ofunearthing the finds! In the meantime it surely wouldn't hurt anyone if I were to wear this gorgeous thingfor the Sheik's party.' She held it against her throat and Alison saw her change colour and sway lightly,giving a little gasp.

'Oh dear!' she murmured in a scared tone, swaying towards Scott, who held her tightly against hisbreast.

'Now what is it? ‘He asked with concern, his head bent over her in concern, his lips touching her hair.

‘I don't know!' She rested against him, putting her head against his shoulder, ‘I felt so queer all of asudden, as though a cold breeze had blown right through me. But the feeling has gone now.'

Scott took the necklace which was hanging from one limp hand and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I think I'dbetter look after this,’ he said. ‘I'll put it away safely somewhere. It may be an important piece ofevidence in the picture we're trying to build up of its owner.'

The tragic young princess, Alison thought. Was there something supernatural about the carneliannecklace? She felt a shiver of fear, as she watched Scott seating Fiona gently in the seat behind his desk.'Sure you're all right now?’ he asked.



'Perfectly. I don't know what came over me just now. The unaccustomed heat of El Quayn, perhaps. Ittakes a day or two to get accustomed.' She stood up, bright-eyed and sure of herself as ever. ‘Iinterrupted your dictation,' she had the grace to admit, eyeing Alison with her notebook and pencil. Acalculating look crossed her vivid lovely face. 'How luxurious,' she sighed, ' having a secretary to takedown your notes. It's such a bind having to write them all out by hand. Do you think I might borrow MissGray for half an hour occasionally? It would be such a help to me when I really begin to pile up copy formy articles.'

‘I daresay Miss Gray would give you a hand now and then when I'm not using her,' Scott replied.

'Using her’, Alison thought indignantly, as if she were a piece of machinery—and it was on exactly thesame level Fiona had suggested ' borrowing her’.

As if sensing her resentment Fiona flashed her dazzling smile. ‘It would be so wonderful if you couldspare me a little of your precious time, Alison dear,' she crooned. ‘I may call you Alison, mayn't I?' Andwithout waiting for Alison's comment she went on to say it was time she was returning to her father. 'Poorpet, he's so handicapped in that wheelchair; not yet quite able to negotiate the ramps.'

'Phew!' murmured Scott, wiping a perspiring brow, as Fiona vanished. 'Let's get on, Alison. Wherewere we . . . ?'

Alison! Without a by-your-leave. But she was glad they could leave the 'Miss Gray ' stage behind. Itwas such a colourless, spinsterish little name.

At the dinner table that evening Fiona spoke again of the pending visit to the Sheik's palace.

‘I'm dying to see the interior of a real Arab household,' she announced ‘If you can call people who live ina palace a household.'

But 'palace', Scott explained, was really a courtesy title for a fairly luxurious dwelling place, recentlybuilt. 'Al Hamad has not long since acquired wealth—oil wealth—and he bought this ground and built hishome on it, irrigating the land, developing it, giving work to a great many people. All those live on hisestate live in comfort. It may sound feudal, but it works. Al Hamad is a good chap.'



‘I wish I had something decent to wear,' Lena broke in. ‘I bet Fiona will turn up in something fabulouslytrendy—a kaftan, perhaps.'

But kaftans were out, Fiona told her. ‘I'll have to stick to the one little evening dress I brought with me.'

‘What are you going to wear, Alison?' Lena asked.

Alison started. ‘I wasn't invited,' she pointed out.

'Of course you're invited,' Scott put in quickly. 'A blanket invitation which included all of us. It will be anexperience for you. You must come, Alison,’ he urged, leaning across the table. His glance wasimpelling, and as she met it Alison's heartbeat quickened. Did he really care whether she went to thepalace or not?

She felt her colour rise. ‘If you really think it's all right,' she faltered.

'Of course it's all right!’ the reassuring smile he gave her warmed her all through. Fiona, by his side,seemed put out by this exchange, waiting for Scott's attention to be focused upon herself again. And forthe remainder of the meal she saw to it that it was.

Through the working hours of the next day Alison's thoughts kept straying to the evening ahead. She wasgoing to visit a Sheik's household—something so far removed from her Wembley background that shewould hardly believe it. She wished she had something to wear really worthy of the occasion, but therewas only the rather dull white dress, or blue flowered summer cotton which was by no means new.

However, it suited her with her fairish colouring and she had washed her hair the night before so that itgleamed and shone a golden-brown cloud about her shoulders. The whole effect was very young andunsophisticated, and Alison felt herself completely eclipsed when she saw that Fiona had added a shortsequin-trimmed jacket to the 'little black dress', her heavy silver ear-rings and bracelets giving a barbariceffect. She had made up heavily, and with her 'woman of the world' air it suited her, enhancing herarresting personality. Scott, when they gathered in the living room for a quick aperitif before setting out,regarded her with obvious approval in which there was a proprietorial air.



He would take her with him in the Citroen, he elected. The Sheik had sent his own vast Mercedes Benzto accommodate the Doctor and his wheelchair.

'Lena and Alison and Jim can go with him,' Scott arranged it. 'Fiona is coming with me in the Cit. Tonycan have the back seat.'

'And play gooseberry,' Tony put in cheerfully.

The Mercedes was certainly some car, Jim declared as they openly admired the gold fittings andluxurious upholstery. And the suspension was superb, reducing the journey to a minimum of discomfortfor the invalid. If it was a little odd that Fiona had gone off with Scott instead of staying to look after herfather on the ten-mile drive nobody remarked on it, and the Doctor kept his thoughts to himself. Nodoubt he was accustomed to the erratic attentions of his preoccupied daughter. Or was it that he felt itwas only natural she should choose to be with Scott?

Was it wholly because of Scott that she had come to El Quayn? Alison found herself wondering, not forthe first time. Just what had been in that letter he had sent her from Cairo? Was it a love letter? But it wassilly to let these speculations rob her of her enjoyment of the drive through the crisp starlit night. Shewould never get used to the multitude and brilliance of those stars, set in the night-blue sky. Nor couldshe take for granted the mystery of the desert, stretching away on either side of them, a ghostly expanseof pale sand, rising in mounds and hillocks against the blue-black horizon.

Then they were climbing a gentle incline, and suddenly the headlights picked out palm trees, featherypepper trees and great flowering bushes of oleander. A wrought iron gate swung open for them as theyapproached and entered a wide courtyard in which an illuminated fountain played. The house, Moorishin design, was built around the courtyard. There were elaborately latticed windows, a deep first-floorbalcony sheltering the flower-filled cloisters beneath. Arabic script in bright scrolls appeared at intervalsalong the walls. The whole was lit up by swinging Moorish lamps.

On the threshold of a dimly lit hall the Sheik, resplendent in scarlet and purple robes, waited to greetthem, watching with concern over the Doctor in his wheelchair. Scott and Fiona and Tony had alreadybeen received, and now they all followed the Sheik into the great hall. Alison gasped at its splendour. Thelofty walls were hung with silks and embroidered shawls and richly woven rugs. Rugs of the same kindcovered the tessellated floor, on which deep cushions were scattered at intervals flanked by low filigreecoffee tables. A luxuriously cushioned banquette ran round the entire room, and this completed theseating arrangements. The whole was illuminated by the same kind of Moorish swinging lamps that lit thecloisters. Brash electric chandeliers would have been all wrong.



But there was electricity in the next room they entered, smaller than the great hall and to Alison'sdisappointment furnished in Western style. Here the ladies of the household awaited their guests, theolder ones in traditional dress and the younger in Western style evening dresses. But they all wore themaximum of barbaric jewellery, gold and silver and precious stones.

There were introductions: the Sheik's wife first, then a sister-in-law, a brace of aunts, and finally the threedaughters with an entourage of cousins. Quite a household! Where were the men folk? Fiona whisperedto Alison. But in due course they appeared, four stalwart young men, sons of the Sheik, disappointinglyin Western evening dress. Everyone spoke French and there was even a smattering of - English in honourof the nationality of the guests.

It was all very suave and well managed as they were ushered into an adjoining room, furnished like thelounge in Western style. The dinner which followed was elaborate and international, course after coursefollowing one another. There was even a dish of 'rosbif' served with a travesty of Yorkshire pudding.Alison wished they could have had local dishes, served in the great entrance hall, where the guests couldhave sat in traditional style on the floor, eating from the little coffee tables.

They talked of the work at the dig, the Sheik concerned about the tyre-slashing. But he tried to makelight of it. ‘It could be,’ he suggested ‘that the excavations are being carried out by foreigners. This is avery insular corner of the Western Desert,' a pronouncement which Fiona supported with her story of thecamera-shy people in El Ghana.

Afterwards, to Alison's joy, they were taken back to the Moorish hall, where at last they did sit on thecushions and drink Turkish coffee, served with dishes of sweetmeats.

Fiona, inevitably, attracted the usual amount of attention. Experienced journalist as she was, she seemedable to discuss any subject under the sun, and skillfully drew the Sheik out, encouraging him to enlarge onthe changes he had seen in the Arab style of living during his lifetime.

'We do not isolate our women any longer, as you will have noticed,’ he said,' but the architecture of thehouse still recalls the old customs. There are harem apartments up there beyond the balcony, behindthose heavily shuttered windows.’ He pointed to the gallery which ran along one side of the lofty room.‘If you like I will show you round the whole place.'

‘It is all so out of date,' one of the daughters threw in, seemingly a little embarrassed by this reference to



harem life. She, like her sisters, it had emerged, had been to the most modern schools in Cairo and hadtraveled a good deal, especially in France.

However the voyage of discovery went on and Alison was enthralled by the beauty of the apartmentsthey visited. The young men had long since departed to their own pursuits and the older women remainedin the great hall, lingering over their coffee. So it was a diminished group who made the rounds of thevarious floors and apartments.

At one point Alison found herself alone with Scott in a short tessellated passage with a wrought irondoorway at the end of it.

‘If we can slip away through there without the others. I'll show you a scene of enchantment,’ hepromised.

His hand was on her arm, compelling her, and he had already opened the wrought iron doorway toreveal a flat roof, surrounded by a low parapet. Plants grew in pots and tubs scattered about the mosaicflooring; the air was heavy with the scent of musk and lemon blossom. But it was the sweep of the nightsky overhead that was breathtaking, this blue-black Egyptian sky with its glitter of millions of stars. Theirsparkle was dazzling.

Looking up at them, Alison felt her senses swim. And Scott's hand was still warm on her bare arm, hisnearness overpowering as they walked over to the parapet to look down at the shadowy land stretchingaway to the horizon. The sparse foliage of the Sheik's estate and beyond that the rolling desert. Even asthey watched in a heart-catching silence the moon rose slowly, majestically above the rim of the world.The moon that had been a mere crescent that night in Cairo, now almost full. Golden moonlight andsilver starlight. The beauty of the scene was compelling, the absolute silence awe-inspiring.

What happened then was inevitable. Nothing could have prevented it; Scott's arms folding about her,drawing her close, his mouth coming down on her own in a long purposeful kiss. Alison's breath caught inher throat, her heart pounded. She felt as if she were drowning in moonlight and starlight... and Scott. Ablissful dissolution almost engulfed her, but with a last glimmer of reason she resisted it. Then angerstirred—a sort of fear of herself, of Scott; she hardly knew what, only that she must hold on to herself.He was fooling her with his lightly given kisses. The sweet, submissive little nobody with whom hehappened to find himself at a moment of moonlit enchantment.

Pressing her two hands against his iron-hard chest, she pushed him away from her with a smothered: 'No! No!’ It ought to have been Fiona up here with him . . . Fiona at whom he so often gazed with a



lover's mixture of admiration and possessiveness. Fiona who, no doubt, had come to El Quayn in answerto his persuasive letter.

'Alison!’ he pleaded softly. 'Don't be angry with me. You're so ... kissable.’ he held her against him moregently now, one hand stroking the golden brown hair back from her forehead.

'My quiet one!’ He said strangely. Then with a careless laugh for which, she fell, she would never forgivehim, he said, ' Perhaps we'd better go back to the others. Moonlight and solitude and . . . Alison are aheady mixture.'

But already the door through which they had come out on to their rooftop retreat was opening, and theysprang apart as Fiona stepped through, followed by the Ransoms and the Al Hamad women.

'Oh, so you have discovered our wonderful view,' one of the women hailed Scott and Alison. 'Wealways bring our visitors up here on a clear moonlit night. It is so wonderful.'

‘It certainly is,' Fiona agreed on an odd emphasis, giving Scott and his companion a narrow-eyed look.Alison went hot all over. Thank goodness the party hadn't crashed in on them an instant sooner. ButScott completely unruffled was expounding on the glories of the vista before them.

Back in the Moorish hall where the doctor and the Sheik's wife were in earnest conversation, Fionadecided that her father must be tired and that it was time they went home. Her effervescent mood ofearlier in the evening seemed to have evaporated and she appeared sullen and withdrawn. But with a lasteffort she laid on the charm as she thanked the host and hostess for a wonderful evening. Might she comeagain, some time? She asked, with a view no doubt to the material for her articles which she intended togather.

'Any time, my house and all that is in it is yours,’ the Sheik declared with true Arab hospitality.

On the way home she drove in the Citroen with Scott, Alison as before taking her place in the luxuriousAl Hamad can with the doctor and the Ransoms. She still felt shaken and curiously humiliated by therooftop incident. ‘You're so kissable,' Scott had said—and that about summed it up. Moonlight anddesert sands and a girl. Any girl would have done.



CHAPTER IX

The following morning the Doctor made a second visit to the dig. He was now managing to go shortdistances with the aid of a stick and Scott's strong arm, and in this way managed to see more of theexcavation than on his first visit when restricted to his wheelchair. Fiona, for the first time showing interestin the dig or was it in Scott, accompanied the two men throughout the morning.

After lunch the Doctor dictated his notes on his investigations to Alison. It was a fairly long session andshe was the rest of the afternoon transcribing and typing the material. One way and another she saw verylittle of Scott that day and was glad it was so. But she found herself dressing for the evening meal with agood deal of care, taking special care with her make-up and her hair. Just before going to the living roomto join the others she put on the scarab necklace Scott had given her in Cairo.

Just why was she bothering herself with all this? She asked herself, with her accustomed honesty. Andshe had to admit that the kiss on the rooftop had in some way heightened her relationship with heremployer. Now she was constantly aware of him, even when she was not in his company. She wonderedwhy he had not been near the office all day. Was he avoiding her? But of course that was a nonsensicalidea. He was wholly absorbed with Fiona, and with showing her the marvels of the dig. Tomorrow, nodoubt, they would be back to their usual office routine.

But tomorrow was to bring other arrangements. It was over the dinner table that evening that Fionaannounced she would adore visiting the desert villages once more. ‘I've got a marvelous idea for writingthem up, and I want some more photographs ... if I can get them. That is if the El Gharda women don'tshout "Imshi!" at me when they see the camera. Imshi,' she repeated. ‘What does it mean, Scott ? '

He laughed and shrugged. ‘It's a sort of Arab slang meaning roughly “Buzz off!”’

‘There could be a more forceful translation,' Tony suggested. 'Another slang term beginning with B".'

‘That's enough, Tony,' Lena put in with mock severity.



Fiona raised her eyes to an imaginary heaven in outrage. 'Really, Lena, you don't have to protect myfeminine innocence in this day and age. The word Tony hints at is quite familiar to me. Do you think Imight borrow the Alison again tomorrow?' she asked Scott.

Mentioning me, Alison thought, feeling once again like a piece of machinery, to be passed from hand tohand impersonally.

'Alison is here to answer for herself,' Scott said, with unusual consideration. ‘Would you like to go withFiona, Alison? '

She couldn't very well say no, and Fiona was treating her to one of her most ingratiating glances, 'Ofcourse she would like to,' she crooned. 'Anything must be better than rattling away at her old typewriterfor hours on end.'

Ignoring this sneer at her work, which she enjoyed, Alison said, ' Of course I'll come with you, Fiona, if Ican be of any help.'

‘I wouldn't let her go without you,' Scott put in firmly—at which Fiona laughed. ‘You'd better set offearly,’ he advised then, 'and back without too much hanging about. I've got a feeling there's a changecoming in the weather.'

‘You don't mean rain, surely?’ the Doctor marveled.

' No. Dust,' Scott returned laconically.

The conversation reverted to the dig and Scott was speaking of the carnelian necklace. ‘It's not so muchthe stones themselves as their setting,’ he explained, 'which is of pure gold, and there's the hint of a creston the fastener. It could have belonged to a minor royalty.'

'A female royalty,’ the Doctor suggested.



'It seems to be believed in El Quayn that the tomb ... if there is a tomb ... contains the mummifiedremains of a young princess. Hence the attempt to break into the place and rob it of its contents. Andthere's no doubt that an entry of some kind has been made. The carnelian necklace is only one of theobjects that were dropped in the thieves attempt to get away with their loot.'

‘Who could have disturbed them?’ the Doctor wondered.

'No one of flesh and blood,' Scott declared in a scornful tone. ‘It would be their own superstitiousimagination at work.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Perhaps not wholly imagination. There've been so many well authenticatedstories of mysterious intervention when these tombs are disturbed. Think of the books that have beenwritten about the strange deaths and accidents which coincided with the unearthing of the burial place ofTutankhamen.'

'All of which leave me quite unmoved,' said Scott.

Alison had the strangest dream that night. She thought she was handling the carnelian necklace, admiringits beauty, when the stones began to ooze— not blood but drops of water, falling slowly, like tears. Shewoke with a suffocating feeling, her heart pounding. Then, dismissing the whole thing as a brief nightmare,she turned over and went to sleep again.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, she and Fiona set off on their desert journey. Soon afterthey left the compound Fiona, who was driving, turned the car deliberately off the beaten road andsteered it eastwards into the trackless desert.

‘You're going the wrong way for El Gharda,' Alison pointed out:

‘I know,' Fiona agreed calmly. 'We're not going to El Gharda. I want to find a Bedouin encampmentwhich I spotted from the air when the helicopter was bringing us from Cairo. I think I remember where itwas . . . well to the east of El Quayn, in the middle of a patch of camel thorn, with a few palm trees forshade. There would obviously be some sort of water supply—a half-dried-out well, perhaps.'

Alison was puzzled. ‘Why did you tell Scott we were going to El Gharda, then?' she asked.



'Because he would never have agreed to my setting off into the bled on a voyage of discovery. Norwould he have approved of the car being driven over this rough ground.'

So she had deliberately lied to Scott. Alison was a little shocked.

'An article on Bedouins will be far more colourful than the description of an ordinary village,' Fiona wenton.

Alison remembered her outburst the other day about dramatic black tents and gorgeous half-naked menarmed with knives, and stifled a quiver of fear. Was it safe to go among these people—twoEnglishwomen, alone?

But it wasn't only the drama of the situation Fiona was after. ‘I want to make as great as possible acontrast between the nomad Bedouin and our opulent friend the Sheik. "The rich man in his castle", shequoted, "The poor man at his gate".'

Once more Alison was puzzled. ‘But you've accepted the Sheik's hospitality—he's given you the entryto his home, his life style. Surely you can't use all this in some kind of article derogatory to him and hisfamily?'

'Can't I!' laughed Fiona. ‘The whole thing will make splendid copy.'

‘It doesn't seem . . . very kind,' Alison faltered, knowing she sounded naive, and not caring. Fiona'shardboiled attitude repelled her and she didn't bother to answer the timid accusation of unkindness.

The heat was intense now, even though a slight coppery tinge veiled the usually cloudless blue of the sky.Alison, remembering Scott's warning about a change in the weather, began to feel a little apprehensive.'Do you think we ought to press on? The way we're going looks less and less like any sort of roadleading anywhere. Are you sure you'll be able to find the way back?'



'Of course I will,' Fiona replied impatiently. 'For heaven's sake don't chicken out on me! Aren't those mypalm trees on the horizon?'

Sure enough Alison made out the ragged line of trees, and presently a man wearing a dark robe andriding on a donkey appeared from behind a hummock of sand and politely saluted them, with the usual 'Salaam' as he went on his way.

‘You see!' Fiona triumphed. 'Our first Bedouin. And this stony track is a road, though I was beginningto share your doubts.'

The palm trees were further away than they had seemed, but before too long there was a group of lowdark tents, crouching on the ground like huge stranded animals. With a final bumping and torturing of thesprings the big car lurched over the last bit of track and halted not far from a low hedge of camel thorn. Awoman on the other side of the hedge was stooping over a fire of dried twigs and odorous camel dung.She rose at the sight of the approaching strangers and called out something in Arabic. It sounded friendlyand she was smiling. Magically other figures appeared, men, women and children, the men not quite sosensationally savage as Fiona had foretold, all more or less clothed and only two of them carrying rifles.There were more smiles, more welcoming gestures.

As they got out of the car Alison gazed in fascination at the strange dark dwelling places, the beautifulchildren, the scatter of domestic animals; wild-looking dogs, scraggy donkeys. There were a few goatsalso, each with a foreleg tethered to a back leg to keep them from wandering.

Fiona, with more confidence than Alison, walked through the camel thorn hedge and smilingly producedher camera. Nobody seemed to mind, in fact they all seemed delighted to pose for the pretty lady, whotalked to them in a strange tongue but a low, sweet ingratiating voice.

The women were as beautiful as the children, with their creamy-brown skin and large liquid eyes.Though their garments were shabby they wore ornaments of wrought silver on their arms and necks.Heavy silver ear-rings dangled from their ears. When the photo taking was finished the two girls wereushered into one of the tents, to admire the handsome rugs on walls and floor. Milk was offered to them.

'Goat's milk,' Fiona whispered. ‘It will probably give you dysentery, but you've got to drink it. It'sunforgivable to refuse Arab hospitality.'



As if she had caught the drift of Fiona's words, the woman who had brought them the milk pointed to thefire of dung, and a pan in which apparently the milk had been boiled. 'Good!' she said, bringing theEnglish word out with pride. 'Good here.' She patted her stomach and smiled broadly.

When the milk had been drunk one of the men beckoned to the girls to follow him and led them to adried-up field behind the tents where a camel lay chewing the cud. Fiona, delighted, took a picture of thedisdainful-looking animal.

The haze over the sun was suddenly growing deeper, and becoming aware of the changing light Fionadecided they ought to be on their way. Returning to the tent into which they had been invited, she offeredthe woman of the house money— to pay for the drink, the posing and so on. But the woman shook herhead furiously, pushing the hand with the money in it away. Hospitality was not to be paid for it seemed,in the desert. So Fiona fished in her handbag and came up with a little pocket mirror and a pretty comb.

These gifts were acceptable and the woman was delighted, and the other women and a group ofchildren crowded round her to examine the novelties.

A few moments later the two girls were back on the rough road once more. 'I've got some superpictures,' Fiona exulted. ' Those marvellous men, and the beautiful women . . . who, incidentally, do allthe work round the encampment while the men lounge about or go off hunting. A typical set-up inprimitive society. It's been going on since the Stone Age. But thank goodness things are changing, at leastin the West. Human beings evolve.'

‘They looked so happy,' Alison said, ignoring evolution. 'Sunshine and space and freedom... and allthose lovely healthy-looking children . . .' she gave an ecstatic sigh. ‘It's been a wonderful experience,seeing them all.'

‘In spite of my lie to Mr. Scott Crane,' Fiona laughed, ' don't you think it was worth it... saving no end ofargument and a possible veto on my morning's plan which would have enraged me and led to one of mymonumental rows with him?'

Alison offered no comment. Lying in order to get one's own way was to her way of thinking despicable.Scott, of course, would be an easy person with whom to have monumental rows, but deliberate lying wasanother matter.

‘That's why I married the wrong man,' Fiona was continuing. 'Scott and I took our rows too seriously, Ithink. However, one learns sense as one goes along. The more we love one another the more we shall



probably quarrel. But quarrels need not be important. We can see that now and are ready to give itanother try.'

‘You mean you're going to marry?' Alison asked in a small voice.

'Exactly.’ the word came out with a ruthless sound. 'So don't get any wrong ideas into your head, mychild. There was a certain look in your eyes and a charming air of disarray the other evening when youwere found tete-a-tete with Scott on the rooftop of the Al Hamad palace. Incidentally, how long haveyou been working with Scott?'

'Not very long. I replaced Miss Phisby,' Alison replied above the angry churning of her thoughts, 'Acertain look in her eyes' How dare Fiona talk to her like this!

‘The Phisby,' Fiona mused. 'A much more suitable office companion for our rather susceptible Scott. When we're married I shall personally choose his secretaries for him.'

Alison remained silent, amazed at the turmoil within her. Why shouldn't Scott marry the dazzling Fiona?It was the obvious development—following on their emotional relationship in the past. And anyway, whatdid it matter to her? Alison asked herself. Only that she couldn't ignore the feeling that Fiona wasn't goodenough for Scott. She wouldn't make any man happy for long—this temperamental, brilliant careerwoman.

Preoccupied with the conversation, neither of the girls had noticed how the yellow fog over the sun wasincreasing. A sudden wind had arisen, lifting the sand into the air in small whirlwinds. The rustle of sandwas everywhere, making a hissing sound. Sand rising like spray hit the windscreen and the body of thecar. Fiona started the windscreen wipers, but soon they were blocked with sand. And they had lost therough track which was their only guide, Alison realised.

'Damn,' Fiona muttered under her breath. ‘I haven't the slightest idea where we're going!'

Now the sky was murky amber. Fiona switched on the headlights, which gave a bizarre effect. Itbecame more difficult to move and the wheels grew clogged in the drifting sand. It was only a matter ofmoments, Alison feared, before they would be brought to a standstill. It was as if the whole threateningdesert was on the move now—a blanket of sand ready to engulf them. Even with the windows tightlyshut it was finding its way into the interior of the car, getting in their eyes, their hair.



'Oh, God!' Fiona groaned. ‘I'm afraid we've had it, Alison. I don't think I can push the old bus muchfurther.’ They looked at one another with terror in their streaming, sand-tormented eyes.

Then suddenly there were headlights right in front of them ... a vehicle of some kind approaching. In theyellow gloom Alison made out the sturdy tractor that was sometimes used for moving earth from the dig.

Fiona stopped the car as the tractor approached and halted just in their path. A figure emerged, bentbefore the whirling sand.

'Scott!' Fiona cried on a note of vast relief.

He was beside them then, opening the door of the Citroen on Fiona's side. ‘What the hell do you thinkyou're doing, driving about the bled in a sandstorm, miles off the beaten track? I thought you told me youwere going to El Gharda.'

‘I changed my mind at the last minute,' Fiona lied glibly once more. ‘I was looking for a Bedouinencampment. Get in with us and shut the door!' she shouted hysterically. The howling wind was drivingthe sand into the car.

Scott did as he was asked. But it was the rear door he opened, taking his place behind where Alisonwas sitting in the front passenger seat.

'Alison!’ he put a hand on her shoulder. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes, thanks,' she managed in a muffled tone, her mouth full of sand.

‘I warned you there was a dust storm on the way.’ he was addressing Fiona again. ‘The short trip to ElGharda and back would have been all right, but to wander off like this into the blue! If you wanted tocommit suicide by getting lost in the desert in a sandstorm you could at least have gone on your own.You had no right to involve Alison.' his hand on Alison's shoulder tightened its grasp. ‘I'm taking you



back with me in the tractor,’ he told her, his voice curiously soft. 'Fiona can follow us.'

‘I can't,' Fiona declared indignantly. ‘I've lost the engine.'

'Sand-clogged,' Scott decided. ‘What do you expect? I'll give you a tow.'

'Couldn't we leave the Cit and I'll come with you in the tractor?'

'You'll just stay where you are and steer the Cit,' Scott pronounced. ‘I'm not going to abandon it here tobe buried in sand.'

The next few minutes were nightmarish, but with a strange undertone of wonder in them for Alison—Scott, who was so angry with Fiona and so gentle with herself, half lifting her out of the Citroen andhelping her across the hissing whirling sand to the tractor. Seated in the high cab with its solid doors thestorm seemed a little less frightening, and Scott was close beside her, his glance filled with concern forher. But surely he was even more concerned for Fiona, the woman he was going to marry? If he wasangry with her it was because she had run into needless danger. And they often argued, Fiona had said.'The more we love one another, the more we quarrel.'

He had returned to her now, to fasten a tow rope to the Citroen. They were shouting at one another withunabated vigour, Fiona sending her comments through a small opening in her window. What they weresaying to one another Alison couldn't make out, but presently she heard Fiona laugh—that gayundefeated laugh, which mocked at sandstorms, at Scott, at life itself with all its vicissitudes. The courage,the sheer impudent self-assurance which - made her irresistible.

Then Scott was climbing into the tractor. Before starting the engine, he turned to give Alison a longsearching glance, as if to make sure she was none the worse for her experience. There was tendernessas well as concern in that look. ‘What I went through when I found you two girls hadn't gone to ElGharda!’ he began. ‘I rushed down there the moment the sandstorm started, only to be greeted with thenews that you hadn't been seen during the morning. Oh, Alison!' his dark-centred eyes raked her paleuplifted face, ‘There was a Bedouin type sheltering from the storm in the post office at El Quayn and hetold me he'd met a "big car" with two ladies in it heading for a neighbouring Bedouin encampment. If ithadn't been for him I wouldn't have known where to start looking for you.'

He put an arm about her and drew her close. His warmth and his strength enfolded her. In spite of



herself Alison leaned against him, conscious in this fraught moment of the comfort of his strong bodyagainst her own. A sweet dizziness swept over her.

'Oh, Scott!' she whispered. 'We were so terribly lost and then suddenly you were there. It was like amiracle!'

‘Thank God I found you, darling!

Had he really said, 'darling '?

A sharp hoot from the Citroen's horn recalled them to the immediate moment and its urgencies.

The comforting arm was removed. The engine started and the clumsy machine began to move, labouringstrongly over the sand, pulling the Citroen behind it.

Had Fiona seen Scott's arm around her? Alison wondered. Was that why she had sounded her horn? But in the yellow fog it was unlikely.

'Didn't you think it odd, Fiona deciding suddenly not to go to El Gharda without warning me?' Scott wasasking.

‘It was a bit alarming,' Alison answered evasively, ' especially as we had no proper road to follow.'

‘Then how on earth was Fiona navigating?'

'She said she'd seen a Bedouin encampment from the air when she was coming to El Quayn in thehelicopter the other day.'

Scott's laughter was rueful. ‘You can't be up to, her! ‘He shook his head. 'Nothing, but nothing will everstand in her way. If she'd set her heart on finding a Bedouin camp for her photography then find aBedouin encampment she would. She had hinted to me that she wanted to visit one, but I told her I



hadn't the time to go searching the desert with her. So she kids me she's going to El Gharda and sets offon her own. By the way, did she get the pictures she was after?'

'Yes, quite a number. She's very pleased with them, and they were certainly worth taking.' Alison spokeof the beautiful women and their children. 'And they all look so well and happy,' she ended. 'How onearth do they live?'

‘They have sun and air and the freedom which is life to them,' Scott replied. ‘The men hunt, bring downwild birds, finding small animals for the pot. They also keep a few sheep and goats for milk and meat. It'snot a bad life, all things considered, and amazingly it persists in this sophisticated day and age. Whereverthere's a primitive well and a sign of growing things there the Bedouin will make their homes and evenproduce small crops.'

But they were approaching the compound now. Through the murk of yellow, howling sand Alison madeout the open entrance. A moment later they had drawn up by the verandah and Scott was lifting Alisondown from the high seat of the tractor, leaving Fiona to make her own way out of the car in tow. He mustindeed be annoyed with her, Alison thought.

Somehow they were inside Lena's part of the building and she was fussing over them, sympathising withthem. ‘Where on earth had you got to, Fiona?' she asked. 'We thought you and Alison were lost . . .'

'We weren't,' Fiona snapped. 'Don't fuss, Lena. What I want most now is a bath and a sand-proof roomwhere I can brush the sand out of my hair.' She shook her dark locks and gave Scott a venomous glance.Wasn't she going to thank him for having come to their rescue? Alison wondered. But just what they saidto one another at that moment she was not to know, for a vast sneeze shattered her. 'My nose,' sheapologised thickly, ‘Is full of sand. It's half smothering me.'

After that she was in her bedroom with Lena helping her to get out of her sandy garments. There was ablessed spell under the shower and then Lena was brushing her hair. It really wanted washing, theydecided, and went to the kitchen sink, since Fiona was monopolising the bathroom, while all the time thesand hissed against windows and crept in under doors. But at last the wind abated, the threatening hissceased and the sky began to clear.

Scott had vanished. 'I expect he's rushed off down to the dig to see what havoc the storm has wroughtthere,' Jim Ransom hazarded as they sat down to their light midday meal, a meal now shared by theDoctor and Fiona.



She seemed to be in a subdued mood and though questioned with interest by the Ransoms about theirmorning expedition she answered as shortly as she could. Alison she openly ignored and had not spokenone word to her since they sat down at the table. The air indeed was charged. She's mad with mebecause Scott took me in the tractor, Alison decided, and couldn't help feeling a certain satisfaction.

After lunch she went across the compound through the drifts of sand to see what damage the storm haddone in the office. She was dismayed by the scene which greeted her; sand everywhere, on the floor, thedesks and the shelves. Luckily the typewriter had been closely fastened in its case. She set to work,toiling through the heat of the afternoon in an attempt to put things to rights; sweeping, dusting, shakingsand out of the curtains, clearing the drifts which had penetrated to the window ledges. No fastening onearth could quite keep out the sand.

Then Scott arrived and exclaimed with horror at the chaos she was tackling. To her surprise he set toand helped her. ‘You can imagine the state the dig was in,’ he said in a discouraged tone. 'Sandcascading down the steps, blocking our entrances, invading the passages. I've left Tony coping with it,but it's going to set our work back again. First one thing goes wrong and then another. I'm beginning tothink there's a jinx on us. Something or someone working against us ... and I don't mean aflesh-and-blood someone.'

So his skepticism had been pierced in the end. He spoke with strange conviction.

Alison shivered. ‘If it was something powerful enough to conjure up a sandstorm just for our benefit itmust be quite a spook!'

'Did I scare you?' Scott laughed. ‘I'm sorry. I wasn't a hundred per cent serious. But there are timeswhen one can't help feeling there's a certain unaccountable element involved when one starts digging upthe past.'

Alison, kneeling on the floor rolling up a strip of sand-clogged coconut matting, made no comment.

‘You shouldn't be dragging that heavy matting about.’ he stooped down to help her. ‘I'll get one of theboys to take all these mats out and shake them.’ he was urging her up from the floor as he spoke, hishands under her elbows. She stood close to him, his hands still holding her arms, his lean strong facelooking down at her.



‘Your hair smells of flowers,’ he said.

‘I've just washed it; it was full of sand.’ But he wasn't listening to the matter-of-fact explanation.

'Oh, Alison!’ he said softly, drawing her closer still.

'No!' she cried out instinctively. 'Don't, Scott! Leave me alone!'

She was backing away from him, her face averted, her heart in turmoil. Aware of her responsiveness tohim, his power over her, she was angry with herself. The accessible little secretary; the 'quiet one', goodfor a kiss or two on the sly because she was such a contrast to the fiery, demanding, but whollyfascinating Fiona— the woman who was to be his wife.

His hand was under her chin now, gently turning her averted face back to him, drawing her once moreinto his embrace for the inevitable kiss that must follow.

'No!' she cried wildly again. 'Don't touch me . . . ever again! I hate it!' She thought she saw laughter inhis eyes as she struggled to free herself from his grasp. Anger seethed in her, a red mist clouded hervision. Lifting her hand, she struck him a stinging blow right across the face.

Then with a sob, half stumbling over the folded-up mat, she ran from the room.

CHAPTER X

For the next few days the inhabitants of the small community were busy battling with the aftermath of thesandstorm. In the intervals of her office work Alison cleared shelves and books and papers, shaking thesand out of files, while Lena, with the servants help, turned the living quarters inside out. Fiona,



characteristically, escaped all the confusion and hard work by going to stay at the luxurious home of theAl Hamad family. Surrounded by trees, it had escaped some of the storm's onslaught, and in any case theSheik had droves of helpers to deal with any inconvenience which might have arisen.

Scott and Tony were hardly ever to be seen, their days and much of their evenings being spent at thedig. Even after a hastily eaten dinner at night the two men continued with their excavating. The dust andsand of the storm had nearly all been removed at last and soon they would reach the mysterious metaldoor, which might prove to be of gold.

So that, apart from a brief half-hour in the mornings dealing with his correspondence, Scott was not inthe office, and when he was there the atmosphere was frosty and aloof.

The night after the storm Alison had tossed and turned in her bed, writhing with humiliation over thescene she had made with Scott, actually striking him. It wasn't that she regretted her protest at hisadvances, but she might have made it with more dignity. She could still go hot and cold all overremembering how she had struck out at him and at the dinner table that evening she had seen the angryred mark across the lower part of his face.

The relationship between them was now, she told herself, what it ought always to have been. Scott thealoof employer, herself the efficient secretary, her golden-brown head bent conscientiously over hernotebook or typewriter. Yet whenever Scott came into the office unexpectedly, with his arrogant,careless manner, it was as though the very air vibrated with some indefinable electrical charge.

There were moments when she had the greatest difficulty in concentrating on the words he wasdictating. Had he really called her 'darling’ that day he rescued her from the storm? And what had hiskisses meant to him? Nothing more than a passing amusement, an easy thrill. The word ' darling' was nodoubt on the same level. Now she was not even Alison any more but, correctly and frigidly, ' Miss Gray'.

There was relief of a sort in the blank emptiness when he took himself off to the dig. During the socialevening hour round the dinner table he ignored her completely, talking to the Doctor and the Ransomsabout the day's progress at the dig.

‘What is the mood of the Arab workers now that you are nearing the end of your exploration of thesuspect section?’ the Doctor asked one evening about three days after the sandstorm.



‘They're uneasy, watchful,' Scott replied. 'One is conscious of dark eyes registering one's everymovement. There are times when I don't like turning my back on the chaps. But of course that'sridiculous. They aren't the type to go in for face-to-face violence. Tricks on the side are more in theirline.'

'Like contriving another fall of rock,’ The Doctor suggested, 'of the kind which incapacitated me.'

Scott nodded. ‘I've thought of that. But I've got a pair of fairly trustworthy night guards—and we mustjust hope for the best. When we actually open that mystery door things will either get very much better orvery much worse. It depends upon what we find.'

‘I wish I could be more help in all this,’ the doctor sighed. ‘But we must just wait for the surgeon'sreport when I visit the hospital in a day or two.' An examination which could be accomplished withoutadmitting him and the Sheik had once more offered his helicopter for the day trip to Cairo.

'Perhaps Miss Gray would like to come with me and have a day's shopping,’ The Doctor kindlysuggested.

‘Thank you so much, but I think I'd better not,' Alison answered a little too hurriedly, her colour rising asshe met Scott's glance. ‘I'd rather not be away from El Quayn even for a day just now.'

‘Why ever not?' Scott demanded.

She couldn't say 'because I'm afraid for you . . . working at the dig surrounded by antagonistic Arabs.’That this was her reason surprised herself. But this was not the moment to start trying to analyse herunaccountable emotions.

She said, 'My time is very full. Clearing up after the storm was a hindrance and I have a lot of work tocatch up on,'

Scott raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘The model secretary,’ He sneered. 'I wonder how much isconscientiousness and how much a sneaking doubt of the safety of traveling in a helicopter piloted by anArab.'



Alison's cheeks went a shade more crimson. 'Such a thing never entered my head, Mr. Crane!'

‘I'm sure it didn't,' Lena hastened to smooth over the awkward moment. ‘You're lucky, Scott, to have asecretary so interested in her work.'

'My apologies, Miss Gray!' Scott gave her a mocking little bow.

'All this "Miss Gray" and "Mr. Crane",' Lena exclaimed. ‘What's happened between you two?'

'Nothing,' Scott said quickly. 'Excepting that Miss Gray is a stickler for the formalities. Isn't that so? ‘Hechallenged the by now hopelessly embarrassed Alison.

‘I don't know about formalities,' she began on a wave of recklessness. ‘But I must say I appreciate alittle consideration.'

'And you haven't had consideration from me?' Scott challenged, leaning towards her across the table.

For a moment their angry glances held and Alison's did not falter. ‘In most things,' she admittedcryptically.

‘Then what on earth are we on about?’ Tony put in. ‘If Scott wants to go all high-hat with Alison forsome reason of his own the best thing is to take no notice of him.'

‘Thanks!' Scott said drily.

‘I don't take any notice!' Alison declared stoutly, and everyone laughed.



Scott's jaw hardened and for the first time since she had known him Alison saw him colour under his tan.The little exchange did nothing to improve the atmosphere between them.

It was the following afternoon that Fiona returned from her visit to the Al Hamad household, and wentstraight to the dig to join Scott, remaining with him until they returned for the evening meal.

‘They're almost ready to open the golden door,' she announced when the work of the excavation wasinevitably being discussed,

‘I hope they'll wait until I've had my trip into Cairo tomorrow,’ the Doctor pleaded. 'Somehow or otherI'm going to get down those stairs and along the passage to the centre of operations.'

‘That will be marvelous,' Scott agreed, 'and the timing will fit in. We shan't be ready for the final momentuntil the end of the week.'

Fiona, it was arranged, should accompany the Doctor on his helicopter flight. It was essential thatsomebody should go with him. And realising this Alison felt that once more she had failed in her duties atEl Quayn, been less than adequate—in fact downright stupid. But all this was Fiona's gain. She was onlytoo anxious for a day in Cairo.

'Perhaps you could take a few of our more interesting finds and show them to the curator of theMuseum,' Scott suggested. ‘That carnelian necklace, for instance. It would make a showy exhibit.'

Alison felt a sudden coldness at her heart, as if an icy hand had been laid upon it. For an instant the roomswayed about her. Then she heard herself cry out, ‘You mustn't take the carnelian necklace away fromhere!’ It was as if some other voice than her own had spoken. And she was conscious that they were alllooking at her in the oddest way.

'Miss Gray fancies that necklace, I think,' she heard Scott say with a careless laugh.

‘It's not that,' Alison stammered. ‘It's just . . .' She covered her face with her hands and went on in amuffled voice, ‘I don't know what it is about that necklace . . . only that I feel it ought to stay here on thesite. It belongs in the tomb.'



‘If there is a tomb,' Scott corrected with scientific exactitude.

There was an oddly weighted silence for a moment. Then, Lena, reducing the whole thing to normality,said with a laugh, ' Romantic little soul, aren't you, Alison?'

‘I suppose I am,' Alison admitted and the matter was dropped. But she spent a restless night, halfwaking, half sleeping, oppressed by a sense of foreboding—a foreboding which was justified the nextmorning—in a way which had nothing to do directly with carnelian necklaces.

It was when Scott had dictated his few letters for the day that he said in an ominous way: ‘There's onemore thing we ought to discuss without any further delay, Miss Gray and that's the question of yourremaining here. I feel you're not happy with us, that you don't quite fit in ... any more than, from the first, Ithought you would. You'll remember my doubts when you arrived instead of the male secretary I'dadvised London to send. But they thought you should be given your chance. Well, now you've had thatchance . . .’He paused to fill his pipe in a leisurely fashion, while Alison waited with a sinking heart.

‘It hasn't quite worked out, has it?’ The pipe was between his strong white teeth now, and he wasapplying a match to its contents, watching carefully while the tobacco slowly ignited.

The pipe well under way now, he was able to look at her through a small cloud of fragrant smoke. Hisglance was contemplative, remote, and even a little sad.

‘I don't want to go back to London,' Alison broke out childishly, unable to keep the impulsive wordsback. 'Does this mean that you're not satisfied with my work?'

'Not at all, your work is excellent. But I feel you're not happy here.'

Why should it matter to him whether she was happy or not so long as her work was satisfactory?

‘It's really no job for a woman,’ He insisted. ‘If there should be a disturbance of any kind at the dig forinstance when you are paying out the wages. The whole thing rather worries me. I feel I have to keep an



eye on you . . .'

‘You needn't,' she said desperately.

He went on, ignoring the interruption, ' Fiona knows a young man who would be only too pleased tocome out here—a would-be journalist, who's been training to be a shorthand writer in the Press Galleryof the House of Commons. So his work would be excellent. As there isn't an opening for him at themoment he would enjoy a few months out here, and it would be an excellent experience for him. So thereit is.'

The pipe had gone out now and he had to concentrate on relighting it while Alison's heart died withinher.

‘I'll pick Scott's secretaries for him when we're married,' Fiona had said. She was starting in good time.

‘There's no hurry, of course,' Scott went on when his pipe was alight once more.' Nothing is firmlysettled yet. The whole thing would have to be finalised at the London headquarters.'

‘What will you do when you've finished with whatever is behind the golden door?' Alison asked, playingfor time so that she might recover her composure.

‘If you mean shall we be finished with El Quayn, the answer is no. There are several other leads in thosetunnels we've uncovered.'

‘I hope I shall still be here when you go through the golden door,' Alison said wistfully.

'Of course you'll be here. I'm not bustling you off on the next train to Cairo, with a plane flight to Londonawaiting you there. I've told you there's no hurry. It's just that I feel you ought to know what's in thewind. Meanwhile, we shall be entering the tomb, or whatever it is, at any moment now. It's simply aquestion of finding the best way of opening the door without forcing it in any way. And we're beginning tobe pretty sure it's not made of gold after all, but of some lesser metal—copper, perhaps.'



Ignoring the last part of this speech, Alison said drily, ‘I'm glad I'm not being thrown out at a moment'snotice. It would take me a few days to leave everything in order for my successor.'

A curious expression flickered across Scott's face. Could it be regret? ‘You would think of that,’ Hesaid. ‘You're a faithful little soul where your work is concerned, aren't you?'

A question that didn't need an answer. As he left the office a moment later he turned at the door and saidsoftly, ’I'm sorry it didn't work out, Alison; more sorry than I can say.' Then he was gone.

Alison, sitting at her typewriter, stared stonily into space. Why did he have to say something kindly in theend, making it all so much harder? If he was sorry she was going why was he sending her away? Itcouldn't surely be because he resented the stand she had made against his casual kisses. The randy bossand the submissive little secretary! Droit du seigneur! Why couldn't he have been satisfied with hisbeautiful Fiona? Men! She thought savagely, hammering at the keys of her typewriter. They were all thesame—conceited, unscrupulous, fancying themselves as lords of creation.

Maybe Fiona and her friends were right with their feminine rebellion movement. And she would see to itwhen they were married that Scott behaved himself. Oh, the Ransoms had been right that day theydiscussed the matter . . . Fiona would bring Scott to heel if anyone could! But the prospect broughtAlison little comfort and for a moment she could not go on with her work because her eyes were blindedwith tears.

It was later, when she was returning from the evening pay-out, that a strange thing happened to her. Itwas when she heard the whirr of the homing helicopter bringing the doctor and Fiona back from Cairo.Had they taken the carnelian necklace to the Cairo Museum, as Scott had suggested? The possibilitymade her feel as if someone had hit her in the solar plexus.

She caught her breath, and, leaving the car in which she had come from the dig, ran to the workroombeside the office where many of the sorted and cleaned finds were kept, to her unbounded relief thecarnelian necklace was still in its place, carefully laid in a shallow dish with a card bearing the date of itsdiscovery beside it. The sense of reprieve was out of all proportion. Alison stood in the twilit room, herhand to her breast. This necklace did strange things to her. It had been so from the first, and she recalledthe day she had held it against her throat and felt as if hands were strangling her.

But later, listening to the conversation round the dinner table, she thrust these fanciful ideas away fromher. The carnelian necklace was just a necklace. It did not do to allow one's imagination to run away with



one. So she concentrated on the good news the Doctor had brought back from Cairo. In another weekthe plaster would be removed from his foot and he would be able to walk again. 'Just too late to let merun down those crooked steps at the dig and watch you remove the final barriers from our mythicaltomb.'

'Never mind, we'll get you there, plaster and all,' Scott promised the older man.

It was two days later that the final break-through took place. The metal door, eased back on its hinges,revealed an airtight compartment, obviously a small tomb. Scott sent one of the workers up to thecompound to fetch the Ransoms and the Doctor. But there was no summons for Alison—perhapsbecause he knew she was busy working out the monthly statement of accounts, she tried to persuadeherself. But she was bitterly disappointed. Scott knew how interested she was in this climax to the weeksof digging. But he just didn't care. He only wanted the knowledgeable folk with him at this excitingmoment, archaeologists like Doctor Irvine and Jim Ransom ... and Fiona, of course, who would betaking a professional writer's interest in the unfolding drama.

It wasn't until lunch time that Alison heard Lena's account of the morning's activities. The tomb at a firstexamination hadn't yielded a great deal. Clearly it had been ransacked, and fairly recently. But the onemummy it contained remained undisturbed—or comparatively so. 'A girl,' Lena said. 'Scott has beendeciphering the tablets which describe her as the Princess Vashti, daughter of a not very important rulerof some kind. He certainly wasn't a king. She was very young when she died, in her early teens and ofcourse unmarried. It didn't say how she had died. The robbers have taken away whatever sort of coffinshe was in—probably gold, or gold-plated— and left her wrapped in a plaster-soaked cloth coveredwith gold leaf. She's wearing a death mask and looks very young and peaceful. There's actually somemummified hair left on her skull. It may have been dark, but like the cloth which covers her it has beensoaked in gold.'

Lena stopped to draw in a long breath which might have been a sigh. ‘It's all very moving and pathetic.Her left hand, folded on her breast, is lifted a little, the fingers curved, as if they'd been holdingsomething.'

‘I must see her,' Alison said with curious intensity.

‘I'm sure Scott will let you,' Lena assured her, as they sat down to the table.

There were only the two of them for the light midday meal today. Lena had sent sandwiches down to thedig for the men, who were much too excited to leave their investigation of the tomb.



'And Fiona?' Alison prompted.

'Need you ask?’ Lena shrugged. 'She's staying with the men. She isn't going to miss a moment of thisdrama if she can help it. It's all grist to her journalistic mill. And also, of course, she wants to be withScott in his moment of triumph.'

'A worthwhile triumph?’ Alison asked.

'We don't quite know yet. But there are inscriptions on the walls which may prove rewarding whenthey've been cleaned and deciphered. Anyway, Scott seems pleased enough with what has so far beenrevealed. A mummified princess, even a minor one, doesn't crop up every day. They'll have her moved tothe Museum, I expect.'

Something in Alison's heart cried a passionate, ' No!' to this suggestion. It seemed sacrilege to disturbthe pathetic young princess after her centuries of rest in her own quiet sleeping place.

All through the afternoon Alison was restless, unable to concentrate on her work. At one point, impelledby some indefinable impulse, she went into the workroom to look once more at the carnelian necklace.Had it belonged to the princess? It seemed highly likely. The idea filled her with a strange exultation—asthough she had come upon the answer to some tragic problem, long unsolved. That hand, whichaccording to Lena, looked as if it had been holding something. Could it not have been the necklace?

She remembered what Scott had told her about a loved object sometimes guarding the soul of a personwho had died. The ka, he had called the object. It could be something of great or of little value and thedead person knew no rest until reunited with this ka once more. Maybe she could say something to Scottabout the necklace in this connection when he allowed her to view the opened tomb. But when he cameto the office in the later afternoon it was simply to tell her that he himself would dole out the day'spayments this evening. ‘I don't want you down at the dig; the workers are in a peculiar mood. They don'tlike my entry into the tomb. I've a feeling it's more a matter of guilt than of superstition. Someone willhave done very well over the sale of that golden coffin. Inevitably there's a traffic in this kind ofthing—there always has been.'

Alison was too disappointed to make any comment. She had been counting on her evening visit to thedig—for surely when she was on the spot Scott would have allowed her to look at the pathetic princess.



With a heavy heart she covered her typewriter and tidied her papers away for the day. Scott must haveknown how keen she would be to share in the viewing of the tomb with its dramatic contents. It wasmean of him to exclude her. But as things were between them she could not plead with him.

She stood hesitant before leaving the office premises for the night and on a mindless impulse went intothe workroom and picked up the carnelian necklace. After that it was as if she were moving in a wakingdream. With the necklace on her hand she left the compound and began to walk along the track to thedig. It wasn't a long walk, about a quarter of a mile, but it was growing late and she knew Scott did notlike her being alone on this desert path—a fact which at this unaccountable moment meant nothing to herat all. Scott had ceased to matter.

It was the hour of sunset and the whole sky was filled with a crimson glow. The colour spilled over on tothe hummocks of sand, lifting them in roseate waves against the luminous sky. With the glory all about herand the necklace warm and curiously alive in her hand Alison walked on. Still in her dream state she wentdown the rough steps of the dig and along a shored-up tunnel where a light burned at the door of whatshe guessed must be the opened tomb.

As she stepped over the threshold she saw Scott on his knees, trying to make out a line of the script onthe partially cleaned wall, with the aid of a powerful battery-fed hand lamp.

He looked up in surprise, hearing her footfall. 'Alison! ‘He exclaimed, 'what on earth are you doinghere? '

As though she had not heard him she moved over to the ornate bench on which lay all that was left of thepoor little princess. In the lamplight her golden hair looked strangely alive, and her left hand was, as Lenahad described, lifted a little from her breast, the fingers curved, as if they had been holding something.

'Alison!' Scott's voice was angry. ‘What are you doing here? ‘He had come to her side and wastowering over her. She looked up at him, her dream state retreating, leaving her lost and bewildered andafraid.

‘I had to come, Scott. Something I can't account for impelled me. You'll think I'm quite mad.' She heldout the necklace. 'Something, or somebody, made me bring this here tonight.'

He took the necklace from her hand and looked down at it in silence. Then he said, 'This was obviously



snatched from our princess's hand when she was removed from her coffin by the tomb robbers. I foundone of the little loops of the setting between the beads, just here on her breast.’ He showed Alison wherethe fragment of gold was still lying. ‘She must have been entombed holding the necklace against her heart.Obviously it was very precious to her.'

In the silence which fell on them Alison felt herself once more caught in a dream. And Scott was now apart of it. Her nervousness of him had gone, her self-consciousness and fear. All barriers between themseemed to have dropped away.

'Give her necklace back to her, Alison,' Scott said softly.

Taking the trinket from him, she stooped over the gold-enshrouded figure of the little princess andlooped the carnelian necklace over the slightly raised fingers on the shrunken, mummified hand.

‘It's as if she's been asking us for it,' Alison whispered. 'From the very first time I touched this necklace ithas been doing strange things to me . . . haunting me...'

‘The little Vashti mourning the loss of her ka,' Scott said, 'and finding in you someone she could reachand influence to bring it back to her. Now it's been restored to her she can rest in peace.'

'Do you really believe that, Scott?’ It was so unlike his usual cynical pronouncements.

But even as she spoke a sense of peace filled the shadowy cavern. Peace and a light which did not comefrom the battery lamp. A mysterious perfume hung in the air, sandalwood and spices, a drift of long-deadflowers.

'Don't put her into a museum,' Alison pleaded, looking down at the tranquil death mask, the slendershrouded body in its gaudy cloth of gold.

‘I'm not going to,' Scott answered surprisingly-only that Alison was long past being surprised. 'No doubtmy fellow archaeologists will think I'm quite mad, but I shall insist that the tomb is sealed up again, moresecurely this time, so that the princess will remain undisturbed.’ He glanced around him. 'Fortunatelythere's not much here which can add to our knowledge of the ancient world. The robbers left little of



value behind them.'

'Do you think it was a recent robbery? '

'Comparatively recent. A subsidence in the ground probably made it clear to the locals that there wassomething beneath this stretch of ground. And the subsidence would make the digging easy. Havingransacked the tomb they sealed it up again, hoping their crime would never be discovered. And now thatit has been it will be impossible to pin it on to any one body of men or do anything about it. Once thelocal Arabs realise this they will, I think, cease to resent our presence here.'

He's talking to me as if he's no longer angry with me, Alison thought, and as they, stood once more insilence looking down at the little princess he put an arm about her shoulder—the gesture she had once sosorely resented, but which now seemed the most natural thing in the world.

‘What's been happening to us, Alison?’ He was asking then. ‘Why have you so disliked me, resistedme? And yet when I kissed you I could feel your response.'

'You didn't want me here in El Quayn. You tried to send me away.'

'Because from the first I knew you would disrupt my carefully built up defenses against women. Mydisastrous affair with Fiona left wounds. She's strong and she's cruel...'

‘But you're going to marry her,' Alison said. The words fell on the sweetly perfumed air utterly withoutmeaning. The soft light in the cavern became more noticeable, the sense of peace deepened.

‘What makes you think that?' Scott asked.

'Fiona herself told me so.'

'Haven't you yet discovered that Fiona manipulates truth and untruth to suit her own purposes?' Hisvoice held a dreamlike quality.



‘It's you I'm going to marry,’ He said.

A declaration which ought to have brought a wave of astonishment to Alison, but somehow it seemedthe most inevitable thing in the world. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and clear, withholding nothing.In that look she gave herself utterly. It was all so simple suddenly. They belonged.

It was her turn to ask ‘What's happening to us, Scott?'

His smile was quizzical, not dream-like any more. 'Maybe it's the little princess thanking us for restoringher soul to her ... and she in her turn is giving us ours.'

‘You don't really believe that?' she challenged.

'Perhaps not. But I'm beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that I don't know the answer to everythingin heaven and on earth. Miracles can happen ... the miracle that's looking at me out of your lovely eyes atthis moment.'

He took her hand and led her out of the tomb from which the strange light had begun to fade. Fasteningthe heavy door in place, he went with her up the rough steps out into the open where the sunset still heldits last glory. The night guards had taken up their places beside a fire of brushwood which they werelighting, and Scott bade them goodnight.

Walking by his side along the desert track Alison looked back over her shoulder at the place of thetomb, and shivered. ‘It's all so ghostly,' she said. 'Forces I don't understand have been influencing me thisevening. Maybe what has been happening to us is not quite real.'

'As far as I'm concerned there has never been anything more real, ' Scott replied. 'And I have a feelingit's the same with you. Already you must know you're not going back to England, save perhaps to tellyour folk that you're marrying me. We can work together like Lena and Jim . . . and I can take care ofyou. Does that sound real enough for you?'



He took her in his arms and his kisses were hard and demanding, kindling in her a response whichblazed through her like wildfire.

‘Is this real? And this? ‘He asked.

Gone was the trance-like atmosphere of the tomb. There was wildness now and a sweetness whichseemed to carry her right up into the golden sky.

There were no questions any more, no doubts. This, Alison thought in wonder, is what has been waitingfor us ever since we first met.



Documents

Elizabeth Hoy - Shadows on the Sand