I was only too glad to lure my charges away from danger-zone; and luckily it was so early that the influential ones who never lunched until two "at home," gave the word, "Tombs before food." Girding up its aching loins, the procession allowed itself to be led by me and my dragoman down inclined planes into dark, mysteriously warm passages where our lights were wandering red stars. Now and then a face would start suddenly out of the gloom, haloed with candle-light: and in this way, Biddy's flashed upon me, starry-eyed. "Oh, I'm glad to see you!" she whispered. Bedr and his two tourists are here. I'm afraid!"
"My dear child," I said soothingly, but not as soothingly as if I hadn't had toothache in the spine, "you may be afraid of Bedr, but hardly of two stout Germans in check suits."
"Not if they are Germans. But are they? Just now one of their candles almost collided with mine, and his eyes stared so! Then they looked over my head at Monny, who was behind me. And where she is now, heaven knows!"
"Nothing can happen to either of you here," I assured her. "And probably our fuss about Bedr is much ado about nothing. We have no evidence—"
"The man who stared at me over his candle has a scar on his forehead," said Biddy. "Maybe he got it in that row in front of the House of the Crocodile. Maybe he is Burke, and has just come out of the hospital."
"Most likely he is Schmidt, and adorned himself with the wound in a student duel," said I.
"It's too fresh-looking. He must be over thirty," she objected, but at that moment Miss Hassett-Bean loomed into sight; and in the stuffy atmosphere of the tomb felt the need of my arm to keep her from fainting.
We "did" the Pyramid of Unas, dilapidated without, secretively beautiful within. We went from tomb to tomb, lingering long in the labyrinthine Mansion of Mereruka who, ruddy and large as life, stepped hospitably down in statue-form from his stela recess, to welcome us in the name of himself and wife. Almost he seemed to wave his hands and say, "Look at these nice pictures of me and my family and our ways of life, painted on the walls—our servants, our dwarfs, our mountebanks and acrobats, our flocks and herds. Sorry there's no refreshment at present on my alabaster mastaba, or table of offerings, but you see I didn't prepare for visitors outside my own immediate circle of Ka's and Ba's. Still, as you have come, make yourselves at home, and take pot luck. I think when you've examined everything, you'll admit that you haven't a Soul-House in Europe to touch mine which, if I do say it, is the best thing this side of Thebes."
Next came the Tomb of Thi; but by this time, mural representations of fish, flesh, and fruit began to be aggravating. It would be past two before we could reach our luncheon-tent; and somehow it seemed less desirable to feed after than before that sacred hour, though the custom be sanctioned by royalty. "Another tomb to see before lunch?" groaned Sir John Biddell, when the dragoman firmly insisted on the Apis Mausoleum. "Oh, darn! Need we? What? Where they buried Bulls? I'd as soon see a slaughter house, on an empty stomach. Lady Biddell and I will go sit in the shadow of our camels."
And they did; nor would they believe the twins' assertions that the dark Mausoleum, with its cavernous rock chambers and granite vaults, was the most impressive thing they had seen in Egypt. "You say that to be aggravating, because we weren't there," I heard Lady Biddell snap, over the grumbling of the camels.