CHAPTER III
What was Margaret doing that night?
Many days had passed since she had heard from Michael, but there was nothing in that to cause her anxiety. She did not expect to hear from him after his desert journey had begun, except by happy chance. If he passed a desert mail-carrier, he would give him a letter to be posted when he arrived at the nearest town.
A desert mail-carrier is a weird object to Western eyes or to the eyes of a city-dweller. Almost naked, he travels across the desert on swift camels, carrying a long sword for the protection of the royal mails.
So far Margaret had received no desert letter. Her days had passed smoothly and swiftly, for Freddy had kept her hard at work. Each day her interest in his work intensified; the more she learned of Egyptology and of archaeology generally, the more wholly absorbing it became. She had developed into a very essential member of the camp.
With splendid common sense and determination, she had succeeded in throwing herself body and soul into the work which filled her days. She had made up her mind when she parted with Michael that not even by thought would she retard his work and mission. When she allowed her mind to travel to him, it was to convey currents of stimulating love and encouragement. If thoughts are things, as he always told her, then the things her thoughts were to give him must be happiness and confidence. Keeping this steadily before her, she had spent healthy, happy days with her brother. In their sympathies and interests they had drawn even closer together. Strangers might well have taken them for lovers, so eagerly did they look forward each morning to their long evening to be spent together. There was very little time for play; their days were made up of hard, exacting work.
Experts were busy forming their opinions and writing their official reports upon the contested subjects connected with the tomb. The mythological and archaeological finds in it were of exceptional interest.
On this night, when Millicent in the eastern desert had held up her arms to the heavens and questioned the unseen, Margaret had gone early to bed. For some reason—perhaps owing to the great heat of the day and to the airlessness of the chamber of the tomb where she had been painting, she had felt a bit "nervy," as she had expressed her state of being to Freddy. She had tried to read, but had failed. Her thoughts had wandered; her memory had retained nothing of what she had read; at the end of a paragraph she knew as little of what it had been about as though she had never read it. Concentration was beyond her power.
"I'm only wasting time, Freddy," she said after a last desperate effort to concentrate her thoughts on her book. "I'm going to bed. If I talked, I'd probably grouse—that's how I feel."
"Right you are, old girl. I'll soon be off, too. How'd you like to go to Luxor for a few days?"