"Certainly the family are not at home," he said to Abdul, with grim humour. "There's no good looking for Mohammed Ali—he won't greet us with his white teeth and smiling eyes."
They halted. Not a movement or sound disturbed the Pharaonic stillness; not a sign of even insect life caught their searching eyes. Abdul drew a native whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips; its sound travelled and echoed round the hills.
Instantly a white turban appeared and the tall figure of a gaphir came forward, with his signal of office, a long staff carried in the Biblical manner, in his hand. Tall and bearded, in his flowing white robes, he might have been Moses praying apart in the wilderness, pleading for the children of Israel until the anger of the Lord was turned away.
With inimitable dignity he came towards the two riders, who had so suddenly appeared in the Valley. He was the trusted servant of the Excavation Society; his duty it was to patrol the district which surrounded the freshly-opened tomb, the one which Freddy had discovered; his duty it was also to see that no harm came to the hut, to which the Effendi Lampton would return in the autumn.
When Michael asked him for information about the Effendi Lampton, he threw back his head. He had heard nothing from him, or about him, since he had left the Valley and that was in the second week in May. He had gone away in a great hurry, and had left some of the settling of his papers and the packing of his antikas which were in the hut, in charge of the Effendi King. When Michael questioned him if the Sitt, his sister, had remained with him until he left the Valley, the gaphir appeared uncertain; he, personally, had not seen the Sitt, but then he had only come to take up his job the day before Mistrr Lampton had gone away; the Sitt might have been there—he did not know.
As the dignified personage seemed to be disinclined to volunteer any information, and he was unable to give Michael a satisfactory answer to the questions he asked him, there was nothing else to do but to let him return to his meditations. Michael supposed that there were native mounted police in the Valley, whom the man could call to his assistance if any trouble arose; they would appear from some sheltered fold in the hills in answer to his signal.
Down the Valley of Death, in which the flames of the inferno seemed to have licked and scorched the dry air ever since the world was created, Michael rode with Abdul at his side. He had turned his back on the hut, for the place thereof knew him no more. Freddy and Margaret had left it; it was as though their presence there had never been. He knew that he had been foolish to hope to find either Freddy or Margaret in the Valley; it was far too late in the season and too hot for any excavating work in Egypt. This he had been conscious of, but in his heart he felt the urging necessity of going to the Valley and proving the fact with his own eyes. Perhaps there was hidden in the back of his mind a hope that some message had been left there for him, that Freddy would have known that even if it was midsummer before his journey was accomplished, he would return there as soon as he could; something would draw him to the scene of their united labour and happiness.
But Freddy's practical mind had not thought of any such folly; he had left the Valley to the sun by day and the stars by night, and had gone like the swallows to a cooler and greener land.
* * * * * *
Michael was compelled to spend that night at Luxor. His urgent desire was to reach Cairo as quickly as possible and discover if the Iretons knew anything of Freddy and Margaret. They were now his one hope. In Luxor the fine European hotels were closed, so he found accommodation in the house of one of Abdul's friends, a clean, well-managed native inn. Luxor in May was without one blot or blemish of foreign life.