"Was Akhnaton's tomb intact? Had it been robbed?"
Freddy laughed. "Back again to the tabooed subject?"
Meg laughed too. "We shan't fight this time, I promise."
"His city and palace and tomb were utterly desolated, but his mummy had been taken away from his own tomb, before it was desolated, and brought to his mother's."
"Oh, you told me—I forgot." Into Meg's mind came again the words spoken by the sad voice, "My earthly body was brought to my mother's tomb in this valley."
When the night's work was completed, Meg voted that they should sit for a few minutes in front of the hut and try to get the "mummy-shell" and the microbes of Pharaonic diseases out of their nostrils. Freddy had never allowed them to sleep right out in the open, much as they had wished it. It was not safe, even with the dogs and his trustworthy house-boys. He would not hear of it; and he was wise.
Gladly he agreed to refreshing their lungs with the beautiful night air. Indeed, they were all three so happy together and there was so much to talk about and discuss, that bed seemed a bore. Physically tired as they were, owing to the nervous excitement in the atmosphere of their day's surroundings, sleep seemed very far off.
"Just half an hour, Freddy," Margaret said, as she threw herself down on a long lounge chair, and clasping her hands behind her head, gazed up to the heavens. "How glorious it is!" she said. "I'm so happy."
They all three lighted cigarettes and smoked in silence. Freddy was as happy as Meg; Mike was restless.
At the end of the half-hour Meg got up and said, "Who'd exchange this for a city? Freddy, you ought to get to bed—you're dead tired, really."