Surely Anubis the god of death, Anubis the jackal-headed—­who leads the soul of the departed through the underworld into the presence of the great Osiris—­surely he moved upon the wall and turned to look after those two as they passed out of the inner chamber to stand beneath the Hawk upon the wall.

Or was it the shifting of the moon amongst the shadows?

“Will you”—­there was no trace of the man’s anguish in his voice:  the Mohammedan’s resignation to the inevitable may seem a weak way out to one who will kick and worry until he drops from exhaustion, but it saves a great deal of pain to others—­“will you—­you must surely marry some day, so beautiful, so sweet you are—­will you let me give you this as a wedding-present, and will you think of me, a prisoner, when you fasten it in your wedding-gown?” He held out a jewel in the shape of the Hawk which spread its wings upon the wall above them.  “It was found here, in this sanctuary—­a priestly ornament? a pilgrim’s offering?  Who knows?  Will you?—­I have no right to it, for beneath my wings is the plumage of another race.  I am not a pure-bred son of Northern Egypt.”

“Will you pin it in?”

The girl’s voice shook as she tilted back her chin so that her mouth was on a level with the man’s as he bent to fasten the jewel in the silk.

“Will you promise me one thing?  Yes!—­you are good to the prisoner.  Allah! how I love you, and surely, if I may not be your master I may serve you.  If you should be in trouble—­ever—­in this land of Egypt, the very soil of which is drenched with the blood of those who have fought, and loved, and won, and lost thousands of years before the coming of the gentle prophet who said that in the sight of the great God, anyway, we are brethren—­yes, if trouble should come to you, will you send me a messenger—­to the Tents of Purple and of Gold?  I am doing you a great wrong in lingering where I can catch glimpses of you.  I love you—­love you—­but that is no excuse for causing you harm through the wagging of evil tongues.”

Tears dropped one by one upon the jewel which glittered on her breast.

“And if I were in trouble—­great trouble—­if I were to come to you myself, how——?”

“My boat waits at the landing-stage from sundown to sunrise, the swiftest mare in all Egypt, as the fortune-teller foretold you, the snow-white mare Pi-Kay waits from the setting until the rising of the sun at the Gate of To-morrow, which is a ruined portal on the road of the Colossi.  From there the way lies west.  And fear not.”  He pointed to an inscription on the wall and translated it in the Egyptian tongue. “’I have come full of joy because of my love to thee; my hands are full of all life and purity.  I am protecting thee among all gods.’”

Followed by the dogs, they walked slowly down the incline to a mound of rubbish flung up and left by an excavating party many years back; behind it they found the stallion Sooltan in the care of his sayis, also the one donkey which had wandered off in search of grass and got lost, and whose absence in the cavalcade had not been noticed on account of the disorder of the descent.