Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/53

 and faced straight out across the desert towards the setting sun. Mr. Tankerville had explained to Hugh exactly how to get to it, and late one evening we found our way there, ready to start. It was carved out of the living rock, and, of course, was empty, now that the secrets it had guarded for over two thousand years were safely lodged in The Chestnuts. The paintings on the walls recorded that the priest had been a good and pious man who had offered sacrifices to the gods, and who, I concluded, would be above leading his fellow-men astray.

By the time night came we had pitched our tent four miles from Wady-Halfa. Already we seemed in another world: London, civilisation, hansom cabs and top hats, even the dear old Chestnuts and the museum of mummies and papyri had become akin to dreamland. Hugh looked magnificent in his abajah and white burnous: the Eastern clothes seemed to suit his romantic personality. I am afraid I looked somewhat less impressive than he did, and I felt that in the distant and mysterious land which we were about to visit I should be looked upon merely as Hugh's satellite.

At first I enjoyed the journey immensely. The romance of the adventure, the delightful peace of the vast wilderness, the novelty of the whole thing, and above all, Hugh's companionship, made day follow day in agreeable monotony.

For it was monotony of the most absolute, unvarying order. Day after day the same sky, the same sand and shingle, the same tufts of coarse grass and clumps of seedy palms, the same pools of brackish water, the same glittering pieces of rock, smoothed and polished with the roll of ages, the same, the same, always the same. After a while I got to hate the colour of the