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Page 113
"That's Clara Eversham," said Arlee under her breath. "They came
over early with some people from the boat."
"She must be frightfully up on the guide books," muttered Falconer.
"She's a _miner_ in them," Arlee laughed, as they made their way
over the rubbishy ground where great beams of stone and fallen
statues lay half-buried in the sands.
"They must be very glad to have you back again with them," Falconer
told her, trying hard to keep their progress ahead of the others.
"Oh, I don't know!" Honest dubiety spoke in Arlee's tone. "They
have mentioned twice how convenient it was to use my stateroom!"
"They felt very badly when you ran away from them in Cairo."
"I was shockingly sudden about that," owned the girl lightly, "but
the chance came--Are we going to climb the great pylon now?"
"It will be a jolly high place to see the moon rise."
* * * * *
It _was_ a jolly high place to see the moon rise, and to see all
Karnak, and all Luxor, with its high Moslem minaret towering over
its crumbling columns, and to see the dark and distant country with
its tiny hamlets crouching under humbler mosques and lonely palms,
and on the other side the wide and winding Nile with the shadowy
cliffs of Thebes beyond. It gave Arlee the dizzying sensation of
being suspended between heaven and earth, so high was she above
those far-reaching plains, so high above the giant columns beneath
her, the vast beamed roofs, the pointing obelisks. It made her
breath quicken and her pulses beat.
"Watch the moon," said Falconer in a low tone.
Blood-red it rose behind the dark pile, throwing into sinister
relief a gallows-like angle of stone beams, then higher and higher
it soared till its resplendent light poured unchecked into the wide
courts and broken temples, the unroofed altars and the empty
shrines.
"A dead world lighting a dead world," said Arlee under her breath.
"I could read by it," stated Miss Falconer impressively.
Lady Claire glanced up at Billy with a touch of mischief. "Would you
like to paint it?" she suggested.
"Heaven forbid!" said Billy soberly.
Falconer said nothing at all, except to Arlee. He was very shrewdly
drawing her to the other end of the pylon, seeing that the time of
descent was nearly upon them. And when the time arrived, and the
English ladies and their stoic escort started down the steep steps,
Falconer made no motion of following them. He stood still, his hands
in his pockets, and chuckled softly at the sound of his sister's
voice, floating lesseningly up to them.
"How Emma is dragoning that William Whatdycallit Hill," he said
appreciatively.
"Why do you call him that?" questioned Arlee.
"Oh, that chap is so deuced odd about that name of his. I asked him
what the B. stood for, and he looked me in the eye like a fighting
cock and said for his middle name.... Queer chap--" Suddenly
Falconer looked sidewise at Arlee and stopped.
"He is--unusual," she agreed, moving toward the steps.
The curious expression upon Falconer's face deepened. "Let 'em go
on," he said jerkily. "I don't want to leave this yet, do you?"
Arlee glanced about hesitantly, without answering, and slowly she
let fall the white froth of skirt she had been gathering for the
descent.
In silence she looked out over the temple. The moon had paled from
fire to molten silver now, and like scattered sparks of it burned
the thousand circling stars. She felt very strange and unreal--a
tiny figure topping this great gate in the face of the ancient
silence....
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