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over him and had cook make all his favorite dishes. By the time we left England, he was as brown and as lean as one of the ancient wooden statues in the Cairo Museum. "You look more and more like Count Hesi-Re," Nefret remarked. She poked him in the chest with a slim forefinger. "Ow. You feel like him too. Solid wood." "I take that as a compliment," said Ramses. "He's not a bad-looking chap. Shall I grow a mustache to further the resemblance?" "No, I don't like mustaches. Or beards." "You may have to put up with them," said Emerson, who had listened to the exchange with interest. He gave me a challenging look and fingered the cleft in his prominent chin. "Can't waste water shaving in the desert." Emerson is always looking for an excuse to grow a beard. I refused to rise to the challenge. But I made sure his razors were packed. Once we had announced our departure, Walter and Evelyn came hurrying from Yorkshire to pay us a farewell visit. They brought Lia, naturally, and David said no more about accompanying us. (Love--if I may be permitted a poetic metaphor--settles like a warm blanket on the brain, smothering the critical faculties.) Walter was not so easily hornswoggled (a most expressive slang word, which I had learned from Cyrus Vandergelt). He managed to corner Emerson and me one afternoon, while Nefret was entertaining Evelyn. "This is your first visit to the Sudan in a long time," he began. "Er--yes," said Emerson. "We wanted then to excavate at Meroe, as you recall," I said, realizing that Emerson was not up to the task of convincing deception. "Since the expeditionary armies had not got that far in '97 and the southern Sudan was still in the hands of the Dervishes, we were forced to settle for Napata. Now we have the opportunity to do a comprehensive survey of the region, and I am told that conditions have improved greatly." "Yes, I see. So you have no intention of returning to ... you know the place." "Walter, you are letting your imagination run away with you," I declared. "Why on earth would we do such a foolish thing? There are a number of nice ruins in Nubia, including pyramids, and they are vanishing at alarming speed. Our primary duty is to preserve and record those specimens of the past. Emerson believes that the remains of the ancient city of Meroe lie under the sands. What a contribution to science its discovery would be!" "I've never heard such a pack of lies, not even from you, Peabody," said Emerson, after Walter had left us. "If you think over what I said, Emerson, you will do me the credit of conceding that I did not tell a single falsehood. I never do, unless it is absolutely necessary." I heard nothing from Kevin O'Connell. Inquiries produced the information that he was in hospital in Switzerland, having fallen off a mountain while following up a ridiculous rumor that the remains of the Ark of the Deluge had been seen there. I was not at all surprised; Kevin specialized in ancient curses and wild invention. After almost dying ofexposure, he was making a good recovery, but it would be some time before he could return to work. I sent him a nice box of glaceed apricots from Fortnum and Mason. One of the advantages of our itinerary (one of the few advantages, I should say) was that we could not possibly take a cat along. One or another of them, starting with Ramses's lost but never-to-be-forgotten Bastet, had usually accompanied us to Egypt, but travel inthe Sudan was still inconvenient and complicated--and the very idea of Horus riding a camel through the desert for two weeks boggled the mind. Neither Horus nor Gargery approved of the former's staying at Amarna House, and we left both of them sulking. On the day of our departure we stood at the rail of the steamer waving farewell to those who had come to see us off. The family had turned out in force, including two of Lia's brothers. Johnny and Willie were as alike as two peas, with their father's refined features and their mother's fair hair, but their