CHAPTER I

THE SECRET AND THE GIRL


The exciting part began in Cairo; but perhaps I ought to go back to
what happened on the _Laconia_, between Naples and Alexandria. Luckily
no one can expect a man who actually rejoices in his nickname of
"Duffer" to know how or where a true story should begin.

The huge ship was passing swiftly out of the Bay of Naples, and already
we were in the strait between Capri and the mainland. I had come on
deck from the smoking-room for a last look at poor Vesuvius, who lost
her lovely head in the last eruption. I paced up and down, acutely
conscious of my great secret, the secret inspiring my voyage to Egypt.
For months it had been the hidden romance of life; now it began to seem
real. This is not the moment to tell how I got the papers that revealed
the secret, before I passed them on to Anthony Fenton at Khartum, for
him to say whether or not the notes were of real importance. But the
papers had been left in Rome by Ferlini, the Italian Egyptologist,
seventy years ago, when he gave to the museum at Berlin the treasures
he had unearthed. It was Ferlini who ransacked the pyramids all about
Meroe, that so-called island in the desert, where in its days of
splendour reigned the queens Candace. Fenton, stationed at Khartum, an
eager dabbler in the old lore of Egypt, sent me an enthusiastic
telegram the moment he read the documents. They confirmed legends of