Motionless, they all three turned their eyes to the far end of the chamber. A golden disk appeared out of the dim shadows which hid the top of the columns; it spun in mid-air, growing brighter and brighter till it shone like the sun itself. Then from the tiled floor under it came two coils of bluish vapour floating up toward the golden sun-disk. As they reached it there came a strange sound, like a mighty whisper, which filled the chamber. Then, slowly, from behind this veil of vapour, the children beheld a mighty figure appearing. “It’s Amon Ra!” cried Tibbs, in a husky voice, through his dry lips. Coppertop fell to her knees, and buried her face in her hands. But Tibbs, although rather shaken, faced him boldly. And Kiddiwee actually ran toward Amon Ra fearlessly, attracted by the bright sun-disk which shone in his forehead. “Foolish ones!” said Amon Ra in a mighty voice, deep and melodious as the thunder of an organ. “Why have you ventured here? You who have dared to kill a sacred crocodile!” “If--if you please, sir!” said Tibbs, keeping his voice as steady as he could, “we didn’t kill him! He swallowed us, and the poison from the Bushmen’s arrows settled in his tail--and so--he pegged out!” “Pegged out?” repeated Amon Ra. “Well, died,” explained Tibbs. “That is not true!” thundered Amon Ra, in a voice that made the stone blocks tremble and the pillars sway; “the Clerk of the Weather told me otherwise!” “The sneak!” broke out Tibbs, between his clenched teeth. [Illustration: Tibbs and Kiddiwee escape from the Crocodile (p. 87).] “Silence!” roared the Sun God. “You shall be punished for this. BEGONE!” As he uttered these words, a fierce hurricane swept through the chamber, carrying the children off their feet, and whirling them away! And the last thing they were conscious of was the spiteful laughter of the Clerk of the Weather ringing in their ears as they were blown along. CHAPTER XVI. DISCOVERED BY THE EAST WIND “I will drop them here!” growled the Clerk of the Weather. “They’re not worth carrying further--wretched brats!” And so saying, he dropped them down beside a pyramid--the Pyramid of Gizeh. “I don’t think they’ll pester me again,” he chuckled. “And when the East Wind finds them littering up his favourite resting place he’ll bury them deep beneath the sand!” Laughing, he went on his way, and left Coppertop, Tibbs and Kiddiwee lying in the shadow of the Pyramid. Before long the East Wind came--as was his time-long custom--to rest beside the Pyramid. He was weary and hot with blowing over the burning desert, and was not in the best of temper. He had just arrived from India, having blown a plague from Shah Land into the Ruby Sea, and he felt that he fully deserved a snooze beside his favourite Pyramid. But what was this? Nestling against its base, in the very spot where he himself would sit, he beheld three small forms. Who had dared to place them there, in his private snuggery?