He looked helplessly at the Pendletons, but they merely murmured their adieux and their independent niece accompanied McLean to his waiting carriage as if it were the most natural thing in the world. * * * * * The caravan was before them. A long line of camels was just turning in the gates and before the steps of a back entrance other camels, kneeling with that profound and squealing resentment with which even the camel's most exhausted moments oppose commands, were being relieved of their huge loads by natives under the very minute and exact direction of Thatcher. And within the entrance a young man with rumpled dark hair and a thin, bronzed face flushed with impatience was imperiously conveying the Arabs who were bearing the precious sarcophagi. Over his shoulder he caught sight of the two arrivals. "I asked for motors--and they furnished these!" he cried disgustedly, gesturing at the enduring camels. "It took us all day though we half killed the brutes.... Hello, Jinny, did you bring the things?" With light casualness he accepted her appearance on the scene. That glitter in his bright hazel eyes was not for that. "Come in, both of you," he called, plunging after his men. At the foot of the stairs McLean waited with Miss Jeffries until the men had reached the top and deposited their burdens in the room and in the manner which Ryder was specifying so crisply, and then they came mechanically up. McLean had the automatic feeling of a mere super in a well rehearsed scene. He had no idea of plot or appearance but his rôle of dumb subservience was clearly defined. "You understand," Ryder was calling to the men, "nothing more goes in this room. All else down stairs.... Come in," he said hurriedly to his waiting friends, and shutting the door swiftly behind them, "of course--this doesn't lock!" he muttered. "Jinny, you stand here, do, and if any one tries to come in tell them they can't." "Tell them you say they can't?" questioned Jinny a little helplessly. "No--no--not that. Tell them you are using the room; tell them," said Ryder with very brisk and serious inspiration, "tell them your petticoat is coming off!" "Why Jack Ryder!" said Jinny indignantly. "Nonsense," said he to her indignation. "Don't you remember when your aunt's petticoat came off on the way to church? It happens." "But it doesn't run in families!" Her protest fell apparently upon the back of his head. He had turned to the last sarcophagus and was slipping his fingers beneath the lid. "Here, Andy," he said quickly. "I had it wedged so it wasn't tight shut, but it's been so infernally hot and dusty--" He was tremendously troubled. It was not the heat which had brought those fine beads of moisture to his brow, white above the line of brown, and drawn such a pale ring about his mouth. McLean saw that the slim, wiry wrists which supported the case's top were shaking. "Gently now," he murmured and the lid was lifted and laid aside.