It Happened in Egypt

								


Produced by Suzanne Shell, David Gundry, Michael Lockey,
Martin Agren, Tonya Allen and PG Distributed Proofreaders

IT HAPPENED
IN
EGYPT
by
C.N. & A.M. Williamson

Authors of

"The Port of Adventure"
"The Heathen Moon", Etc.

1914

TO
D.D. AND F.C.J.
WHO WERE THERE WHEN
IT HAPPENED

WE DEDICATE THIS STORY OF ADVENTURES GRAVE AND GAY IN EGYPT

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I.    The Secret and the Girl



   II.    Cleopatra and the Ship's Mystery


III.    A Disappointment and a Dragoman



   IV.    A Man in a Green Turban



    V.    The Caf� of Abdullahi



   VI.    The Great Sir Marcus


VII.    The Revelations of a Retired Colonel


VIII.    Foxy Duffing



   IX.    What Happened When My Back Was Turned



    X.    The Secret Monny Kept



   XI.    The House of the Crocodile


XII.    The Night of the Full Moon


XIII.    An Underground Proposal


XIV.    The Desert Diary Begun



   XV.    The Desert Diary to Its Bitter End


XVI.    An Oiled Hand


XVII.    The Ship's Mystery Again
XVIII.    The Asiut Affair


XIX.    "If at First You Don't Succeed"



   XX.    The Zone of Fire


XXI.    The Opening Door


XXII.    The Driver of an Arabeah
XXIII.    Bengal Fire


XXIV.    Playing Heavy Father to Rachel


XXV.    Marooned


XXVI.    What We Said: What We Heard
XXVII.    The Inner Sanctuary
XXVIII.   Worth Paying For


XXIX.    Exit Antoun


XXX.    The Sirdar's Ball


XXXI.    The Mountain of the Golden Pyramid
XXXII.    The Secret

IT HAPPENED IN EGYPT

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
Mero�, that so-called island in the desert, where in its days of
splendour reigned the queens Candace. Fenton, stationed at Khartum, an