This morning, Dr. Lightner's college assistants had decided to search every tent and trunk, but Strat, unwilling to trespass upon the belongings of others, continued his own investigation. He had convinced himself that if one pile of rock turned out to be plaster hiding a tomb entrance, another pile of rock would surely turn out to be plaster, and hiding a tomb entrance.

Since dawn, he had been walking about with a small ball peen hammer, swinging it against rocks, hoping each time for a sifting of plaster. A hour ago, such an event had occurred.

Strat put up no flag to mark the location, but he knew exactly where it was. If he paced parallel to the causeway precisely forty-six steps, heel pressed against toe, from Hetepheres' shaft, he would see the tiny white smash mark of his hammer on a long flat thin stone.

A surprisingly large group was returning with Dr. Lightner. Clearly he intended to show off his excavation to many who had attended the French party. Strat hoped the gold sandal had been located by now, as it was sure to impress the visitors.

He recognized two German scholars from a dig in Saqqara; two Italians who wished to study Dr. Lightner's finds; a handful of British army officers; the hieroglyphic expert; and even the French military attaché.

Finally, in a small open carriage pulled by two straining donkeys, their keeper hitting them continually with sticks lest they give up and fall down, rode a very heavy man, all belly and jowls, with a dusty wrinkled hide like a rhinoceros.

No, thought Strat. It cannot be.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and tried again. The image did not change.

It was good that he wasn't at the top of the Pyramid, Strat thought, or he would have followed the example of the two young Frenchmen, and just rolled off. Arriving dead at the bottom would be better than encountering his father.

Father was a word that should be precious, redolent of respect and honor; of example and pride. This was not the case for Strat.

What mattered to his father were investments. All life was an investment: a servant, a wife, a factory, a dinner party. All investments must pay off or be discarded. At no time would a losing investment be kept … even if that investment were his only son.

Chained up in the asylum, Strat had promised God that if he ever got out, he would not follow his father's example. Rather, he would help others. Much harder, he would accept help, and not arrogantly insist that he could stand alone.

But it was Katie who had fulfilled those promises. She was help even to lepers beneath the feet of the Lord. And her greatest gift, the one that dazzled and shamed him, came when Katie chose to say good-bye, so Strat might have a life unencumbered by a deformed girl he could not forever pretend was his sister.