Camilla looked into his face and immediately had more, not fewer, regrets. She did not want to be a spinster. She wanted Archibald Lightner. “And the French?” she said, jumping up. “What about their silly accusation?”

“Please, my dear. Sit back down and rest. The heat tired you.”

“I'm over it,” said Camilla crossly. “How will you handle the French?” She opened the tent flap for him instead of the other way around.

He laughed. “I don't know yet. First, let's make sure the young man himself will go along with our plan.”

STRAT

The gold sandal had been set upon the dusty table where Dr. Lightner wrote up his notes in the evening. It seemed to Strat that the slipper actually sang: an ancient high quaver, a golden voice from the past. He touched the delicately incised gold rope under which a girl's toes had once slid.

Strat's heart actually stopped. It hit his ribs once, with a huge thrust of energy, and then it ceased to beat.

Annie had worn that sandal.

Around him, the figures and their speech glazed, as raw umber over oils on a painting. The angry men grew solid and still, fixing themselves as people on paper. There was light and shadow and heat. There was not sound.

A camel train appeared on the horizon, like liquid slowly poured over the sand, long black shadows spilled behind.

And Strat spilled out of the picture, falling and tumbling, like the French boys from the top of the Pyramid. His bones smashed against its rocky sides, and Strat could not understand this, because he was not on the Pyramid, but on the sand. His skin was laid open by the scrape and assault of the stones. His mind broke apart, thoughts scattered like seed from a clumsy hand.

He spun into the vortex of the past. There were faces with him: hideous, unknown others being wrenched through Time.

And then he hit bottom, and it was stone.

CAMILLA

The members of Dr. Lightner's dig were turning in circles in the sand, like dogs deciding whether to lie down. The German scholars and the French attaché were puzzled and embarrassed. They could not produce Strat for Dr. Lightner and Miss Matthews.

“Where did you put your son?” Camilla demanded of Mr. Stratton. “Surely you have not already incarcerated him? It was agreed that he would stay upon his honor.”

Mr. Stratton was bewildered and angry. “He was here a moment ago.”

“He ran,” opined the French attaché.

“He couldn't have,” objected the Yale assistant. “He must be here. We'll help you look, Miss Matthews.”

But nobody could find Strat. There was not a trace of him.

“He has fled,” said Dr. Lightner sadly.

“Proof of guilt!” said Hiram Stratton gladly.

“Strat said he would put himself under house arrest,” said Camilla through stiff lips. “He will be back by dark. He gave his word, and I accept that.”

Oh, Strat, she thought, if you are not back …