only through a slatted blind
against which a shrub in the court outside beat its waxen leaves.
Before his eyes had become accustomed to the dusk Kenkenes heard
footsteps coming down the outer passage, with now and then the light
and brisk scrape of the sandal toe on the polished floor. The young
sculptor smiled at the excited throb of his heart. The new-comer
entered the hall and drew up the shutter. The brilliant flood of light
revealed to him the tall figure of the sculptor rising from his
chair--to the sculptor the trim presence of the royal scribe.

The friends had not met in six years.

For a space long enough for recognition to dawn upon the scribe, he
stood motionless and then with an exclamation of extravagant delight he
seized his friend and embraced him with woman-like emotion.

[1] Undertakers--embalmers, an unclean class.

[2] Punt--Arabia.

[3] The oriental master calls his servants "children."

CHAPTER V

THE HEIR TO THE THRONE

Loi was not present at the sunset prayers in Karnak. An hour before he
had summoned the trustiest priest in the brotherhood of ministers to
Amen and bade him conduct the ceremonies of the evening. Then he sent
to the temple stores, put into service another boat and was ferried
over to the Libyan suburb of Thebes. He had himself borne in a litter
to the greater palace of Rameses II, and asked an audience with
Meneptah.

The king was at prayers in the temple of his father, close to the
palace, and the dusk of twilight was settling on the valley of the
Nile, before Loi was summoned to the council chamber.

The hall he entered was vast and full of deep shadows. The two windows
set in one wall, many feet above the floor, showed two spaces of
darkening sky. A single torch of aromatics flared and hissed beside
the throne dais. Tremendous wainscoting covered the base of the walls,
more than a foot above a man's height. It was massively carved with
colossal sheaves of lotus-blooms and sword-like palm-leaves. Columns
of great girth, bouquets of conventional stamens, ending in foliated
capitals, supported by the lofty ceiling. The few men gathered in
council were surrounded, over-shadowed, and dwarfed by monumental
strength and solemnity.

Behind a solid panel of carved cedar, which hedged the royal dais,
stood Meneptah. Above his head were the intricate drapings of a canopy
of gold tissue. On a level with his eyes, at his side, was the single
torch. His