cing in the
propitiousness of his opportunity. Mentu was at that moment in On,
seeing to the decoration of the second obelisk reared by Meneptah to
the sun. The great artist had prepared to be absent a month, and had
left no work for his son to do. But the coming of Ranas with the news
of his mission's failure had filled Kenkenes with angry discomfiture.

He dismissed his slave and rowed down-stream toward Masaarah.

As he approached the abandoned wharf, a glance showed him that some
effort toward restoring it had been made. The overgrowth of vines had
been cut away and the level of the top had been raised by several
fragments of rough stone.

The tracks of heavy sledges had crushed the young grain across the
field toward the cliffs.

Kenkenes stood up and looked toward the terraced front of the hills, in
which were the quarries.

There were dust, smoke, stir and moving figures.

The stone-pits were active again after the lapse of half a century.

"By the grace of the mutable Hathors," the young man muttered as he
dropped back into his seat, "my father may yet decorate a temple to
Set, but by the same favor, it seems that I shall be snatched from the
brink of a sacrilege."

He permitted his boat to drift while he contemplated his predicament.
Suddenly he smote his hands together.

"Grant me pardon, ye Seven Sisters!" he exclaimed.

"I misread your decree. Ye have but covered my tracks toward
transgression."

After a little thought he resumed his felicitations.

"Who of Memphis will think I come to Masaarah, save to look after the
taking out of stone? Is it not part of my craft? Nay, but I shall
make offering in the temple for this. And need any of these unhappy
creatures in Masaarah see me except as it pleases me to show myself?"

He seized his oars and rowed down the river another furlong. Leaving
the craft fixed in the tangle of herbage at the water's edge, he
shouldered his cargo and crossed the narrow plain to the cliffs below
Masaarah. There he made a difficult ascent of the fronts facing the
Nile and reached his block of stone without approaching the hamlet of
laborers.

Depositing his burden, he set forth to reconnoiter. He descended again
into the Nile valley by the way he had come and wandered toward the
mouth of the gorge. From a little distance he looked upon a scene of
great activity. In the shadow of one of the dilapidated hovels, four
humped oxen stood, their heavy harness st