m Tyre, it was the descendants of Kenkenes who
made the Temple beautiful "with carved figures of cherubim and palm
trees and open flowers, within and without."

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE

When the Chaldeans prostrated themselves before Nebuchadnezzar, they
cried: "O King, live forever!" When patrician Rome hailed Nero in the
Circus, the acclaim was: "Vivat Imperator!" When the faithful saluted
the Caliph, they said: "May thy shadow never grow less."

Humanity, living in eternal contemplation of the tomb, offers its
highest tribute in bespeaking immortality for its great.

But Egypt did not invoke the gift of deathlessness upon the Pharaoh;
she declared it. He was an Immortal and died not. Though he more
nearly justified the confident declaration of his people, he but proved
that there is no sublunar immortality, though in Egypt--almost.

The Pharaoh lived with a triple purpose: the perpetuity of his empire,
of his dynasty, of his individuality. He steeped his body in
indestructibility and wrote his name in adamant. He employed the
manifold means at the command of his era, and whether his monument were
a colossus, a temple or a city, he builded well.

While Europe was yet a vast tract of gloomy forests, and morasses, and
plains, while the stone that was to rear Troy was yet scattered on the
slopes of Ida, Mena, the first Pharaoh of the first Dynasty, deflected
the Nile against the Arabian hills and built Memphis in its bed. So
say the writings that are graven in stone. If this be true, this story
deals with a quaint but efficient civilization that was already three
thousand years old, fourteen centuries before Christ.

An effort has been made to conform to the history of the time as it
comes down to us in the form of biblical accounts and the writings of
contemporaneous chroniclers. The author has taken liberty with
accepted history in the age of Meneptah's first-born and in placing
Hebrews in the quarries at Masaarah. The escape of Kenkenes in the
Passover is not intended to contradict the biblical statement that not
one of the eldest born was spared. Rather, it is offered, as an
hypothesis, that the Angel of Death would have passed over any true
believer in Jehovah, regardless of his nationality. Furthermore, the
author has given the Greek spelling to some names, the Egyptic to
others, the purpose being to present those pronunciations most familiar
to readers.

For all facts herein set for