said to the king, when he was ushered into the royal presence, "you
have not found my money, and therefore you had better let me go with my
ship's captain and with those...." The rest of the interview is lost in
a lacuna, and practically the only words which the damaged condition of
the papyrus permits one now to read are, "He said, 'Be silent!'" which
indicates that even the patience of a King of Dor could be exhausted.

When the narrative is able to be resumed one finds that Wenamon has set
sail from the city, and has travelled along the coast to the proud city
of Tyre, where he arrived one afternoon penniless and letterless,
having now nothing left but the little Amon-of-the-Road and his own
audacity. The charms of Tyre, then one of the great ports of the
civilised world, were of no consequence to the destitute Egyptian, nor
do they seem to have attracted the skipper of his ship, who, after his
long delay at Dor, was in no mood to linger. At dawn the next morning,
therefore, the journey was continued, and once more an unfortunate
lacuna interrupts the passage of the report. From the tattered fragments
of the writing, however, it seems that at the next port of call--perhaps
the city of Sidon--a party of inoffensive Sicilian merchants was
encountered, and immediately the desperate Wenamon hatched a daring
plot. By this time he had come to place some trust in Mengebet, the
skipper, who, for the sake of his own good standing in Egypt, had shown
himself willing to help the envoy of Amon-Ra in his troubles, although
he would not go so far as to delay his journey for him; and Wenamon
therefore admitted him to his councils. On some pretext or other a party
led by the Egyptian paid a visit to these merchants and entered into
conversation with them. Then, suddenly overpowering them, a rush was
made for their cash-box, which Wenamon at once burst open. To his
disappointment he found it to contain only thirty-one debens of silver,
which happened to be precisely the amount of silver, though not of gold,
which he had lost. This sum he pocketed, saying to the struggling
merchants as he did so, "I will take this money of yours, and will keep
it until you find my money. Was it not a Sicilian who stole it, and no
thief of ours? I will take it."

With these words the party raced back to the ship, scrambled on board,
and in a few moments had hoisted sail and were scudding northwards
towards Byblos, where Wenamon proposed to throw himsel