ected no
better than to be shot immediately by a rifle held against my head, but
their orders were evidently different. My arms were securely bound with
rough fibrous thongs, and then they marched me to the palace just as the
sun was rising.

CHAPTER XIII

The Revelation of Hotep

I was not a little surprised to see that they carried me to the same
ante-room in the palace which I had occupied on coming to Kem. But it
was now quite stripped of all furnishings, and over each door were hung
large, closely-spun fabrics, which completely covered and concealed them
from sight. There were but two little windows high above my head, and
had I been free to leap up to them, they were too small to afford me an
exit. Driven into a stone slab of the floor were two large bent-wood
staples. Between these they placed several cushions, upon which they
laid me.

"May it please the strong man to rest here quietly, aye! and to slumber
if he feel the need, until my master, the worshipful Zaphnath, be
risen?" sneered the leader in polite irony, as the soldiers, having
unbound my arms, proceeded to tie each hand securely to one of the
wooden rings. Then with jeers they left me, pointing the fire-arms and
swords at me as they went. I heard them bar the doors on the outside
and try them with a severe shake; then their footsteps receded and all
was still.

As I lay on my back looking up at the vaulted stone roof, I had my first
leisure to reflect on the desperate condition into which we had at last
fallen. The arms, which had meant our supremacy, were in the hands of
our enemies; Hotep, our only friend in the palace, had mysteriously
disappeared; the doctor was taken, perhaps killed by this time; and I
could hardly outlast the day, for Zaphnath would reserve but one fate
for a conspirator who sought his place. How soon would he come, and how
would he dispose of me? I remembered having seen the punishment for
treason of a noble personage, with whom I had once eaten at the
Pharaoh's table. He was confined at the bottom of a tight stone pit, and
a heavy, poisonous gas was slowly poured into it. He could see it slowly
fill the pit, and as it gradually rose toward his nostrils, he could
feel his death gradually measured out to him by inches. When he had
breathed it in a little, his face swelled a livid purple, he choked and
strangled, staggered and fell beneath the murky surface to die out of
sight. The terror of such a slowly creeping