Enter that tomb to-day, and you see at a glance that this enemy sought to nullify and make ineffectual the entire series of engraved prayers and magic formulæ which witness to Menna’s hopes for an eternity of bliss upon the banks of the Celestial Nile. Yes, Menna’s implacable foe sought to destroy him, both body and soul! Menna’s body was not found when, recently, his tomb was discovered and opened. We may thus infer that Menna’s arch-enemy accomplished the destruction of Menna’s body as successfully, as fiendishly we may suppose, as he did that of Menna’s soul. Examine the sculptures upon the walls of his tomb. You will find that Menna’s eyes have been cut out; that the lips of his servants and field hands are missing; that the tips of his hunting arrows have been blunted; that the knots in his “measuring-rope” have been destroyed. Yet, worse than all, the plumb of the scales, upon which Menna’s heart will be weighed at the Judgment, has vanished. Let us suppose that Menna’s mummy _had_ been found, found intact; at the opening of his tomb. That empty shell would have been of little use to Menna. Since, following his enemy’s work of desecration upon the ordered prayers, incantations and scenes painted or engraved upon the walls of his tomb, Menna’s body was doomed to inevitable destruction, and with it, that of his _ka_ or “double,” that other self which, from the day of his birth, awaited him in the heavens. Without eyes Menna could not find his way among the flint-strewn valleys and precipitous heights of the Underworld. Without arrows Menna would be unable to obtain food. Menna’s servants had all perished, as without mouths they could neither eat nor drink. And Menna might never measure off an allotted acreage among the ever fertile fields of Heaven if, in spite of all, he somehow managed to win through to the Celestial Nile. Alas! this success Menna could never hope to achieve. The breaking of the plumb of the scales rendered it impossible that Menna’s trembling soul could pass Osiris, Judge of the Dead, or the fierce hound Amemet, which, with open mouth, awaited his victims beside that great god’s throne. No! Menna could never hope to feast at the Table of the Gods. Menna could never enjoy that eternity of bliss among the Blessed Fields of Aaru which a beneficent Sun-god had promised to the faithful. But, Menna’s body was _not_ found at the time of the discovery of his tomb, though his body had evidently been placed in the white sarcophagus prepared for it by royal command. Who so bitterly hated Menna, the King’s Overseer? Who so relentlessly sought not alone the destruction of his mortal body but the very annihilation of his soul? CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE FOREWORD v I. TELLS OF HOW PROFESSOR RANNEY PURCHASED AN ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT AND OF WHAT HE FOUND THEREIN 1