The price was indeed a high one, even for a Royal Overseer. But it was the first time in all Menna’s thirty-odd years that a woman had not smiled upon his suit. Stranger still, perhaps, for the first time, Menna truly loved a woman. True, Menna’s love by now was closely akin to madness, since the little maid continually frowned upon his suit. The youthful general, Ramses, he knew, was ever in her thoughts. Yet, Menna never despaired. In earlier years he had often been on the point of relinquishing some tirelessly pursued quarry, of a similarly serenely unruffled type, when lo, the pomegranate had suddenly fallen into his hands. But what of Renny, Bhanar’s would-be rescuer? Returning overjoyed from his visit to Yakab, the Chancellor, Renny had reached the acacia grove fronting Thethi’s Tavern when something suddenly descended upon his head and the last thing he remembered was a stunning blow and then—oblivion. Could Renny the Syrian but have had some slight premonition of what next would happen to his poor unconscious body, he would certainly have rubbed that small green crocodile pendant at his neck, the gift of an Egyptian friend, and uttered the formula which drives that voracious creature from its prey. But Renny was a Syrian. He wore that little green charm merely to please his friend. Renny put no trust in feathers of ibis or blood of lizard; he smiled at charms and magic incantations. Renny’s own simple religion was a religion of love, not of fear. Yet, who knows, perhaps the little charm was to assist him, and this in spite of himself. CHAPTER VII HOW RENNY THE SYRIAN ESCAPED THE CROCODILES We have already alluded to the violent sandstorm which had raged over Thebes. As Kham-hat had truthfully said, such a storm had not been known since that memorable day when Thi the Beautiful, had been brought up-river to Egypt’s capital, there to become the favorite wife of the late Pharaoh. The storm had been especially severe in the immediate vicinity of the capital, or so at least, it had seemed to the disgusted Thebans. Their loud complaints as to the hideous damage done were not unduly emphasized, since the baleful effects of this storm, both in and about the resident city, were apparent on every hand. Many of the famous palms and giant sycamores in Pharaoh’s palace garden had been uprooted or despoiled of their finest branches. Many of the Abyssinian trees and Lebanus cedars, that lined the causeway leading to Hatshepsut’s ivory-toned chapel, now lay prone across its well-paved incline, or, loosened at the roots, hung shriveled, torn and dejected, far out across its brightly painted parapets. Dust, a foot or more in depth, had drifted against the gates of the villas, many of which seemed as if they might rather have opened upon some gloomy mortuary-garden than upon the dainty gardens of exalted nobles, with their wealth of tamarisks, acacias, myrrh, sandalwood and stately Lebanus cedars.