Once his jeweled fingers had assured him that the figure was but tinted stone, Menna burst into voluble exclamations of wonder and delight. “Verily, said I not that thou hadst learned some potent charm, some mighty _hekau_, known but to the blessed gods alone? “Breath of Hathor! ’Tis the work of Ptah, nay, of Khnum himself, Fashioner of Mankind! None but a god could thus turn stone to flesh, put breath in the nostrils, life in the eye! “Ah Syrian! if this be Syrian art, my heated arguments were but wasted breath! Compared to our Egyptian figures, shackled, mummified, as lifeless as the granite they are carved in, here stands grace and freedom, life itself! “By the Theban Triad, the very blind would know this figure for the Princess, the Lady Sesen...!” Menna broke off abruptly. Sesen? Suddenly Menna’s face flamed in anger. Could there indeed be something between the Princess and this slave, this nobody? Nay, as far as the Princess was concerned, Menna felt sure that Bar’s reports of Renny’s heedless temerity were false. At the moment Menna felt sure that he had good cause to trust the Princess. He fingered a scented note tucked in his jeweled belt. But Renny...? Menna shook his perfumed wig, and turning, spoke the young man’s name. Thrice he called, then strode to the half opened door. Renny had vanished. With a threatening imprecation the irate Overseer turned once more to the statue. Yes, here was Hathor, Goddess of Beauty, Goddess of Love, as none in Egypt had ever conceived her! Menna’s brain worked fast. The statue he vowed to make his own. Bar and his minions were despatched to do away with Renny! What a sensation would this work produce at Court, and especially upon the mind of the art-loving Pharaoh! Menna allowed himself visions of a naturalistic school modeled upon the Syrian, an essentially realistic school which should utterly banish the hieratic canons imposed upon the Egyptian craftsmen by the dictates of precedent and the will of an all-powerful priesthood. Meantime, thought the Overseer, the statue must be kept from sight, at least, until Renny was safely out of the way. He sent off a chairman to bring clay, string and his signet ring. With his own hands he covered the statue with the quarryman’s mats which still clustered in one corner of the little chamber. In less time than it takes to tell it the tinted figure of the little Princess disappeared from sight. Menna closed the door and, slipping to the bronze bolt, bound it with cord and set his scarab-seal upon a clay pellet which he fastened thereto. This done, he hurried home. To-day was a momentous day with Menna, Overseer of the King’s Estates. CHAPTER XVI THE CURSE OF HUY, GREAT HIGH PRIEST OF AMEN What Belur the Hittite Ambassador had said, concerning the expected outbreak of a religious war throughout Egypt, was true. Moreover, no one was greatly surprised at his report of the disaffection of Egypt’s Asiatic vassals.