As Menna groped his way up the passage he heard in front of him, a dull thud as of some heavy falling body. For a moment his headlong flight was arrested. The solid rock beneath his feet seemed to tremble. He rushed up the last few yards of the narrow corridor and came suddenly in violent contact with an immovable block of polished granite. A cold perspiration burst out upon his forehead; his knees trembled beneath him. He was trapped. The overseer made a last attempt to think clearly. For a few moments he succeeded in stifling the terror that gripped his heart. Menna carefully felt the walls over and over again to left, to right, in front! Not a crack nor a crevice. Always that granite door! In an agony of fear Menna hurled himself against it. He shrieked, he raved, he cursed. Finally the Overseer, no longer human, turned and crept back along the granite passage-way. The dust of centuries rose into his throat and filled his lungs. Its fine, impalpable particles got into his eyes. The droppings of innumerable bats covered his robes; his scented wig had fallen from his head. Slowly Menna scrambled down the passage, now in a crouching position, now on all fours. His blood-red eyes gleamed in the gloomy obscurity like those of a savage panther of the south. Blood trickled slowly from his inflamed nostrils; his lips were drawn far back upon the gums, as if he snarled. Menna stood again in the shrine-chamber. The light still flickered along its granite sides, upon the ivory-toned naos and the figures and hieroglyphs with which it was decorated. The prince gazed wildly about him. Even the ponderous inner door had now swung into place. Stretching out his bleeding hands he approached the huge shrine. He would cast himself upon the mercy of Hanit’s vengeful spirit, for by now Menna was long past fear of _bas_ or _kas_, of “_ghosts_” or “_doubles_!” He called her name as, with outstretched hands he shuffled hesitatingly towards the shrine. Hanit had vanished! With a low moan Menna crumpled up and pitched headlong at the foot of the shrine. Above his head the light brightened for an instant, then slowly sank and, suddenly, vanished. Once again the painted forms of gods and demons alone reigned supreme amidst the fetid heat and darkness. CHAPTER XIX THE HITTITES ADVANCE Pharaoh’s recently completed City of the Sun stretched at some length along both sides of the Nile, about sixty miles north of the ancient city of Siut, sacred to the Wolf-god.