"Nothing!" Mentu asserted emphatically; "and for that reason am I wroth. The Lady Senci's nephew, Hotep, is the new chief of the royal scribes." "I call that good tidings," Kenkenes replied, a cheerful note in his voice, "and worth greeting with a health to Hotep. But thou must remember, my father, that he is older than I." "How much?" the elder sculptor asked. "Three whole revolutions of Ra." The artist regarded his son scornfully for a moment. "The Lady Senci wishes me to prepare plans for the further elaboration of her tomb," he went on, at last, "but the work on the obelisk may not be laid aside. If I might trust you to go on with them, the Lady Senci need not wait." "But I have, this moment, been summoned by my holy uncle, Asar-Mut, to go on a journey, and I know not when I return," Kenkenes explained. Mentu gazed at him without comprehending. "A messenger on his way to Tape from Snofru was overtaken with misfortune here, and Asar-Mut, getting word of it, sent for me," the young man continued. "I can only guess that he wishes me to carry on the message." "Humph!" the elder sculptor remarked. "Asar-Mut has kingly tastes. The couriers of priests are not usually of the nobility. But get thee gone." The pair separated and the young man passed into the house. The ape under the bunch of leaves in a palm-top looked after him fixedly for a moment, and then sliding down the tree, disappeared among the flowers. When, half an hour later, Kenkenes entered a cross avenue leading to a great square in which the temple stood, he found the roadway filled with people, crowding about a group of disheveled women. These were shrieking, wildly tearing their hair, beating themselves and throwing dust upon their heads. Kenkenes immediately surmised that there was something more than the usual death-wail in this. He touched a man near him on the shoulder. "Who may these distracted women be?" he asked. "The mothers of Khafra and Sigur, and their women." "Nay! Are these men dead? I knew them once. "They are by this time. They were to be hanged in the dungeon of the house of the governor of police at this hour," the man answered with morbid relish in his tone. Kenkenes looked at him in horror. "What had they done?" he asked. The man plunged eagerly into the narrative. "They were tomb robbers and robbed independently of the brotherhood of thieves.[1] They refused to pay the customary tribute from their spoil to the chief of robbers, and whatsoever booty they got they kept, every jot of it. Innumerable mummies were found rifled of their gold and gems, and although the chief of robbers and the governor of police sought and burrowed into every den in the Middle country, they could not find the missing treasure. Then they knew that the looting was not done by any of the licensed robbers. So all the professional thieves and all the police set themselves to seek out the lawless plunderers." "Humph!" interpolated Kenkenes expressively.