it will be remembered, had always considered that he had been robbed by a Sicilian of Dor, notwithstanding the fact that only a sailor of his own ship could have known of the existence of the money, as King Bedel seems to have pointed out to him. The Egyptian therefore did not regard this forcible seizure of silver from these other Sicilians as a crime. It was a perfectly just appropriation of a portion of the funds which belonged to him by rights. Let us imagine ourselves robbed at our hotel by Hans the German waiter: it would surely give us the most profound satisfaction to take Herr Schnupfendorff, the piano tuner, by the throat when next he visited us, and go through his pockets. He and Hans, being of the same nationality, must suffer for one another's sins, and if the magistrate thinks otherwise he must be regarded as prejudiced by too much study of the law.

Byblos stood at the foot of the hills of Lebanon, in the very shadow of the great cedars, and it was therefore Wenamon's destination. Now, however, as the ship dropped anchor in the harbour, the Egyptian realised that his mission would probably be fruitless, and that he himself would perhaps be flung into prison for illegally having in his possession the famous image of the god to which he could show no written right. Moreover, the news of the robbery of the merchants might well have reached Byblos overland. His first action, therefore, was

to conceal the idol and the money; and this having been accomplished, he sat himself down in his cabin to await

events.

The Prince of Byblos certainly had been advised of the robbery; and as soon as the news of the ship's arrival was reported to him he sent a curt message to the captain, saying simply, "Get out of my harbour." At this Wenamon gave up all hope, and, hearing that there was then in port a vessel which was about to sail for Egypt, he sent a pathetic message to the prince asking whether he might be allowed to travel by it back to his own country.

No satisfactory answer was received, and for the best part of a month Wenamon's ship rode at anchor, while the distracted envoy paced the deck, vainly pondering upon a fitting course of action. Each morning the same brief order, "Get out of my harbour," was delivered to him by the harbourmaster; but the indecision of the authorities as to how to treat this Egyptian official prevented the order being backed by force. Meanwhile Wenamon and Mengebet judiciously spread through the city the report of the power of Amon-of-the-Road, and hinted darkly at the wrath which would ultimately fall upon the heads of those who suffered the image and its keeper to be turned away from the quays of Byblos. No doubt, also, a portion of the stolen debens of silver was expended in bribes to the priests of the city, for, as we shall presently see, one of them took up Wen

amon's cause with the most unnatural vigour.

All, however, seemed to be of no avail, and Wenamon decided to get away as best he could. His worldly goods were quietly transferred to the ship which was bound for the Nile; and, when night had fallen, with Amon-of-the-Road tucked under his arm, he hurried along the deserted quay. Suddenly out of the darkness there appeared a group of figures, and Wenamon found himself confronted by the stalwart harbour - master and his police. Now, indeed, he gave himself up for lost. The image would be taken from him, and no longer would he have the alternative of leaving the harbour. He must have groaned aloud as he stood there in the black night, with the cold sea wind threatening to tear the covers from the treasure under his arm. His surprise, therefore, was unbounded when the harbour-master addressed him in the following words: "Remain until morning here near the prince."

The Egyptian turned upon him fiercely. "Are you not the man who came to me every day saying, 'Get out of my harbour?' he cried. "And now are you not saying, 'Remain in Byblos?' your object being to let this ship which I have found depart for Egypt without me, so that you may come to me again and say, 'Go away.

The harbour - master in reality had been ordered to detain Wenamon for quite another On the previous day, while the prince was sacrificing

reason.

to his gods, one of the noble youths in his train, who had probably seen the colour of Wenamon's debens, suddenly broke into a religious frenzy, and so continued all that day, and far into the night, calling incessantly upon those around him to go and fetch the envoy of Amon-Ra and the sacred image. Prince Zakar-Baal had considered it prudent to obey this apparently divine command, and had sent the harbourmaster to prevent Wenamon's departure. Finding, however, that the Egyptian was determined to board the ship, the official sent a messenger to the prince, who replied with an order to the skipper of the vessel to remain that night in harbour.

Upon the following morning a deputation, evidently friendly, waited on Wenamon, and urged him to come to the palace, which he finally did, incidentally attending on his way the morning service which was being celebrated upon the seashore. "I found the prince," writes Wenamon in his report, "sitting in his upper chamber, leaning his back against a window, while the waves of the Great Syrian Sea beat against the wall below. I said to him, "The mercy of Amon be with you!' He said to me, 'How long is it from now since you left the abode of Amon?' replied, 'Five months and one day from now.'

The prince then said, "Look now, if what you say is true, where is the writing of Amon which should be in your hand? Where is the letter of the High Priest of Amon which should be in your hand?"

"I gave them to Nesubanebded," replied Wenamon. "Then," says Wenamon, "he was very wroth, and he said to me, 'Look here, the writings and the letters are not in your hand. And where is the fine ship which Nesu banebded would have given you, and where is its picked Syrian crew? He would not put you and your affairs in the charge of this skipper of yours, who might have had you killed and thrown into the sea. Whom would they have sought the god from then?-and you, whom would they have sought you from then?' So said he to me, and I replied to him, 'There are indeed Egyptian ships and Egyptian crews that sail under Nesubanebded, but he had at the time no ship and no Syrian crew to give me.""

The prince did not accept this as a satisfactory answer, but pointed out that there were ten thousand ships sailing between Egypt and Syria, of which number there must have been one at Nesubanebded's disposal.

Then," writes Wenamon, "I was silent in this great At length he said to me, 'On what business have you come here?' I replied, 'I have come to get wood for the great and august barge of Amon-Ra, king of the gods. Your father supplied it, your grandfather did so, and you, too, shall do it.' So spoke I to him."

The prince admitted that his fathers had sent wood to Egypt, but he pointed out that they had received proper remuneration for it. He then

told his servants to go and find the old ledger in which the transactions were recorded, and this being done, it was found that a thousand debens of silver had been paid for the wood. The prince now argued that he was in no way the servant of Amon, for if he had been he would have been obliged to supply the wood without remuneration. "I am," he proudly declared, "neither your servant nor the servant of him who sent you here. If I cry out to the Lebanon the heavens open and the logs lie here on the shore of the sea." He went on to say that if, of his condescension, he now procured the timber, Wenamon would have to provide the ships and all the tackle. "If I make the sails of the ships for you," said the prince, "they may be topheavy and may break, and you will perish in the sea when Amon thunders in heaven ; for skilled workmanship comes only from Egypt to reach my place of abode.' This seems to have upset the composure Wenamon to some extent, and the prince took advantage of his uneasiness to say, "Anyway, what is this miserable expedition that they have had you make (without money or equipment)?"

At this Wenamon appears to have lost his temper. "O guilty one!" he said to the prince, "this is no miserable expedition on which I am engaged. There is no ship upon the Nile which Amon does not own, and his is the sea, and his this Lebanon of which you say, 'It is mine.' Its forests grow

for the barge of Amon, the lord of every ship. Why, Amon-Ra himself, the king of the gods, said to Hirhor, my lord, 'Send me'; and Hirhor made me go bearing the statue of this great god. Yet see, you have allowed this great god to wait twentynine days after he had arrived in your harbour, although you certainly knew he was there. He is indeed still what he once was: yes, now while you stand bargaining for the Lebanon with Amon its lord. As for AmonRa, the king of the gods, he is the lord of life and health, and he was the lord of your fathers, who spent their lifetime offering to him. You also, you are the servant of Amon. If you will say to Amon, 'I will do this,' and you execute his command, you shall live and be prosperous and be healthy, and you shall be popular with your whole country and people. Wish not for yourself a thing belonging to Amon-Ra, king of the gods. Truly the lion loves his own! Let my secretary be brought to me that I may send him to Nesubanebded, and he will send you all that I shall ask him to send, after which, when I return to the south, I will send you all, all your trifles again."

"So spake I to him," says Wenamon in his report, as with a flourish of his pen he brings this fine speech to an end. No doubt it would have been more truthful in him to say, "So would I have spoken to him had I not been so flustered"; but of all types of lie this is probably the most excusable. At all events, he said sufficient to induce the prince

to send his secretary to Egypt; and as a token of good faith Zakar - Baal sent with him seven logs of cedar-wood. In forty-eight days' time the messenger returned, bringing with him five golden and five silver vases, twenty garments of fine linen, 500 rolls of papyrus, 500 ox-hides, 500 coils of rope, twenty measures of lentils, and five measures of dried fish. At this present the prince expressed himself most satisfied, and immediately sent 300 men and 300 oxen with proper overseers to start the work of felling the trees. Some eight months after leaving Tanis, Wenamon's delighted gazed upon the complete number of logs lying at the edge of the sea, ready for shipment to Egypt.

eyes

The task being finished, the prince walked down to the beach to inspect the timber, and he called to Wenamon to come with him. When the Egyptian had approached, the prince pointed to the logs, remarking that the work had been carried through although the remuneration had not been nearly so great as that which his fathers had received. Wenamon was about to reply when inadvertently the shadow of the prince's umbrella fell upon his head. What memories or anticipations this trivial incident aroused cannot now tell with certainty. One of the gentlemen-in-waiting, however, found cause in it to whisper to Wenamon, "The shadow of Pharaoh, your lord, falls upon you"-the remark, no doubt, being accompanied by a sly dig in the ribs. The

prince angrily snapped, "Let him alone"; and, with the picture of Wenamon gloomily staring out to sea, we are left to worry out the meaning of the occurrence. It may be that the prince intended to keep Wenamon at Byblos until the uttermost farthing had been extracted from Egypt in further payment for the wood, and that therefore he was to be regarded henceforth as Wenamon's king and master. This is perhaps indicated by the following remarks of the prince.

"Do not thus contemplate the terrors of the sea," he said to Wenamon. "For if you do that, you should also contemplate my own. Come, I have not done to you what they did to certain former envoys. They spent seventeen years in this land, and they died where they were." Then, turning to an attendant, "Take him," he said, "and let him see the tomb in which they lie."

"Oh, don't let me see it," Wenamon tells us that he cried in anguish; but, recovering his composure, he continued in a more valiant strain. "Mere human beings," he said, "were the envoys who were then sent. There was no god among them (as there now is)."

a

The prince had recently ordered an engraver to write commemorative inscription upon a stone tablet recording the fact that the king of the gods had sent Amon-of-theRoad to Byblos as his divine messenger and Wenamon as his human messenger, that timber had been asked for

and supplied, and that in return Amon had promised him ten thousand years of celestial life over and above that of ordinary persons. Wenamon now reminded him of this, asking him why he should talk so slightingly of the Egyptian envoys when the making of this tablet showed that in reality he considered their presence an honour. Moreover, he pointed out that when in future years an envoy from Egypt should read this tablet, he would of course pronounce at once the magical prayers which would procure for the prince, who would probably then be in hell after all, a draught of water. This remark seems to have tickled the prince's fancy, for he gravely acknowledged its value, and spoke no more in his former strain. Wenamon closed the interview by promising that the High Priest of Amon-Ra would fully reward him for his various kindnesses.

Shortly after this the Egyptian paid another visit to the sea-shore to feast his eyes upon the logs. He must have been almost unable to contain himself in the delight and excitement of the ending of his task and his approaching return in triumph to Egypt; and we may see him jauntily walking over the sand, perhaps humming a tune to himself. Suddenly he observed a fleet of eleven ships sailing towards the town, and the song must have died upon his lips. they drew nearer he saw to his horror that they belonged to the Sicilians of Dor, and we