side of the
vessel. The youngest was not over twelve years of age, the oldest,
fourteen. Each rosy countenance was rippled with laughter, but the
sound was lost in the great turmoil about them. In the center of the
group, a pair of hands put forth under the chin of an older girl, held
the ends of the garland with a determined grip. Her eyes were gray,
her hair was chestnut, her face very fair. Kenkenes recognized her
with a sudden warmth about his heart. The others were strangers to
him. A glance at the plate on the side of the boat showed him that
this was the one he sought. Most willingly he obeyed the insistent
summons of the garland and permitted himself to be drawn to the barge.
There, the same hands showed him the ladder against the side, and a
dozen pretty arms were extended to haul him aboard as he climbed.

But the instant he planted foot on the deck the lovely rout retreated
to shelter at the side of a smiling woman seated in the shadow of fans.
Only his fair-faced captor stood her ground.

"Hail, Hapi," [1] she cried, doing obeisance. "Pity the desert." She
flung wide her hands. With the exception of the youths at the oars
there was no other man on the boat.

"Ye may call me forth," Kenkenes replied, "but how shall ye return me
to my banks? Hither, sweet On," he continued, catching the hand of the
fair-faced girl, "submit first to submergence." She took his kisses
willingly. "This for Seti, thy lover; this for Hotep, thy brother, and
this for me who am both in one. How thou art grown, Io!"

"But she hath not denied thee the babyhood privileges for all that,
Kenkenes," the smiling woman said.

"It is an excellent example of submission she hath set, Lady Senci," he
replied, advancing toward the young girls about her. "Let us see if it
prevail."

But the troop scattered with little cries of dismay.

"Nay," he observed, as he bent over Senci's hand, "never were two maids
alike, and I shall not strive to make them so."

"Thy father hath most graciously kept his word in sending us a
protector," Senci continued, "My nosegay of beauties drooped last night
when they arrived from On with my brother sick, aboard. They feared
they must stop with me in Memphis for want of a man."

"It was the first word I heard from my father this morning and the last
when I left him even now: 'Io's father hath failed her through
sickness, so do thou look after the Lady Senci--and the gods give thee
grace for