cincts of the
Incomparable Pharaoh's tomb, with the opportunity of a lifetime at
hand, the skill of thy fathers in thy fingers, thou didst execute an
impious whim,--an unheard-of apostasy." He broke off suddenly,
changing his tone. "What if the priesthood had learned of the deed?
The Hathors be praised that they did not and that no heavier punishment
than the loss of the signet is ours."

"But it may have caught on thy chisel and broken from its fastening.
Thou dost remember that the floor was checkered with deep black
shadows."

"The hand of the insulted Pharaoh reached out of Amenti[3] and stripped
it off my neck," Mentu replied sternly. "And consider what I and all
of mine who come after me lost in that foolish act of thine. It was a
token of special favor from Rameses, a mark of appreciation of mine
art, and, more than all, a signet that I or mine might present to him
or his successor and win royal good will thereby."

"That I know right well," Kenkenes interrupted with an anxious note in
his voice, "and for that reason am I possessed to go after it to Tape."

The sculptor lifted a stern face to his son and said, with emphasis:
"Wilt thou further offend the gods, thou impious? It is not there,
and vex me no further concerning it."

Kenkenes lifted one of his brows with an air of enforced patience, and
sauntered across the room to another table similarly equipped for
plan-making. But he did not concern himself with the papyrus spread
thereon. Instead he dropped on the bench, and crossing his shapely
feet before him, gazed straight up at the date-tree rafters and
palm-leaf interbraiding of the ceiling.

Though the law of heredity is not trustworthy in the transmission of
greatness, Kenkenes was the product of three generations of heroic
genius. He might have developed the frequent example of decadence; he
might have sustained the excellence of his fathers' gift, but he could
not surpass them in the methods of their school of sculpture and its
results. There was one way in which he might excel, and he was born
with his feet in that path. His genius was too large for the limits of
his era. Therefore he was an artistic dissenter, a reformer with noble
ideals.

Mimetic art as applied to Egyptian painting and sculpture was a curious
misnomer. Probably no other nation of the world at that time was so
devoted to it, and certainly no other people of equal advancement of
that or any other time so wilfully