Kathi, the embalmer, on his way to the landing stage leading to the Temple of Karnak, paused to watch the maneuvers of the war-vessels, as they sought their berths along the western bank.
At this moment, one vessel’s huge square sail, a picturesque checker-board of green and white, flapped madly, as its head flew up suddenly in the wind. It seemed that Duādmochef, the Wind-god, was not to be cheated out of a few parting puffs from his lusty lungs!
The look-out-man, standing in the prow, pole in hand, shouted a hasty warning to the captain aft, but, before his raucous order could be understood, the heavy boat had buried its nose, with the ghastly trophies it bore, deep in a hidden sand-bar. For a time it seemed that the stiffly swaying forms of the wretched foreign chieftains lashed to the prow would break the thongs which held them in place. It availed nothing that Ranuf, the captain, cursed the look-out-man, his father and his forebears since Egypt emerged from the primordial _Nu_! And the unhappy Ameni suffered the irate captain’s curses in silence, as it was the sixth mishap of the kind since leaving the sandstone quays of Enet, sacred to the Goddess Hathor.
As Ranuf hurled at the bent head of his look-out-man a last fearful _hekau_, a potent spell intended to consign the soul of his discomfited assistant to the voracious maw of Osiris’s hound, he noticed a dark patch floating upon the water below. A white face gazed up into his:
“Abdi, quick! A drowning man; a countryman of thine; if I mistake not.”
The Syrian addressed strode quickly to the captain’s side, took one look at the slowly drifting body and, casting aside his sandals and loin-cloth, disappeared headlong into the river. Cautiously the captain extended a long pole in the direction of the swimming sailor. In another moment, Abdi was drawn safely to the deck, and, with him, the apparently lifeless figure of the man he had attempted to save.
Abdi rose to his feet, seemingly none the worse for his adventure. He clasped the captain’s hand: “Adon! I thought a devil had me by the heels! Truly the eddies hereabouts have a deadly grip! Dost know the lad? A fellow countryman by those blue eyes of his! See, they open! Breath of Adon, ’tis an ugly crack he hath! Cut the thongs that bind him! Verily, ’tis dangerous work to meddle with Syrians, as they who planned this treacherous attack will find, should Thi get wind of it! Thou knowest in such a case, even the ‘tried, judged, found his bitter doom!’ is omitted from the records, since ‘thus we save the government’s ink,’ says that wag Thethi!”