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possibly impute to that?"
    Methen nodded, but Hentre still shook his old head doubtfully.
    "If you go alone, Lord, they can and will impute any manner of evil to you—and who may bear witness on your behalf? Let me—"
    "Not so!" Kheti, too, arose and stretched wide his arms. "I am my lord's shield bearer in battle, and this is in a manner a battle. Do you go now, brother?"
    "I go alone," the captain repeated stubbornly. "Ptahhotep's son am I. If I take what has been sealed unto him, the Watcher may understand. If we come in a body to steal— then we are in a measure what they would term us—despoilers of a tomb."
    l ie threw that squarely at Kheti. The Nubian gave lip service to Amon-Re, but as a Nubian he called upon the god of his race—Dcdun—in moments of stress. His customs, save where they were overlaid by the uses of the army with its Egyptian influences, were not basically those of the Two Lands. But he could understand the belief in the Watcher, who dwelt within the tomb but looked out upon the world through a chapel window. Rahotep thought that what he intended to do, though it would be close to sacrilege and could so be claimed against him, might be condoned by that Watcher within—just as he was also certain that this was his task alone, a duty that could not be shared.
    And so in the end he managed to break down Kheti's resistance, though the Nubian insisted upon escorting him as far as the outposts of the necropolis, the place of the dead.
    There were flickering lamps in some of the village houses. But the cliffs, with their awesome array of tombs and chapels, were a black line across the sky, merging one darkness with another.
    "The patrol drinks deep tonight of the funeral wines, as is their due," Kheti said. "The Lord Unis may have treated the Lord Ptahhotep with unseemly haste in escorting him so swifdy to his other home, but he did not skimp on the feasting. And there may come other things out of the desert to seek the bounty of the offerings. Loosen your dagger, brother, and look twice at any shadow—"
    Rahotep clung to the shadows, but he did not slink. Should he be discovered by a priest of the patrol, he determined to demand an escort to the chapel. Such ill fortune would prevent his plan from working, but it might save his life.
    The necropolis was as barren as the desert. No wind whispered in a palm crown or rustled through grass. The shadows of rocks lay as long black fingers and threatening fists across his path. A jackal bayed the rising moon. Rahotep's right hand rested above his heart, pressing painfully into the flesh the hawk amulet he wore on a chain about his neck. Anubis, the Seeker, the Jackal, who guarded the doors of the West, this was Llis domain. But Horus, the Hawk, flew over the desert lands, where the Jackal must pad in the dust. And tonight Rahotep believed he had more to fear from the malice of men than the displeasure of any Great One.
    His sandal soles scuffed as he come upon stone pavement, the road leading up to the chapel. The scent of incense, of dying flowers, hung here, growing more noticeable as he advanced. Ahead was the gleam of a lamp, one of the small saucer type for the table of sacrifice. He hesitated for a long moment, listening. So small a lamp must be refilled often, which meant an attendent priest—unless such a guardian had shortly left. And there was no way of entering the chapel save by the road he was on—no hiding place from which he could spy. Rahotep kicked off his sandals, not only for reasons of reverence; bare skin on stone and sand was noiseless.
    The captain stood now between the two slabs of red granite forming the door sides. The smell of the offerings was almost fetid in the airless interior. And the morsel of light played upon the painted walls, giving life and color to a face here and there or meaning to an inscription. But he could see no priest on duty.
    Slowly Rahotep faced the west wall, his eyes in the restricted light searching for