"He has been dead 3285 years," sighed Sir Robert.
"Is that his fault?" cried the girl.
"It falsifies his prophecy."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Ptahmes was his name," said Sir Robert, turning to me. "He was the right-hand man of Amen-hotep IV; but when that king changed his religion and his name and became Akhenaten and a devotee of the old worship of Heliopolis, Ptahmes apparently killed himself as a protest against the deposition of Amen, his particular divinity."
"Read that," said Miss Ottley.
She handed me a page of type-written manuscript.
It ran as follows:
"Hearken to the orders which are put upon you by Ptahmes, named Tahutimes, son of Mery, son of Hap.
"All my ways were regulated even as the pace of an ibis. The Hawk-headed Horus was my protector like amulets upon my body. I trained the troops of my lord. I made his pylon 60 cubits long in the noble rock of quartzite, most great in height and firm as heaven. I did not imitate what had been done before. I was the royal scribe of the recruits. Mustering was done under me. I was appointed Judge of the Palace; overseer of all the prophets of the south and of the north. I was appointed High Priest of Amen in the Capital—King of all the Gods. I was made the eyes and ears of the king: keeper of my lord's heart and fan-bearer at the King's right hand. Great men have come from afar to bow themselves before me, bringing presents of ivory and gold, copper, silver and emery, lazuli, malachite, green felspar and vases of mern wood inlaid with white precious stones sometimes bearing gold at one time 1000 deben (200 pounds weight). For my fame was carried abroad even as the fame of the king, 'lord of the sweet wind.' And there was spoken of me by the son of Paapis that my wisdom was of a divine nature, because of my knowledge of futurities. Yet on the sixth day of the month of Pakhons in the 18th year I desire to rest. My lord, at the solicitation of the great royal wife and mother Nefertiti, has put off the worship of his predecessors. The name of Amen is proscribed from the country. Ra is proscribed from the country. Horus is proscribed from the country. Aten is set up in their place and worshipped in the land. My lord has even changed his name. Apiy is the high priest of the new God that is from the Mesopotamian wilderness. Amen, king of the Gods, dandled my lord and is forsaken and proscribed. I am an old man and would rest: although my lord has not forsaken me. He has appointed me overseer of all his works. Therefore, shall you carry me to the temple of Kak, and give my body to the hands of the priests of Amen who will wrap me in the linen sheets of Horus without removing my heart, my entrails or my lungs. Then you shall carry me to Khizebh and enclose me in the place prepared for me; and cover my tomb to a depth of five fathoms with the sand of the desert at that hour when no man looks or listens. Do this even as I command, and as royal scribe I trace the order with my pen. But you shall place my papyri and the sign by which I shall be known, and the stele of ivory engraved with the directions to the priests of Amen who are to wake me from my sleep at the distant hour, in the tomb that is prepared for my body in the temple of Merenptah and in such manner that I shall there appear to sleep. And all these things you shall do, or my curse shall pursue you and your children and their children for the space of four hundred lives. Nor shall you remove the endowment of my gifts nor touch them where they lie under a penalty of great moment."