This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by loteform pillars of brilliant stone. Toth, the ibis-headed, and the Goddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were painted on the walls. A long table, massive, plain and solid like a sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room. A confused litter of curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls were distributed carelessly over the polished surface. At one side were eight plates of stone—the tables of law, codified and blessed by Toth.
The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table.
When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed pen in the pigment, and was ready.
"Name?" he began, preparing to write.
"That, thou knowest," Kenkenes retorted. The Nubian bowed respectfully and approaching, whispered to the scribe. The official ran over some of the scrolls and having found the one he sought, proceeded to make his entries from the information contained therein.
When the man had finished Kenkenes nodded toward the eight volumes of the law.
"If thou art as acquainted with the laws of Egypt as thine office requires, thou knowest that no free-born Egyptian may be kept ignorant of the charge that accomplished his arrest. Wherefore am I taken?"
"For sacrilege and slave-stealing," the scribe replied calmly.
"At the complaint of Har-hat, bearer of the king's fan," Kenkenes added.
"Until such time as stronger proof of thy misdeeds may be brought against thee," the scribe continued.