"This from Kenkenes, whom ill-fortune can not wholly possess, while he may call thee his friend.
"I speak to thee out of the prison at Tape, where I am held for stealing a bondmaiden and for executing a statue against the canons of the sculptor's ritual. The accumulated penalty for these offenses is great—my plight is most serious.
"The pitying gods have left me one chance for escape. If I fail I shall molder here, for my counsel is mine and the demons of Amenti shall not rend it from me.
"The tale is short and miserable. But for the necessity I would not repeat it, for it publishes the humiliation of sweet innocence.
"Suffice it to say that the offended is she of whom we talked one day on the hill back of Masaarah; the offender is Har-hat who hath buried me here in Tape.
"One morning he saw her at the quarries and, taken with her beauty, asked her at the hands of the Pharaoh, for the hatefullest bondage pure maidenhood ever knew.
"She fled from the minions he sent to take her, and came to me in that spot on the hillside where thou and I did talk.
"There the minions found us, and by the evidence they looked upon, I am further charged with sacrilege.
"Thou dost remember the all-powerful signet, which my father had from the Incomparable Pharaoh. He lost it in the tomb of the king, three years ago, abandoning the search for it before I was assured that it was not to be found.
"So strong was my faith that the signet was in the tomb, that when this disaster overtook her, I came to Tape at once to look again for the treasure. I found it.