Taking his cue from the gorgeous costume scarcely concealed beneath his master’s fringed and brightly colored Syrian cloak, Bentu launched into one of Ata’s love-songs. His grinning comrades punctuated each verse with a staccato “ha-ha, o-ay!”
Menna sank back against his cushions; he smiled. It pleased him that this black shadow of his had divined his mission. Nay, Menna felt himself so at peace with the world that he gave command to allow a peasant’s all too-heavily laden donkey to pass unchallenged, an unheard of proceeding on the part of a Theban noble!
Bentu’s hopes rose. Under such circumstances all things were possible. He might receive a jeweled necklace, golden bars; a small farm, perhaps.
Indeed, Bentu’s expectations assumed so rosy an aspect, that he broke into a dance, clapping his hands or snapping his fingers in time to his leapings and posturings, quite in the manner of the Nubians, the curly-headed people to the south.
With the sudden disappearance of the swollen sun-disk behind the deep blue hills of Erment, song and dance abruptly ceased. Menna indicated that he would descend from his chair, and all, master and men together, addressed a short prayer for the success of the Sun-god in his ceaseless conflict with Apep, Fiend of Darkness.
Piety was a habit with Menna, as with Bentu and the rest.
This done, once more Menna’s chair swung along the high embankment. Once again the warning shouts or blows from the forked staff of Bentu kept the narrow way free.
Arrived before the tree-set entrance to the Temple of Thothmes, Menna left his servants and continued westward, past Amenhotep the Second’s temple, on foot. Soon his tall figure was lost among the groves of cedars, karobs and acacias with which the tomb precincts of the nobles Senmut, Ra, and Rekmara, were thickly planted.
Passing the great monument of the architect Senmut, from which vantage point the great cedar which marked the tomb precinct of his father and mother was visible, Menna turned towards the yellow terraces of Hatshepsut’s ivory-columned temple. To the left, he could already distinguish the little pyramid and the terraced colonades of the Mentuhotep Shrine, near which was the spot he sought. A few minutes more and he had crossed the ruined forecourt of that ancient king’s memorial shrine.
For a moment Menna looked about him. He consulted a memorandum which he took from his jeweled belt. Then again, with an anticipatory smile, he ascended to the highest terrace and suddenly vanished into a dark opening which seemed to lead into the very face of the stupendous cliffs which towered above.