support nor sympathy; on the contrary, gathering together several
strands of flax into a thick rope he gave her a good beating with the
same. A little later the handmaiden went to the river or canal to fetch
some water, and whilst she was filling her pot a crocodile seized her
and carried her away and, presumably, ate her. Then the uncle went to
the house of Rut-tetet to tell her what had happened, and he found her
sitting down, with her head bowed over her breast, and exceedingly sad
and miserable. He asked her, saying, "O Lady, wherefore art thou so
sad?" And she told him that the cause of her sorrow was the handmaiden,
who had been born in the house and had grown up in it, and who had just
left it, threatening that she would go and tell the king about the birth
of the three kings. The uncle of the handmaiden nodded his head in a
consoling manner, and told Rut-tetet how she had come to him and
informed him what she was going to do, and how he had given her a good
beating with a rope of flax, and how she had gone to the river to fetch
some water, and how a crocodile had carried her off.

There is reason to think that the three sons of Rut-tetet became the
three kings of the fifth dynasty who were known by the names of Khāfrā,
Menkaurā, and Userkaf. The stories given above are valuable because they
contain elements of history, for it is now well known that the immediate
successors of the fourth dynasty, of which Khufu, Khāfrā, and Menkaurā,
the builders of the three great pyramids at GÄ«zah, were the most
important kings, were kings who delighted to call themselves sons of Rā,
and who spared no effort to make the form of worship of the Sun-god that
was practised at Anu, or Heliopolis, universal in Egypt. It is probable
that the three magicians, Ubaaner, Tchatchamānkh, and Teta were
historical personages, whose abilities and skill in working magic
appealed to the imagination of the Egyptians under all dynasties, and
caused their names to be venerated to a remote posterity.