under the bunch of leaves in a palm-top looked after him fixedly for a
moment, and then sliding down the tree, disappeared among the flowers.

When, half an hour later, Kenkenes entered a cross avenue leading to a
great square in which the temple stood, he found the roadway filled
with people, crowding about a group of disheveled women. These were
shrieking, wildly tearing their hair, beating themselves and throwing
dust upon their heads. Kenkenes immediately surmised that there was
something more than the usual death-wail in this.

He touched a man near him on the shoulder.

"Who may these distracted women be?" he asked.

"The mothers of Khafra and Sigur, and their women."

"Nay! Are these men dead? I knew them once.

"They are by this time. They were to be hanged in the dungeon of the
house of the governor of police at this hour," the man answered with
morbid relish in his tone. Kenkenes looked at him in horror.

"What had they done?" he asked. The man plunged eagerly into the
narrative.

"They were tomb robbers and robbed independently of the brotherhood of
thieves.[1] They refused to pay the customary tribute from their spoil
to the chief of robbers, and whatsoever booty they got they kept, every
jot of it. Innumerable mummies were found rifled of their gold and
gems, and although the chief of robbers and the governor of police