The curtains were drawn and through them came the aged Bakenkhonsu leaning upon his staff, and with him another man, Ki himself, clad in a white robe and having his head shaven, for he was an hereditary priest of Amon of Thebes and an initiate of Isis, Mother of Mysteries.  Also his office was that of Kherheb, or chief magician of Egypt.  At first sight there was nothing strange about this man.  Indeed, he might well have been a middle-aged merchant by his looks; in body he was short and stout; in face fat and smiling.  But in this jovial countenance were set two very strange eyes, grey-hued rather than black.  While the rest of the face seemed to smile these eyes looked straight into nothingness as do those of a statue.  Indeed they were like to the eyes or rather the eye-places of a stone statue, so deeply were they set into the head.  For my part I can only say I thought them awful, and by their look judged that whatever Ki might be he was no cheat.

This strange pair bowed to the Prince and seated themselves at a sign from him, Bakenkhonsu upon a stool because he found it difficult to rise, and Ki, who was younger, scribe fashion on the ground.

“What did I tell you, Bakenkhonsu?” said Ki in a full, rich voice, ending the words with a curious chuckle.

“You told me, Magician, that we should find the Prince in this chamber of which you described every detail to me as I see it now, although neither of us have entered it before.  You said also that seated therein on the ground would be the scribe Ana, whom I know but you do not, having in his hands waxen tablets and a stylus and by him a coat of curious mail and a lion-hilted sword.”

“That is strange,” interrupted the Prince, “but forgive me, Bakenkhonsu sees these things.  If you, O Ki, would tell us what is written upon Ana’s tablets which neither of you can see, it would be stranger still, that is if anything is written.”

Ki smiled and stared upwards at the ceiling.  Presently he said: 

“The scribe Ana uses a shorthand of his own that is not easy to decipher.  Yet I see written on the tablets the price he obtained for some house in a city that is not named—­it is so much.  Also I see the sums he disbursed for himself, a servant, and the food of an ass at two inns where he stopped upon a journey.  They are so much and so much.  Also there is a list of papyrus rolls and the words, ‘blue cloak,’ and then an erasure.”

“Is that right, Ana?” asked the Prince.

“Quite right,” I answered with awe, “only the words ‘blue cloak,’ which it is true I wrote upon the tablet, have also been erased.”

Ki chuckled and turned his eyes from the ceiling to my face.