There was but one entrance.
Herein were confined all the malefactors of the great city of the gods,
and since the population of Thebes might have comprised something over
half a million inhabitants, the dwellers of that grim and impregnable
prison were not few in number.
Kenkenes was led through the doors, down a low-roofed, narrow,
stone-walled corridor to the room of the governor of police.
This was a hall, with a lofty ceiling, highly colored and supported by
loteform pillars of brilliant stone. Toth, the ibis-headed, and the
Goddess Ma, crowned with plumes, her wings forward drooping, were
painted on the walls. A long table, massive, plain and solid like a
sarcophagus, stood in the center of the room. A confused litter of
curled sheets of papyrus, and long strips of unrolled linen scrolls
were distributed carelessly over the polished surface. At one side
were eight plates of stone--the tables of law, codified and blessed by
Toth.
The governor of police was absent, but his vice, who was jailer and
scribe in one, sat in a chair behind the great table.
When the party entered, he sat up, undid a new scroll, wetted the reed
pen in the pigment, and was ready.
"Name?" he began, preparing to write.
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