"The ancient Egyptian word for the personal pronoun 'I' was _anuk_," said the Tracer placidly.

"The phonetic for _a_ was the hieroglyph [Illustration: Glyph] a reed; for _n_ the water symbol [Illustration: Glyph] for _u_ the symbols [Illustration: Glyph] for _k_ [Illustration: Glyph] Therefore this hieroglyphic inscription begins with the personal pronoun [Illustration: Glyph] or _I_.

That is very easy, of course.
"Now, the most ancient of Egyptian inscriptions read vertically in columns; there are only two columns in this papyrus, so we'll try it vertically and pass downward to the next symbol, which is inclosed in a sort of frame or cartouch.

That immediately signifies that royalty is mentioned; therefore, we have already translated as much as 'I, the king (or queen).' Do you see ?" "Yes," said Burke, staring.
"Very well.

Now this symbol, number two, [Illustration: Glyph] spells out the word '_Meris_,' in this way: M (pronounced _me_) is phonetically symbolized by the characters [Illustration: Glyph] _r_ by [Illustration: Glyph] (a mouth) and the comma [Illustration: Glyph] and the hieroglyph [Illustration: Glyph] _i_ by two reeds [Illustration: Glyph] and two oblique strokes, [Illustration: Glyph] and _s_ by [Illustration: Glyph] This gives us Meris, the name of that deposed and fugitive king of Egypt who, after a last raid on the summer palace of Mer-Shen, usurping ruler of Egypt, was followed and tracked to Sais, where, with an arrow through his back, he crawled to El Teb and finally died there of his wound.