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insufficient to take on the Cretan garrison of almost two thousand. When I explained the particular circumstances which I had not shared with Aton or even with Pharaoh he accepted my plan in its entirety.
    I allowed him to choose his own men. I insisted only that the single attribute all the men he selected must possess was the ability to speak Hyksosian fluently. Zaras was too young to have been part of the exodus to Nubia when the Hyksos overwhelmed southern Egypt. In fact he had been pressed into the Hyksos legions at the age of sixteen. The result was that he could speak the language as though born to it, and he could pass for one of them in any circumstances. However, he was a loyal Egyptian and had been amongst the very first to revert to his true race when Pharaoh Tamose led us down through the cataracts to thrash the Hyksos at the battle of Thebes and drive their survivors in panic and confusion back into the north.
    The men Zaras selected to make up the raiding party were highly trained and drilled, mostly under Zaras himself. They were all sailors as well as soldiers and had spent most of their time as fighting crews on board the river galleys, when they were not handling the war chariots. There was nothing more that Zaras needed to teach them.
    I told him to divide this force into small detachments each of fifteen or twenty men so that they would not draw too much attention to themselves when they left the city of Thebes.
    When I showed the royal hawk seal to the captain of the guard at the city gates he did not question me. Over three successive nights these small bands of Zaras’ men slipped out of the city during the hours of darkness and headed out into the eastern wilderness. They reassembled in the ruins of the ancient city of Akita, where I was waiting for them.
    I had with me wagons laden with authentic Hyksos helmets, armour, uniforms and weapons. This was just a small part of the booty we had captured from the enemy at the battle of Thebes.
    From Akita we marched on eastwards to the shores of the Gulf of Suez at the northern end of the Red Sea. The men wore Bedouin robes over their uniforms and weapons.
    Zaras and I had ridden ahead of the main party. We were waiting at the little fishing village of Al Nadas on the shore of the gulf when they caught up with us.
    Zaras had hired a guide whom he had employed before, and whom he recommended highly. His name was Al Namjoo. He was a tall silent man with one eye. He was waiting for us at Al Nadas.
    Al Namjoo had chartered all the available fishing vessels from the villagers to ferry us across to the eastern shore. The gulf was less than twenty leagues wide at this point and we could see the low hills of the Sinai on the far side.
    We crossed in the night, with only the stars to light our way. We disembarked on the eastern shore of the gulf near another tiny fishing village. This was Zuba, where one of Al Namjoo’s sons was waiting for us. He had a string of over a hundred donkeys which he had hired to carry our heavy gear. We still faced a march of almost two hundred leagues northwards to reach the Middle Sea, but the men were trained to peak condition and we moved fast.
    Al Namjoo kept well to the east of the Sinai isthmus which links Africa to Asia to minimize the risk of us encountering any Hyksos troops. Finally we came out on the rocky southern coast of the Middle Sea near the Phoenician port of Ushu. This was approximately midway between the Sumerian border and that part of northern Egypt still in the hands of the Hyksos invaders.
    I left Zaras and his men encamped outside the port and went ahead with two donkeys loaded with gold ingots concealed in leather sacks of corn and four picked men to help me. After three days of bargaining with the merchants of the port I had three medium-sized galleys drawn up on the beach below the Phoenician Temple of Melkart. Each of these ships was capable of carrying a hundred men. They had cost me dearly, and there was