I am Taita the Slave. I was sold into slavery when I was a child, and I grew up as a slave in the land of Egypt. I was the slave of Lord Intef - the most powerful man in Upper Egypt. Lostris was his only child and it was my job to protect her. On the day when my story begins I was thirty years old. That day, the River Nile was shining as brightly as metal under the desert sun. I was sitting in a long boat - a galley. The men who rowed the galley were soldiers of Pharaoh Mamose, King of Egypt. Lostris sat in the bow of the boat. She was fifteen years old and she was very beautiful. And that day she was also very happy. She had never come with us on a hippopotamus hunt before. Retold by Stephen Colbourn.