Thurms, seventeen-year-old son of an Egyptian general, is banished from Thebes by his father for insubordination. Banishment means a tedious assignment of patrolling at the edge of the Sinai desert. But rather than a monotonous life, Thurms runs into adventure when he rescues Kemheb from Khabiri bandits. Kemheb, younger than Thurms, hints he is more than a runaway slave, as Thurms had supposed. His tale results in the pursuit of the treasure of the lost Tenakertom.