swarm of bats!" cried the old man out of breath. But the dozen of
school-boys, who had availed themselves of the opportunity to break out
of bounds, gathered coaxing round him, with words of repentance, though
every eye sparkled with delight at the fun they had had, and of which no
one could deprive them; and when the biggest of them took the old man's
chin, and promised to give him the wine which his mother was to send him
next day for the week's use, the porter let go his prisoner--who tried to
rub the pain out of his burning ear--and cried out in harsher tones than
before:

"You will pay me, will you, to let you off! Do you think I will let your
tricks pass? You little know this old man. I will complain to the Gods,
not to the school-master; and as for your wine, youngster, I will offer
it as a libation, that heaven may forgive you."




CHAPTER II.

The temple where, in the fore-court, Paaker was waiting, and where the
priest had disappeared to call the leech, was called the "House of
Seti"--[It is still standing and known as the temple of Qurnah.]--and was
one of the largest in the City of the Dead. Only that magnificent
building of the time of the deposed royal race of the reigning king's
grandfather--that temple which had been founded by Thotmes III., and
whose gate-way Amenophis III. had adorned with immense colossal
statues--[That which stands to the north is the famous musical statue, or
Pillar of Memmon]--exceeded it in the extent of its plan; in every other
respect it held the pre-eminence among the sanctuaries of the Necropolis.
Rameses I. had founded it shortly after he succeeded in seizing the
Egyptian throne; and his yet greater son Seti carried on the erection, in
which the service of the dead for the Manes of the members of the new
royal family was conducted, and the high festivals held in honor of the
Gods of the under-world. Great sums had been expended for its
establishment, for the maintenance of the priesthood of its sanctuary,
and the support of the institutions connected with it. These were
intended to be equal to the great original foundations of priestly
learning at Heliopolis and Memphis; they were regulated on the same
pattern, and with the object of raising the new royal residence of Upper
Egypt, namely Thebes, above the capitals of Lower Egypt in regard to
philosophical distinction.

One of the most important of these foundations was a very celebrated
school of learning.

[Every detail of this description of an Egyptian school is derived
from sources dating from the reign of Rameses II. and his
successor, Merneptah.]

First there was the high-school, in which priests, physicians, judges,
mathematicians, astronomers, grammarians, and other learned men, not only
had the benefit of instruction, but, subsequently, when they had won
admission to the highest ranks of learning, and attained the dignity of
"Scribes," were maintained at the cost of the king, and enabled to pursue
their philosophical speculations and researches, in freedom from all
care, and in the society of fellow-workers of equal birth and identical
interests.

An extensive library, in which thousands of papyrus-rolls were preserved,
and to which a manufactory of papyrus was attached, was at the disposal
of the learned; and some of them were intrusted with the education of the
younger disciples, who had been prepared in the elementary school, which
was also dependent on the House--or university--of Seti. The lower school
was open to every son of a free citizen, and was often frequented by
several hundred boys, who also found night-quarters there. The parents
were of course required either to pay for their maintenance, or to send
due supplies of provisions for the keep of their children at school.

In a separate building lived the temple-boarders, a few sons of the
noblest families, who were brought up by the priests at a great expense
to their parents.

Seti I., the founder of this establishment, had had his own sons, not
excepting Rameses, his successor, educated here.

The elementary schools were strictly ruled, and the rod played so large a
part in them, that a pedagogue could record this saying: "The scholar's
ears are at his back: when he is flogged then he hears."

Those youths who wished to pass up from the lower to the high-school had
to undergo an examination. The student, when he had passed it, could
choose a master from among the learned of the higher grades, who
undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to whom he remained attached
all his life through, as a client to his patron. He could obtain the
degree of "Scribe" and qualify for public office by a second examination.

Near to these schools of learning there stood also a school of art, in
which instruction was given to students who desired to devote themselves
to architecture, sculpture, or painting; in these also the learner might
choose his master.

Every teacher in these institutions belonged to the priesthood of the
House of Seti. It consisted of more than eight hundred members, divided
into five classes, and conducted by three so-called Prophets.

The first prophet was the high-priest of the House of Seti, and at the
same time the superior of all the thousands of upper and under servants
of the divinities which belonged to the City of the Dead of Thebes.

The temple of Seti proper was a massive structure of limestone. A row of
Sphinxes led from the Nile to the surrounding wall, and to the first vast
pro-pylon, which formed the entrance to a broad fore-court, enclosed on
the two sides by colonnades, and beyond which stood a second gate-way.
When he had passed through this door, which stood between two towers, in
shape like truncated pyramids, the stranger came to a second court
resembling the first, closed at the farther end by a noble row of
pillars, which formed part of the central temple itself.

The innermost and last was dimly lighted by a few lamps.

Behind the temple of Seti stood large square structures of brick of the
Nile mud, which however had a handsome and decorative effect, as the
humble material of which they were constructed was plastered with lime,
and that again was painted with colored pictures and hieroglyphic
inscriptions.

The internal arrangement of all these houses was the same. In the midst
was an open court, on to which opened the doors of the rooms of the
priests and philosophers. On each side of the court was a shady, covered
colonnade of wood, and in the midst a tank with ornamental plants. In the
upper story were the apartments for the scholars, and instruction was
usually given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats.

The most imposing was the house of the chief prophets; it was
distinguished by its waving standards and stood about a hundred paces
behind the temple of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear
lake--the sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it while
fulfilling their office, while the splendid houses which they lived in
with their wives and children, lay on the other side of the river, in
Thebes proper.

The untimely visit to the temple could not remain unobserved by the
colony of sages. Just as ants when a hand breaks in on their dwelling,
hurry restlessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had agitated,
not the school-boys only, but the teachers and the priests. They
collected in groups near the outer walls, asking questions and hazarding
guesses. A messenger from the king had arrived--the princess Bent-Anat
had been attacked by the Kolchytes--and a wag among the school-boys who
had got out, declared that Paaker, the king's pioneer, had been brought
into the temple by force to be made to learn to write better. As the
subject of the joke had formerly been a pupil of the House of Seti, and
many delectable stories of his errors in penmanship still survived in the
memory of the later generation of scholars, this information was received
with joyful applause; and it seemed to have a glimmer of probability, in
spite of the apparent contradiction that Paaker filled one of the highest
offices near the king, when a grave young priest declared that he had
seen the pioneer in the forecourt of the temple.

The lively discussion, the laughter and shouting of the boys at such an
unwonted hour, was not unobserved by the chief priest.

This remarkable prelate, Ameni the son of Nebket, a scion of an old and
noble family, was far more than merely the independent head of the
temple-brotherhood, among whom he was prominent for his power and wisdom;
for all the priesthood in the length and breadth of the land acknowledged
his supremacy, asked his advice in difficult cases, and never resisted
the decisions in spiritual matters which emanated from the House of
Seti--that is to say, from Ameni. He was the embodiment of the priestly
idea; and if at times he made heavy--nay extraordinary--demands on
individual fraternities, they were submitted to, for it was known by
experience that the indirect roads which he ordered them to follow all
converged on one goal, namely the exaltation of the power and dignity of
the hierarchy. The king appreciated this remarkable man, and had long
endeavored to attach him to the court, as keeper of the royal seal; but
Ameni was not to be induced to give up his apparently modest position;
for he contemned all outward show and ostentatious titles; he ventured
sometimes to oppose a decided resistance to the measures of the Pharaoh,

[Pharaoh is the Hebrew form of the Egyptian Peraa--or Phrah. "The
great house," "sublime house," or "high gate" is the literal
meaning.]

and was not minded to give up his unlimited control of the priests for
the sake of a limited dominion over what seemed to him petty external
concerns, in the service of a king who was only too independent and hard
to influence.

He regularly arranged his mode and habits of life in an exceptional way.

Eight days out of ten he remained in the temple entrusted to his charge;
two he devoted to his family, who lived on the other bank of the Nile;
but he let no one, not even those nearest to him, know what portion of
the ten days he gave up to recreation. He required only four hours of
sleep. This he usually took in a dark room which no sound could reach,
and in the middle of the day; never at night, when the coolness and quiet
seemed to add to his powers of work, and when from time to time he could
give himself up to the study of the starry heavens.

All the ceremonials that his position required of him, the cleansing,
purification, shaving, and fasting he fulfilled with painful exactitude,
and the outer bespoke the inner man.

Ameni was entering on his fiftieth year; his figure was tall, and had
escaped altogether the stoutness to which at that age the Oriental is
liable. The shape of his smoothly-shaven head was symmetrical and of a
long oval; his forehead was neither broad nor high, but his profile was
unusually delicate, and his face striking; his lips were thin and dry,
and his large and piercing eyes, though neither fiery nor brilliant, and
usually cast down to the ground under his thick eyebrows, were raised
with a full, clear, dispassionate gaze when it was necessary to see and
to examine.

The poet of the House of Seti, the young Pentaur, who knew these eyes,
had celebrated them in song, and had likened them to a well-disciplined
army which the general allows to rest before and after the battle, so
that they may march in full strength to victory in the fight.

The refined deliberateness of his nature had in it much that was royal as
well as priestly; it was partly intrinsic and born with him, partly the
result of his own mental self-control. He had many enemies, but calumny
seldom dared to attack the high character of Amemi.

The high-priest looked up in astonishment, as the disturbance in the
court of the temple broke in on his studies.

The room in which he was sitting was spacious and cool; the lower part of
the walls was lined with earthenware tiles, the upper half plastered and
painted. But little was visible of the masterpieces of the artists of the
establishment, for almost everywhere they were concealed by wooden
closets and shelves, in which were papyrus-rolls and wax-tablets. A large
table, a couch covered with a panther's skin, a footstool in front of it,
and on it a crescent-shaped support for the head, made of ivory,

[A support of crescent form on which the Egyptians rested their
heads. Many specimens were found in the catacombs, and similar
objects are still used in Nubia]

several seats, a stand with beakers and jugs, and another with flasks of
all sizes, saucers, and boxes, composed the furniture of the room, which
was lighted by three lamps, shaped like birds and filled with kiki
oil.--[Castor oil, which was used in the lamps.]

Ameni wore a fine pleated robe of snow-white linen, which reached to his
ankles, round his hips was a scarf adorned with fringes, which in front
formed an apron, with broad, stiffened ends which fell to his knees; a
wide belt of white and silver brocade confined the drapery of his robe.
Round his throat and far down on his bare breast hung a necklace more
than a span deep, composed of pearls and agates, and his upper arm was
covered with broad gold bracelets. He rose from the ebony seat with
lion's feet, on which he sat, and beckoned to a servant who squatted by
one of the walls of the sitting-room. He rose and without any word of
command from his master, he silently and carefully placed on the
high-priest's bare head a long and thick curled wig,

[Egyptians belonging to the higher classes wore wigs on their shaven
heads. Several are preserved in museums.]

and threw a leopard-skin, with its head and claws overlaid with
gold-leaf, over his shoulders. A second servant held a metal mirror
before Ameni, in which he cast a look as he settled the panther-skin and
head-gear.

A third servant was handing him the crosier, the insignia of his dignity
as a prelate, when a priest entered and announced the scribe Pentaur.

Ameni nodded, and the young priest who had talked with the princess
Bent-Anat at the temple-gate came into the room.

Pentaur knelt and kissed the hand of the prelate, who gave him his
blessing, and in a clear sweet voice, and rather formal and unfamiliar
language--as if he were reading rather than speaking, said:

"Rise, my son; your visit will save me a walk at this untimely hour,
since you can inform me of what disturbs the disciples in our temple.
Speak."

"Little of consequence has occurred, holy father," replied Pentaur. "Nor
would I have disturbed thee at this hour, but that a quite unnecessary
tumult has been raised by the youths; and that the princess Bent-Anat
appeared in person to request the aid of a physician. The unusual hour
and the retinue that followed her--"

"Is the daughter of Pharaoh sick?" asked the prelate.

"No, father. She is well--even to wantonness, since--wishing to prove the
swiftness of her horses--she ran over the daughter of the paraschites
Pinem. Noble-hearted as she is, she herself carried the sorely-wounded
girl to her house."

"She entered the dwelling of the unclean."

"Thou hast said."

"And she now asks to be purified?"

"I thought I might venture to absolve her, father, for the purest
humanity led her to the act, which was no doubt a breach of discipline,
but--"

"But," asked the high-priest in a grave voice and he raised his eyes
which he had hitherto on the ground.

"But," said the young priest, and now his eyes fell, "which can surely be
no crime. When Ra--[The Egyptian Sun-god.]--in his golden bark sails
across the heavens, his light falls as freely and as bountifully on the
hut of the despised poor as on the Palace of the Pharaohs; and shall the
tender human heart withhold its pure light--which is benevolence--from
the wretched, only because they are base?"

"It is the poet Pentaur that speaks," said the prelate, "and not the
priest to whom the privilege was given to be initiated into the highest
grade of the sages, and whom I call my brother and my equal. I have no
advantage over you, young man, but perishable learning, which the past
has won for you as much as for me--nothing but certain perceptions and
experiences that offer nothing new, to the world, but teach us, indeed,
that it is our part to maintain all that is ancient in living efficacy
and practice. That which you promised a few weeks since, I many years ago
vowed to the Gods; to guard knowledge as the exclusive possession of the
initiated. Like fire, it serves those who know its uses to the noblest
ends, but in the hands of children--and the people, the mob, can never
ripen into manhood--it is a destroying brand, raging and
unextinguishable, devouring all around it, and destroying all that has
been built and beautified by the past. And how can we remain the Sages
and continue to develop and absorb all learning within the shelter of our
temples, not only without endangering the weak, but for their benefit?
You know and have sworn to act after that knowledge. To bind the crowd to
the faith and the institutions of the fathers is your duty--is the duty
of every priest. Times have changed, my son; under the old kings the
fire, of which I spoke figuratively to you--the poet--was enclosed in
brazen walls which the people passed stupidly by. Now I see breaches in
the old fortifications; the eyes of the uninitiated have been sharpened,
and one tells the other what he fancies he has spied, though
half-blinded, through the glowing rifts."

A slight emotion had given energy to the tones of the speaker, and while
he held the poet spell-bound with his piercing glance he continued:

"We curse and expel any one of the initiated who enlarges these breaches;
we punish even the friend who idly neglects to repair and close them with
beaten brass!"

"My father!" cried Pentaur, raising his head in astonishment while the
blood mounted to his cheeks. The high-priest went up to him and laid both
hands on his shoulders.

They were of equal height and of equally symmetrical build; even the
outline of their features was similar. Nevertheless no one would have
taken them to be even distantly related; their countenances were so
infinitely unlike in expression.

On the face of one were stamped a strong will and the power of firmly
guiding his life and commanding himself; on the other, an amiable desire
to overlook the faults and defects of the world, and to contemplate life
as it painted itself in the transfiguring magic-mirror of his poet's
soul. Frankness and enjoyment spoke in his sparkling eye, but the subtle
smile on his lips when he was engaged in a discussion, or when his soul
was stirred, betrayed that Pentaur, far from childlike carelessness, had
fought many a severe mental battle, and had tasted the dark waters of
doubt.

At this moment mingled feelings were struggling in his soul. He felt as
if he must withstand the speaker; and yet the powerful presence of the
other exercised so strong an influence over his mind, long trained to
submission, that he was silent, and a pious thrill passed through him
when Ameni's hands were laid on his shoulders.

"I blame you," said the high-priest, while he firmly held the young man,
"nay, to my sorrow I must chastise you; and yet," he said, stepping back
and taking his right hand, "I rejoice in the necessity, for I love you
and honor you, as one whom the Unnameable has blessed with high gifts and
destined to great things. Man leaves a weed to grow unheeded or roots it
up but you are a noble tree, and I am like the gardener who has forgotten
to provide it with a prop, and who is now thankful to have detected a
bend that reminds him of his neglect. You look at me enquiringly, and I
can see in your eyes that I seem to you a severe judge. Of what are you
accused? You have suffered an institution of the past to be set aside. It
does not matter--so the short-sighted and heedless think; but I say to
you, you have doubly transgressed, because the wrong-doer was the king's
daughter, whom all look up to, great and small, and whose actions may
serve as an example to the people. On whom then must a breach of the
ancient institutions lie with the darkest stain if not on the highest in
rank? In a few days it will be said the paraschites are men even as we
are, and the old law to avoid them as unclean is folly. And will the
reflections of the people, think you, end there, when it is so easy for
them to say that he who errs in one point may as well fail in all? In
questions of faith, my son, nothing is insignificant. If we open one
tower to the enemy he is master of the whole fortress. In these unsettled
times our sacred lore is like a chariot on the declivity of a precipice,
and under the wheels thereof a stone. A child takes away the stone, and
the chariot rolls down into the abyss and is dashed to pieces. Imagine
the princess to be that child, and the stone a loaf that she would fain
give to feed a beggar. Would you then give it to her if your father and
your mother and all that is dear and precious to you were in the chariot?
Answer not! the princess will visit the paraschites again to-morrow. You
must await her in the man's hut, and there inform her that she has
transgressed and must crave to be purified by us. For this time you are
excused from any further punishment.

"Heaven has bestowed on you a gifted soul. Strive for that which is
wanting to you--the strength to subdue, to crush for One--and you know
that One--all things else--even the misguiding voice of your heart, the
treacherous voice of your judgment.--But stay! send leeches to the house
of the paraschites, and desire them to treat the injured girl as though
she were the queen herself. Who knows where the man dwells?"

"The princess," replied Pentaur, "has left Paaker, the king's pioneer,
behind in the temple to conduct the leeches to the house of Pinem."

The grave high-priest smiled and said. "Paaker! to attend the daughter of
a paraschites."

Pentaur half beseechingly and half in fun raised his eyes which he had
kept cast down. "And Pentaur," he murmured, "the gardener's son! who is
to refuse absolution to the king's daughter!"

"Pentaur, the minister of the Gods--Pentaur, the priest--has not to do
with the daughter of the king, but with the transgressor of the sacred
institutions," replied Ameni gravely. "Let Paaker know I wish to speak
with him."

The poet bowed low and quitted the room, the high priest muttered to
himself: "He is not yet what he should be, and speech is of no effect
with him."

For a while he was silent, walking to and fro in meditation; then he said
half aloud, "And the boy is destined to great things. What gifts of the
Gods doth he lack? He has the faculty of learning--of thinking--of
feeling--of winning all hearts, even mine. He keeps himself undefiled and
separate--" suddenly the prelate paused and struck his hand on the back of
a chair that stood by him. "I have it; he has not yet felt the fire of
ambition. We will light it for his profit and our own."




CHAPTER III.

Pentauer hastened to execute the commands of the high-priest. He sent a
servant to escort Paaker, who was waiting in the forecourt, into the
presence of Ameni while he himself repaired to the physicians to impress
on them the most watchful care of the unfortunate girl.

Many proficients in the healing arts were brought up in the house of
Seti, but few used to remain after passing the examination for the degree
of Scribe.

[What is here stated with regard to the medical schools is
principally derived from the medical writings of the Egyptians
themselves, among which the "Ebers Papyrus" holds the first place,
"Medical Papyrus I." of Berlin the second, and a hieratic MS. in
London which, like the first mentioned, has come down to us from the
18th dynasty, takes the third. Also see Herodotus II. 84. Diodorus
I. 82.]

The most gifted were sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in the great
"Hall of the Ancients," the most celebrated medical faculty of the whole
country, whence they returned to Thebes, endowed with the highest honors
in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch of their
profession, and became physicians to the king or made a living by
imparting their learning and by being called in to consult on serious
cases.

Naturally most of the doctors lived on the east bank of the Nile, in
Thebes proper, and even in private houses with their families; but each
was attached to a priestly college.

Whoever required a physician sent for him, not to his own house, but to a
temple. There a statement was required of the complaint from which the
sick was suffering, and it was left to the principal medical staff of the
sanctuary to select that of the healing art whose special knowledge
appeared to him to be suited for the treatment of the case.

Like all priests, the physicians lived on the income which came to them
from their landed property, from the gifts of the king, the contributions
of the laity, and the share which was given them of the state-revenues;
they expected no honorarium from their patients, but the restored sick
seldom neglected making a present to the sanctuary whence a physician had
come to them, and it was not unusual for the priestly leech to make the
recovery of the sufferer conditional on certain gifts to be offered to
the temple.

The medical knowledge of the Egyptians was, according to every
indication, very considerable; but it was natural that physicians, who
stood by the bed of sickness as "ordained servants of the Divinity,"
should not be satisfied with a rational treatment of the sufferer, and
should rather think that they could not dispense with the mystical
effects of prayers and vows.

Among the professors of medicine in the House of Seti there were men of
the most different gifts and bent of mind; but Pentaur was not for a
moment in doubt as to which should be entrusted with the treatment of the
girl who had been run over, and for whom he felt the greatest sympathy.

The one he chose was the grandson of a celebrated leech, long since dead,
whose name of Nebsecht he had inherited, and a beloved school-friend and
old comrade of Pentaur.

This young man had from his earliest years shown high and hereditary
talent for the profession to which he had devoted himself; he had
selected surgery

[Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments: otherwise the
very badly-set fractures found in some of the mummies do little
honor to the Egyptian surgeons.]

for his special province at Heliopolis, and would certainly have attained
the dignity of teacher there if an impediment in his speech had not
debarred him from the viva voce recitation of formulas and prayers.

This circumstance, which was deeply lamented by his parents and tutors,
was in fact, in the best opinions, an advantage to him; for it often
happens that apparent superiority does us damage, and that from apparent
defect springs the saving of our life.

Thus, while the companions of Nebsecht were employed in declaiming or in
singing, he, thanks to his fettered tongue, could give himself up to his
inherited and almost passionate love of observing organic life; and his
teachers indulged up to a certain point his innate spirit of
investigation, and derived benefit from his knowledge of the human and
animal structures, and from the dexterity of his handling.

His deep aversion for the magical part of his profession would have
brought him heavy punishment, nay very likely would have cost him
expulsion from the craft, if he had ever given it expression in any form.
But Nebsecht's was the silent and reserved nature of the learned man, who
free from all desire of external recognition, finds a rich satisfaction
in the delights of investigation; and he regarded every demand on him to
give proof of his capacity, as a vexatious but unavoidable intrusion on
his unassuming but laborious and fruitful investigations.

Nebsecht was dearer and nearer to Pentaur than any other of his
associates.

He admired his learning and skill; and when the slightly-built surgeon,
who was indefatigable in his wanderings, roved through the thickets by
the Nile, the desert, or the mountain range, the young poet-priest
accompanied him with pleasure and with great benefit to himself, for his
companion observed a thousand things to which without him he would have
remained for ever blind; and the objects around him, which were known to
him only by their shapes, derived connection and significance from the
explanations of the naturalist, whose intractable tongue moved freely
when it was required to expound to his friend the peculiarities of
organic beings whose development he had been the first to detect.

The poet was dear in the sight of Nebsecht, and he loved Pentaur, who
possessed all the gifts he lacked; manly beauty, childlike lightness of
heart, the frankest openness, artistic power, and the gift of expressing
in word and song every emotion that stirred his soul. The poet was as a
novice in the order in which Nebsecht was master, but quite capable of
understanding its most difficult points; so it happened that Nebsecht
attached greater value to his judgment than to that of his own
colleagues, who showed themselves fettered by prejudice, while Pentaur's
decision always was free and unbiassed.

The naturalist's room lay on the ground floor, and had no living-rooms
above it, being under one of the granaries attached to the temple. It was
as large as a public hall, and yet Pentaur, making his way towards the
silent owner of the room, found it everywhere strewed with thick bundles
of every variety of plant, with cages of palm-twigs piled four or five
high, and a number of jars, large and small, covered with perforated
paper. Within these prisons moved all sorts of living creatures, from the
jerboa, the lizard of the Nile, and a light-colored species of owl, to
numerous specimens of frogs, snakes, scorpions and beetles.

On the solitary table in the middle of the room, near to a writing-stand,
lay bones of animals, with various sharp flints and bronze knives.

In a corner of this room lay a mat, on which stood a wooden head-prop,
indicating that the naturalist was in the habit of sleeping on it.

When Pentaur's step was heard on the threshold of this strange abode, its
owner pushed a rather large object under the table, threw a cover over
it, and hid a sharp flint scalpel

[The Egyptians seem to have preferred to use flint instruments for
surgical purposes, at any rate for the opening of bodies and for
circumcision. Many flint instruments have been found and preserved
in museums.]

fixed into a wooden handle, which he had just been using, in the folds of
his robe-as a school-boy might hide some forbidden game from his master.
Then he crossed his arms, to give himself the aspect of a man who is
dreaming in harmless idleness.

The solitary lamp, which was fixed on a high stand near his chair, shed a
scanty light, which, however, sufficed to show him his trusted friend
Pentaur, who had disturbed Nebsecht in his prohibited occupations.
Nebsecht nodded to him as he entered, and, when he had seen who it was,
said:

"You need not have frightened me so!" Then he drew out from under the
table the object he had hidden--a living rabbit fastened down to a
board-and continued his interrupted observations on the body, which he
had opened and fastened back with wooden pins while the heart continued
to beat.

He took no further notice of Pentaur, who for some time silently watched
the investigator; then he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:

"Lock your door more carefully, when you are busy with forbidden things."

"They took--they took away the bar of the door lately," stammered the
naturalist, "when they caught me dissecting the hand of the forger
Ptahmes."--[The law sentenced forgers to lose a hand.]

"The mummy of the poor man will find its right hand wanting," answered
the poet.

"He will not want it out there."

"Did you bury the least bit of an image in his grave?"

[Small statuettes, placed in graves to help the dead in the work
performed in the under-world. They have axes and ploughs in their
hands, and seed-bags on their backs. The sixth chapter of the Book
of the Dead is inscribed on nearly all.]

"Nonsense."

"You go very far, Nebsecht, and are not foreseeing, 'He who needlessly
hurts an innocent animal shall be served in the same way by the spirits
of the netherworld,' says the law; but I see what you will say. You hold
it lawful to put a beast to pain, when you can thereby increase that
knowledge by which you alleviate the sufferings of man, and enrich--"

"And do not you?"

A gentle smile passed over Pentaur's face; leaned over the animal and
said:

"How curious! the little beast still lives and breathes; a man would have
long been dead under such treatment. His organism is perhaps of a more
precious, subtle, and so more fragile nature?"

Nebsecht shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps!" he said.

"I thought you must know."

"I--how should I?" asked the leech. "I have told you--they would not even
let me try to find out how the hand of a forger moves."

"Consider, the scripture tells us the passage of the soul depends on the
preservation of the body."

Nebsecht looked up with his cunning little eyes and shrugging his
shoulders, said:

"Then no doubt it is so: however these things do not concern me. Do what
you like with the souls of men; I seek to know something of their bodies,
and patch them when they are damaged as well as may be."

"Nay-Toth be praised, at least you need not deny that you are master in
that art."

[Toth is the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was
sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra
created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy."
Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure.
He is the weigher, the philosopher among the gods, the lord of
writing, of art and of learning. The Greeks called him Hermes
Trismegistus, i.e. threefold or "very great" which was, in fact, in
imitation of the Egyptians, whose name Toth or Techud signified
twofold, in the same way "very great"]

"Who is master," asked Nebsecht, "excepting God? I can do nothing,
nothing at all, and guide my instruments with hardly more certainty than
a sculptor condemned to work in the dark."

"Something like the blind Resu then," said Pentaur smiling, "who
understood painting better than all the painters who could see."

"In my operations there is a 'better' and a 'worse;'" said Nebsecht, "but
there is nothing 'good.'"

"Then we must be satisfied with the 'better,' and I have come to claim
it," said Pentaur.

"Are you ill?"

"Isis be praised, I feel so well that I could uproot a palm-tree, but I