has restored to me you two friends, whom I regarded as lost to me, and
has given me in Pentaur another son."

A low whistle sounded through the night air; it was Katuti's last signal.

Paaker blew up the tinder, laid it in the bole under the parapet, and
then, unmindful of his own danger, raised himself to listen for any
further words.

"I entreat thee," said the Regent, approaching Rameses, "to excuse me. I
fully appreciate thy favors, but the labors of the last few days have
been too much for me; I can hardly stand on my feet, and the guard of
honor--"

"Mena will watch," said the king. "Sleep in all security, cousin. I will
have it known to all men that I have put away from me all distrust of
you. Give the my night-robe, Mena. Nay-one thing more I must tell you.
Youth smiles on the young, Ani. Bent-Anat has chosen a worthy husband, my
preserver, the poet Pentaur. He was said to be a man of humble origin,
the son of a gardener of the House of Seti; and now what do I learn
through Ameni? He is the true son of the dead Mohar, and the foul traitor
Paaker is the gardener's son. A witch in the Necropolis changed the
children. That is the best news of all that has reached me on this
propitious day, for the Mohar's widow, the noble Setchem, has been
brought here, and I should have been obliged to choose between two
sentences on her as the mother of the villain who has escaped us. Either
I must have sent her to the quarries, or have had her beheaded before all
the people--In the name of the Gods, what is that?"

They heard a loud cry in a man's voice, and at the same instant a noise
as if some heavy mass had fallen to the ground from a great height.
Rameses and Mena hastened to the window, but started back, for they were
met by a cloud of smoke.

"Call the watch!" cried the king.

"Go, you," exclaimed Mena to Ani. "I will not leave the king again in
danger."

Ani fled away like an escaped prisoner, but he could not get far, for,
before he could descend the stairs to the lower story, they fell in
before his very eyes; Katuti, after she had set fire to the interior of
the palace, had made them fall by one blow of a hammer. Ani saw her robe
as she herself fled, clenched his fist with rage as he shouted her name,
and then, not knowing what he did, rushed headlong through the corridor
into which the different royal apartments opened.

The fearful crash of the falling stairs brought the King and Mena also
out of the sleeping-room.

"There lie the stairs! that is serious!" said the king cooly; then he
went back into his room, and looked out of a window to estimate the
danger. Bright flames were already bursting from the northern end of the
palace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day; the southern wing
or the pavilion was not yet on fire. Mena observed the parapet from which
Paaker had fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found it firm
enough to bear several persons. He looked round, particularly at the wing
not yet gained by the flames, and exclaimed in a loud voice:

"The fire is intentional! it is done on purpose. See there! a man is
squatting down and pushing a brand into the woodwork."

He leaped back into the room, which was now filling with smoke, snatched
the king's bow and quiver, which he himself had hung up at the bed-head,
took careful aim, and with one cry the incendiary fell dead.

A few hours later the dwarf Nemu was found with the charioteer's arrow
through his heart. After setting fire to Bent-Anat's rooms, he had
determined to lay a brand to the wing of the palace where, with the other
princes, Uarda's friend Rameri was sleeping.

Mena had again leaped out of window, and was estimating the height of the
leap to the ground; the Pharaoh's room was getting more and more filled
with smoke, and flames began to break through the seams of the boards.
Outside the palace as well as within every one was waking up to terror
and excitement.

"Fire! fire! an incendiary! Help! Save the king!" cried Kaschta, who
rushed on, followed by a crowd of guards whom he had roused; Uarda had
flown to call Bent-Anat, as she knew the way to her room. The king had
got on to the parapet outside the window with Mena, and was calling to
the soldiers.

"Half of you get into the house, and first save the princess; the other
half keep the fire from catching the south wing. I will try to get
there."

But Nemu's brand had been effectual, the flames flared up, and the
soldiers strained every nerve to conquer them. Their cries mingled with
the crackling and snapping of the dry wood, and the roar of the flames,
with the trumpet calls of the awakening troops, and the beating of drums.
The young princes appeared at a window; they had tied their clothes
together to form a rope, and one by one escaped down it.

Rameses called to them with words of encouragement, but he himself was
unable to take any means of escape, for though the parapet on which he
stood was tolerably wide, and ran round the whole of the building, at
about every six feet it was broken by spaces of about ten paces. The fire
was spreading and growing, and glowing sparks flew round him and his
companion like chaff from the winnowing fan.

"Bring some straw and make a heap below!" shouted Rameses, above the roar
of the conflagration. "There is no escape but by a leap down."

The flames rushed out of the windows of the king's room; it was
impossible to return to it, but neither the king nor Mena lost his
self-possession. When Mena saw the twelve princes descending to the
ground, he shouted through his hands, using them as a speaking trumpet,
and called to Rameri, who was about to slip down the rope they had
contrived, the last of them all.

"Pull up the rope, and keep it from injury till I come."

Rameri obeyed the order, and before Rameses could interfere, Mena had
sprung across the space which divided one piece of the balustrade from
another. The king's blood ran cold as Mena, a second time, ventured the
frightful leap; one false step, and he must meet with the same fearful
death as his enemy Paaker.

While the bystanders watched him in breathless silence--while the
crackling of the wood, the roar of the flames, and the dull thump of
falling timber mingled with the distant chant of a procession of priests
who were now approaching the burning pile, Nefert roused by little
Scherau knelt on the bare ground in fervent and passionate prayer to the
saving Gods. She watched every movement of her husband, and she bit her
lips till they bled not to cry out. She felt that he was acting bravely
and nobly, and that he was lost if even for an instant his attention were
distracted from his perilous footing. Now he had reached Rameri, and
bound one end of the rope made out of cloaks and handkerchiefs, round his
body; then he gave the other end to Rameri, who held fast to the
window-sill, and prepared once more to spring. Nefert saw him ready to
leap, she pressed her hands upon her lips to repress a scream, she shut
her eyes, and when she opened them again he had accomplished the first
leap, and at the second the Gods preserved him from falling; at the third
the king held out his hand to him, and saved him from a fall. Then
Rameses helped him to unfasten the rope from round his waist to fasten it
to the end of a beam.

Rameri now loosened the other end, and followed Mena's example; he too,
practised in athletic exercises in the school of the House of Seti,
succeeded in accomplishing the three tremendous leaps, and soon the king
stood in safety on the ground. Rameri followed him, and then Mena, whose
faithful wife went to meet him, and wiped the sweat from his throbbing
temples.

Rameses hurried to the north wing, where Bent-Anat had her apartments; he
found her safe indeed, but wringing her hands, for her young favorite
Uarda had disappeared in the flames after she had roused her and saved
her with her father's assistance. Kaschta ran up and down in front of the
burning pavilion, tearing his hair; now calling his child in tones of
anguish, now holding his breath to listen for an answer. To rush at
random into the immense-burning building would have been madness. The
king observed the unhappy man, and set him to lead the soldiers, whom he
had commanded to hew down the wall of Bent-Anat's rooms, so as to rescue
the girl who might be within. Kaschta seized an axe, and raised it to
strike.

But he thought that he heard blows from within against one of the
shutters of the ground-floor, which by Katuti's orders had been securely
closed; he followed the sound--he was not mistaken, the knocking could be
distinctly heard.

With all his might he struck the edge of the axe between the shutter and
the wall, and a stream of smoke poured out of the new outlet, and before
him, enveloped in its black clouds, stood a staggering man who held Uarda
in his arms. Kaschta sprang forward into the midst of the smoke and
sparks, and snatched his daughter from the arms of her preserver, who
fell half smothered on his knees. He rushed out into the air with his
light and precious burden, and as he pressed his lips to her closed
eyelids his eyes were wet, and there rose up before him the image of the
woman who bore her, the wife that had stood as the solitary green
palm-tree in the desert waste of his life. But only for a few
seconds-Bent-Anat herself took Uarda into her care, and he hastened back
to the burning house.

He had recognized his daughter's preserver; it was the physician
Nebsecht, who had not quitted the princess since their meeting on Sinai,
and had found a place among her suite as her personal physician.

The fresh air had rushed into the room through the opening of the
shutter, the broad flames streamed out of the window, but still Nebsecht
was alive, for his groans could be heard through the smoke. Once more
Kaschta rushed towards the window, the bystanders could see that the
ceiling of the room was about to fail, and called out to warn him, but he
was already astride the sill.

"I signed myself his slave with my blood," he cried, "Twice he has saved
my child, and now I will pay my debt," and he disappeared into the
burning room.

He soon reappeared with Nebsecht in his arms, whose robe was already
scorched by the flames. He could be seen approaching the window with his
heavy burden; a hundred soldiers, and with them Pentaur, pressed forward
to help him, and took the senseless leech out of the arms of the soldier,
who lifted him over the window sill.

Kaschta was on the point of following him, but before he could swing
himself over, the beams above gave way and fell, burying the brave son of
the paraschites.

Pentaur had his insensible friend carried to his tent, and helped the
physicians to bind up his burns. When the cry of fire had been first
raised, Pentaur was sitting in earnest conversation with the high-priest;
he had learned that he was not the son of a gardener, but a descendant of
one of the noblest families in the land. The foundations of life seemed
to be subverted under his feet, Ameni's revelation lifted him out of the
dust and set him on the marble floor of a palace; and yet Pentaur was
neither excessively surprised nor inordinately rejoiced; he was so well
used to find his joys and sufferings depend on the man within him, and
not on the circumstances without.

As soon as he heard the cry of fire, he hastened to the burning pavilion,
and when he saw the king's danger, he set himself at the head of a number
of soldiers who had hurried up from the camp, intending to venture an
attempt to save Rameses from the inside of the house. Among those who
followed him in this hopeless effort was Katuti's reckless son, who had
distinguished himself by his valor before Kadesh, and who hailed this
opportunity of again proving his courage. Falling walls choked up the way
in front of these brave adventurers; but it was not till several had
fallen choked or struck down by burning logs, that they made up their
minds to retire--one of the first that was killed was Katuti's son,
Nefert's brother.

Uarda had been carried into the nearest tent. Her pretty head lay in
Bent-Anat's lap, and Nefert tried to restore her to animation by rubbing
her temples with strong essences. Presently the girl's lips moved: with
returning consciousness all she had seen and suffered during the last
hour or two recurred to her mind; she felt herself rushing through the
camp with her father, hurrying through the corridor to the princess's
rooms, while he broke in the doors closed by Katuti's orders; she saw
Bent-Anat as she roused her, and conducted her to safety; she remembered
her horror when, just as she reached the door, she discovered that she
had left in her chest her jewel, the only relic of her lost mother, and
her rapid return which was observed by no one but by the leech Nebsecht.

Again she seemed to live through the anguish she had felt till she once
more had the trinket safe in her bosom, the horror that fell upon her
when she found her escape impeded by smoke and flames, and the weakness
which overcame her; and she felt as if the strange white-robed priest
once more raised her in his arms. She remembered the tenderness of his
eyes as he looked into hers, and she smiled half gratefully but half
displeased at the tender kiss which had been pressed on her lips before
she found herself in her father's strong arms.

"How sweet she is!" said Bent-Anat. "I believe poor Nebsecht is right in
saying that her mother was the daughter of some great man among the
foreign people. Look what pretty little hands and feet, and her skin is
as clear as Phoenician glass."




CHAPTER XLIV.

While the friends were occupied in restoring Uarda to animation, and in
taking affectionate care of her, Katuti was walking restlessly backwards
and forwards in her tent.

Soon after she had slipped out for the purpose of setting fire to the
palace, Scherau's cry had waked up Nefert, and Katuti found her
daughter's bed empty when, with blackened hands and limbs trembling with
agitation, she came back from her criminal task.

Now she waited in vain for Nemu and Paaker.

Her steward, whom she sent on repeated messages of enquiry whether the
Regent had returned, constantly brought back a negative answer, and added
the information that he had found the body of old Hekt lying on the open
ground. The widow's heart sank with fear; she was full of dark
forebodings while she listened to the shouts of the people engaged in
putting out the fire, the roll of drums, and the trumpets of the soldiers
calling each other to the help of the king.

To these sounds now was added the dull crash of falling timbers and
walls.

A faint smile played upon her thin lips, and she thought to herself:
"There--that perhaps fell on the king, and my precious son-in-law, who
does not deserve such a fate--if we had not fallen into disgrace, and if
since the occurrences before Kadesh he did not cling to his indulgent
lord as a calf follows a cow."

She gathered fresh courage, and fancied she could hear the voice of
Ethiopian troops hailing the Regent as king--could see Ani decorated with
the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on Rameses' throne, and
herself by his side in rich though unpretending splendor. She pictured
herself with her son and daughter as enjoying Mena's estate, freed from
debt and increased by Ani's generosity, and then a new, intoxicating hope
came into her mind. Perhaps already at this moment her daughter was a
widow, and why should she not be so fortunate as to induce Ani to select
her child, the prettiest woman in Thebes, for his wife? Then she, the
mother of the queen, would be indeed unimpeachable, and all-powerful. She
had long since come to regard the pioneer as a tool to be cast aside, nay
soon to be utterly destroyed; his wealth might probably at some future
time be bestowed upon her son, who had distinguished himself at Kadesh,
and whom Ani must before long promote to be his charioteer or the
commander of the chariot warriors.

Flattered by these fancies, she forgot every care as she walked faster
and faster to and fro in her tent. Suddenly the steward, whom she had
this time sent to the very scene of the fire, rushed into the tent, and
with every token of terror broke to her the news that the king and his
charioteer were hanging in mid air on a narrow wooden parapet, and that
unless some miracle happened they must inevitably be killed. It was said
that incendiaries had occasioned the fire, and he, the steward, had
hastened forward to prepare her for evil news as the mangled body of the
pioneer, which had been identified by the ring on his finger, and the
poor little corpse of Nemu, pierced through by an arrow, had been carried
past him.

Katuti was silent for a moment.

"And the king's sons?" she asked with an anxious sigh.

"The Gods be praised," replied the steward, "they succeeded in letting
themselves down to the ground by a rope made of their garments knotted
together, and some were already safe when I came away."

Katuti's face clouded darkly; once more she sent forth her messenger. The
minutes of his absence seemed like days; her bosom heaved in stormy
agitation, then for a moment she controlled herself, and again her heart
seemed to cease beating--she closed her eyes as if her anguish of anxiety
was too much for her strength. At last, long after sunrise, the steward
reappeared.

Pale, trembling, hardly able to control his voice, he threw himself on
the ground at her feet crying out:

"Alas! this night! prepare for the worst, mistress! May Isis comfort
thee, who saw thy son fall in the service of his king and father! May
Amon, the great God of Thebes, give thee strength! Our pride, our hope,
thy son is slain, killed by a falling beam."

Pale and still as if frozen, Katuti shed not a tear; for a minute she did
not speak, then she asked in a dull tone:

"And Rameses?"

"The Gods be praised!" answered the servant, "he is safe-rescued by
Mena!"

"And Ani?"

"Burnt!--they found his body disfigured out of all recognition; they knew
him again by the jewels he wore at the banquet."

Katuti gazed into vacancy, and the steward started back as from a mad
woman when, instead of bursting into tears, she clenched her small
jewelled hands, shook her fists in the air, and broke into loud, wild
laughter; then, startled at the sound of her own voice, she suddenly
became silent and fixed her eyes vacantly on the ground. She neither saw
nor heard that the captain of the watch, who was called "the eyes and
ears of the king," had come in through the door of her tent followed by
several officers and a scribe; he came up to her, and called her by her
name. Not till the steward timidly touched her did she collect her senses
like one suddenly roused from deep sleep.

"What are you doing in my tent?" she asked the officer, drawing herself
up haughtily.

"In the name of the chief judge of Thebes," said the captain of the watch
solemnly. "I arrest you, and hail you before the high court of justice,
to defend yourself against the grave and capital charges of high treason,
attempted regicide, and incendiarism."

"I am ready," said the widow, and a scornful smile curled her lips. Then
with her usual dignity she pointed to a seat and said:

"Be seated while I dress."

The officer bowed, but remained standing at the door of the tent while
she arranged her black hair, set her diadem on her brow, opened her
little ointment chest, and took from it a small phial of the rapid poison
strychnine, which some months before she had procured through Nemu from
the old witch Hekt.

"My mirror!" she called to a maid servant, who squatted in a corner of
the tent. She held the metal mirror so as to conceal her face from the
captain of the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied it at
one mouthful. The mirror fell from her hand, she staggered, a deadly
convulsion seized her--the officer rushed forward, and while she fixed
her dying look upon him she said:

"My game is lost, but Ameni--tell Ameni that he will not win either."

She fell forward, murmured Nefert's name, struggled convulsively and was
dead.

When the draught of happiness which the Gods prepare for some few men,
seems to flow clearest and purest, Fate rarely fails to infuse into it
some drop of bitterness. And yet we should not therefore disdain it, for
it is that very drop of bitterness which warns us to drink of the joys of
life thankfully, and in moderation.

The perfect happiness of Mena and Nefert was troubled by the fearful
death of Katuti, but both felt as if they now for the first time knew the
full strength of their love for each other. Mena had to make up to his
wife for the loss of mother and brother, and Nefert to restore to her
husband much that he had been robbed of by her relatives, and they felt
that they had met again not merely for pleasure but to be to each other a
support and a consolation.

Rameses quitted the scene of the fire full of gratitude to the Gods who
had shown such grace to him and his. He ordered numberless steers to be
sacrificed, and thanksgiving festivals to be held throughout the land;
but he was cut to the heart by the betrayal to which he had fallen a
victim. He longed--as he always did in moments when the balance of his
mind had been disturbed--for an hour of solitude, and retired to the tent
which had been hastily erected for him. He could not bear to enter the
splendid pavilion which had been Ani's; it seemed to him infested with
the leprosy of falsehood and treason.

For an hour he remained alone, and weighed the worst he had suffered at
the hands of men against that which was good and cheering, and he found
that the good far outweighed the evil. He vividly realized the magnitude
of his debt of gratitude, not to the Immortals only, but also to his
earthly friends, as he recalled every moment of this morning's
experience.

"Gratitude," he said to himself, "was impressed on you by your mother;
you yourself have taught your children to be grateful. Piety is gratitude
to the Gods, and he only is really generous who does not forget the
gratitude he owes to men."

He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when he sent for Bent-Anat
and Pentaur to be brought to his tent. He made his daughter relate at
full length how the poet had won her love, and though he frequently
interrupted her with blame as well as praise, his heart was full of
fatherly joy when he laid his darling's hand in that of the poet.

Bent-Anat laid her head in full content on the breast of the noble Assa's
grandson, but she would have clung not less fondly to Pentaur the
gardener's son.

"Now you are one of my own children," said Rameses; and he desired the
poet to remain with him while he commanded the heralds, ambassadors, and
interpreters to bring to him the Asiatic princes, who were detained in
their own tents on the farther side of the Nile, that he might conclude
with them such a treaty of peace as might continue valid for generations
to come. Before they arrived, the young princes came to their father's
tent, and learned from his own lips the noble birth of Pentaur, and that
they owed it to their sister that in him they saw another brother; they
welcomed him with sincere affection, and all, especially Rameri, warmly
congratulated the handsome and worthy couple.

The king then called Rameri forward from among his brothers, and thanked
him before them all for his brave conduct during the fire. He had already
been invested with the robe of manhood after the battle of Kadesh; he was
now appointed to the command of a legion of chariot-warriors, and the
order of the lion to wear round his neck was bestowed on him for his
bravery. The prince knelt, and thanked his father; but Rameses took the
curly head in his hands and said:

"You have won praise and reward by your splendid deeds from the father
whom you have saved and filled with pride. But the king watches over the
laws, and guides the destiny cf this land, the king must blame you, nay
perhaps punish you. You could not yield to the discipline of school,
where we all must learn to obey if we would afterwards exercise our
authority with moderation, and without any orders you left Egypt and
joined the army. You showed the courage and strength of a man, but the
folly of a boy in all that regards prudence and foresight--things harder
to learn for the son of a race of heroes than mere hitting and slashing
at random; you, without experience, measured yourself against masters of
the art of war, and what was the consequence? Twice you fell a prisoner
into the hands of the enemy, and I had to ransom you.

"The king of the Danaids gave you up in exchange for his daughter, and he
rejoices long since in the restoration of his child; but we, in losing
her, lost the most powerful means of coercing the seafaring nations of
the islands and northern coasts of the great sea who are constantly
increasing in might and daring, and so diminished our chances of securing
a solid and abiding peace.

"Thus--through the careless wilfulness of a boy, the great work is
endangered which I had hoped to have achieved. It grieves me particularly
to humiliate your spirit to-day, when I have had so much reason to
encourage you with praise. Nor will I punish you, only warn you and teach
you. The mechanism of the state is like the working of the cogged wheels
which move the water-works on the shore of the Nile-if one tooth is
missing the whole comes to a stand-still however strong the beasts that
labor to turn it. Each of you--bear this in mind--is a main-wheel in the
great machine of the state, and can serve an end only by acting
unresistingly in obedience to the motive power. Now rise! we may perhaps
succeed in obtaining good security from the Asiatic king, though we have
lost our hostage."

Heralds at this moment marched into the tent, and announced that the
representative of the Cheta king and the allied princes were in
attendance in the council tent; Rameses put on the crown of Upper and
Lower Egypt and all his royal adornments; the chamberlain who carried the
insignia of his power, and his head scribe with his decoration of plumes
marched before him, while his sons, the commanders in chief, and the
interpreters followed him. Rameses took his seat on his throne with great
dignity, and the sternest gravity marked his demeanor while he received
the homage of the conquered and fettered kings.

The Asiatics kissed the earth at his feet, only the king of the Danaids
did no more than bow before him. Rameses looked wrathfully at him, and
ordered the interpreter to ask him whether he considered himself
conquered or no, and the answer was given that he had not come before the
Pharaoh as a prisoner, and that the obeisance which Rameses required of
him was regarded as a degradation according to the customs of his
free-born people, who prostrated them selves only before the Gods. He
hoped to become an ally of the king of Egypt, and he asked would he
desire to call a degraded man his friend?

Rameses measured the proud and noble figure before him with a glance, and
said severely:

"I am prepared to treat for peace only with such of my enemies as are
willing to bow to the double crown that I wear. If you persist in your
refusal, you and your people will have no part in the favorable
conditions that I am prepared to grant to these, your allies."

The captive prince preserved his dignified demeanor, which was
nevertheless free from insolence, when these words of the king were
interpreted to him, and replied that he had come intending to procure
peace at any cost, but that he never could nor would grovel in the dust
at any man's feet nor before any crown. He would depart on the following
day; one favor, however, he requested in his daughter's name and his
own--and he had heard that the Egyptians respected women. The king knew,
of course, that his charioteer Mena had treated his daughter, not as a
prisoner but as a sister, and Praxilla now felt a wish, which he himself
shared, to bid farewell to the noble Mena, and his wife, and to thank him
for his magnanimous generosity. Would Rameses permit him once more to
cross the Nile before his departure, and with his daughter to visit Mena
in his tent.

Rameses granted his prayer: the prince left the tent, and the
negotiations began.

In a few hours they were brought to a close, for the Asiatic and Egyptian
scribes had agreed, in the course of the long march southwards, on the
stipulations to be signed; the treaty itself was to be drawn up after the
articles had been carefully considered, and to be signed in the city of
Rameses called Tanis--or, by the numerous settlers in its neighborhood,
Zoan. The Asiatic princes were to dine as guests with the king; but they
sat at a separate table, as the Egyptians would have been defiled by
sitting at the same table with strangers.

Rameses was not perfectly satisfied. If the Danaids went away without
concluding a treaty with him, it was to be expected that the peace which
he was so earnestly striving for would before long be again disturbed;
and he nevertheless felt that, out of regard for the other conquered
princes, he could not forego any jot of the humiliation which he had
required of their king, and which he believed to be due to
himself--though he bad been greatly impressed by his dignified manliness
and by the bravery of the troops that had followed him into the field.

The sun was sinking when Mena, who that day had leave of absence from the
king, came in great excitement up to the table where the princes were
sitting and craved the king's permission to make an important
communication. Rameses signed consent; the charioteer went close up to
him, and they held a short but eager conversation in a low voice.

Presently the king stood up and said, speaking to his daughter:

"This day which began so horribly will end joyfully. The fair child who
saved you to-day, but who so nearly fell a victim to the flames, is of
noble origin."

"She cones of a royal house," said Rameri, disrespectfully interrupting
his father. Rameses looked at him reprovingly. "My sons are silent," he
said, "till I ask them to speak."

The prince colored and looked down; the king signed to Bent-Anat and
Pentaur, begged his guests to excuse him for a short time, and was about
to leave the tent; but Bent-Anat went up to him, and whispered a few
words to him with reference to her brother. Not in vain: the king paused,
and reflected for a few moments; then he looked at Rameri, who stood
abashed, and as if rooted to the spot where he stood. The king called his
name, and beckoned him to follow him.




CHAPTER XLV.

Rameri had rushed off to summon the physicians, while Bent-Anat was
endeavoring to restore the rescued Uarda to consciousness, and he
followed them into his sister's tent. He gazed with tender anxiety into
the face of the half suffocated girl, who, though uninjured, still
remained unconscious, and took her hand to press his lips to her slender
fingers, but Bent-Anat pushed him gently away; then in low tones that
trembled with emotion he implored her not to send him away, and told her
how dear the girl whose life he had saved in the fight in the Necropolis
had become to him--how, since his departure for Syria, he had never
ceased to think of her night and day, and that he desired to make her his
wife.

Bent-Anat was startled; she reminded her brother of the stain that lay on
the child of the paraschites and through which she herself had suffered
so much; but Rameri answered eagerly:

"In Egypt rank and birth are derived through the mother and Kaschta's
dead wife--"

"I know," interrupted Bent-Anat. "Nebsecht has already told us that she
was a dumb woman, a prisoner of war, and I myself believe that she was of
no mean house, for Uarda is nobly formed in face and figure."

"And her skin is as fine as the petal of a flower," cried Rameri. "Her
voice is like the ring of pure gold, and--Oh! look, she is moving. Uarda,
open your eyes, Uarda! When the sun rises we praise the Gods. Open your
eyes! how thankful, how joyful I shall be if those two suns only rise
again."

Bent-Anat smiled, and drew her brother away from the heavily-breathing
girl, for a leech came into the tent to say that a warm medicated bath
had been prepared and was ready for Uarda. The princess ordered her
waiting-women to help lift the senseless girl, and was preparing to
follow her when a message from her father required her presence in his
tent. She could guess at the significance of this command, and desired
Rameri to leave her that she might dress in festal garments; she could
entrust Uarda to the care of Nefert during her absence.

"She is kind and gentle, and she knows Uarda so well," said the princess,
"and the necessity of caring for this dear little creature will do her
good. Her heart is torn between sorrow for her lost relations, and joy at
being united again to her love. My father has given Mena leave of absence
from his office for several days, and I have excused her from her
attendance on me, for the time during which we were so necessary to each
other really came to an end yesterday. I feel, Rameri, as if we, after
our escape, were like the sacred phoenix which comes to Heliopolis and
burns itself to death only to soar again from its ashes young and
radiant--blessed and blessing!"

When her brother had left her, she threw herself before the image of her
mother and prayed long and earnestly; she poured an offering of sweet
perfume on the little altar of the Goddess Hathor, which always
accompanied her, had herself dressed in happy preparation for meeting her
father, and--she did not conceal it from herself--Pentaur, then she went
for a moment to Nefert's tent to beg her to take good care of Uarda, and
finally obeyed the summons of the king, who, as we know, fulfilled her
utmost hopes.

As Rameri quitted his sister's tent he saw the watch seize and lead away
a little boy; the child cried bitterly, and the prince in a moment
recognized the little sculptor Scherau, who had betrayed the Regent's
plot to him and to Uarda, and whom he had already fancied he had seen
about the place. The guards had driven him away several times from the
princess's tent, but he had persisted in returning, and this obstinate
waiting in the neighborhood had aroused the suspicions of an officer; for
since the fire a thousand rumors of conspiracies and plots against the
king had been flying about the camp. Rameri at once freed the little
prisoner, and heard from him that it was old Hekt who, before her death,
had sent Kaschta and his daughter to the rescue of the king, that he
himself had helped to rouse the troops, that now he had no home and
wished to go to Uarda.

The prince himself led the child to Nefert, and begged her to allow him
to see Uarda, and to let him stay with her servants till he himself
returned from his father's tent.

The leeches had treated Uarda with judgment, for under the influence of
the bath she recovered her senses; when she had been dressed again in
fresh garments and refreshed by the essences and medicines which they
gave her to inhale and to drink, she was led back into Nefert's tent,
where Mena, who had never before seen her, was astonished at her peculiar
and touching beauty.

"She is very like my Danaid princess," he said to his wife; "only she is
younger and much prettier than she."

Little Scherau came in to pay his respects to her, and she was delighted
to see the boy; still she was sad, and however kindly Nefert spoke to her
she remained in silent reverie, while from time to time a large tear
rolled down her cheek.

"You have lost your father!" said Nefert, trying to comfort her. "And I,
my mother and brother both in one day."

"Kaschta was rough but, oh! so kind," replied Uarda. "He was always so
fond of me; he was like the fruit of the doom palm; its husk is hard and
rough, but he who knows how to open it finds the sweet pulp within. Now
he is dead, and my grandfather and grandmother are gone before him, and I
am like the green leaf that I saw floating on the waters when we were
crossing the sea; anything so forlorn I never saw, abandoned by all it
belonged to or had ever loved, the sport of a strange element in which
nothing resembling itself ever grew or ever can grow."

Nefert kissed her forehead. "You have friends," she said, "who will never
abandon you."

"I know, I know!" said Uarda thoughtfully, "and yet I am alone--for the