not tell where to find the body that had been carried away, while you can
visit your husband in his grave.  Then Isis went through the land
lamenting, and ah! what was to become of Egypt, which received all its
fruitfulness from Osiris.  The sacred Nile was dried up, and not a blade
of verdure was green on its banks.  The Goddess grieved over this beyond
words, and one of her tears fell in the bed of the river, and immediately
it began to rise.  You know, of course, that each inundation arises from
a tear of Isis.  Thus a widow's sorrow may bring blessing to millions of
human beings."

The woman had listened to her attentively, and when Nefert ceased
speaking she said:

"But I have still three little brats of my son's to feed, for his wife,
who was a washerwoman, was eaten by a crocodile while she was at work.
Poor folks must work for themselves, and not for others.  If the princess
did not pay us, I could not think of the wounds of the soldiers, who do
not belong to me.  I am no longer strong, and four mouths to fill--"

Nefert was shocked--as she often was in the course of her new duties--and
begged Bent-Gnat to raise the wages of the woman.

"Willingly," said the princess.  "How could I beat down such an
assistant.  Come now with me into the kitchen.  I am having some fruit
packed for my father and brothers; there must be a box for Mena too."
Nefert followed her royal friend, found them packing in one case the
golden dates of the oasis of Amon, and in another the dark dates of
Nubia, the king's favorite sort.  "Let me pack them!"  cried Nefert;
she made the servants empty the box again, and re-arranged the various-
colored dates in graceful patterns, with other fruits preserved in sugar.

Bent-Anat looked on, and when she had finished she took her hand.
"Whatever your fingers have touched," she exclaimed, "takes some pretty
aspect.  Give me that scrap of papyrus; I shall put it in the case, and
write upon it:

"'These were packed for king Rameses by his daughter's clever helpmate,
the wife of Mena.'"

After the mid-day rest the princess was called away, and Nefert remained
for some hours alone with the work-women.

When the sun went down, and the busy crowd were about to leave, Nefert
detained them, and said: "The Sun-bark is sinking behind the western
hills; come, let us pray together for the king and for those we love in
the field.  Each of you think of her own: you children of your fathers,
you women of your sons, and we wives of our distant husbands, and let us
entreat Amon that they may return to us as certainly as the sun, which
now leaves us, will rise again to-morrow morning."

Nefert knelt down, and with her the women and the children.

When they rose, a little girl went up to Nefert, and said, pulling her
dress: "Thou madest us kneel here yesterday, and already my mother is
better, because I prayed for her."

"No doubt," said Nefert, stroking the child's black hair.

She found Bent-Anat on the terrace meditatively gazing across to the
Necropolis, which was fading into darkness before her eyes.  She started
when she heard the light footsteps of her friend.

"I am  disturbing thee,"  said  Nefert, about  to retire.

"No, stay," said Bent-Anat.  "I thank the Gods that I have you, for my
heart is sad--pitifully sad."

"I know where your thoughts were," said Nefert softly.  "Well?" asked the
princess.

"With Pentaur."

"I think of him--always of him," replied the princess, "and nothing else
occupies my heart.  I am no longer myself.  What I think I ought not to
think, what I feel I ought not to feel, and yet, I cannot command it, and
I think my heart would bleed to death if I tried to cut out those
thoughts and feelings.  I have behaved strangely, nay unbecomingly, and
now that which is hard to endure is hanging over me, something strange-
which will perhaps drive you from me back to your mother."

"I will share everything with you," cried Nefert.  "What is going to
happen?  Are you then no longer the daughter of Rameses?"

"I showed myself to the people as a woman of the people," answered Bent-
Anat, "and I must take the consequences.  Bek en Chunsu, the high-priest
of Amon, has been with me, and I have had a long conversation with him.
The worthy man is good to me, I know, and my father ordered me to follow
his advice before any one's.  He showed me that I have erred deeply.  In
a state of uncleanness I went into one of the temples of the Necropolis,
and after I had once been into the paraschites' house and incurred
Ameni's displeasure, I did it a second time.  They know over there all
that took place at the festival.  Now I must undergo purification, either
with great solemnity at the hands of Ameni himself, before all the
priests and nobles in the House of Seti, or by performing a pilgrimage to
the Emerald-Hathor, under whose influence the precious stones are hewn
from the rocks, metals dug out, and purified by fire.  The Goddess shall
purge me from my uncleanness as metal is purged from the dross.  At a
day's journey and more from the mines, an abundant stream flows from the
holy mountain-Sinai," as it is called by the Mentut--and near it stands
the sanctuary of the Goddess, in which priests grant purification.  The
journey is a long one, through the desert, and over the sea; But Bek en
Chunsu advises me to venture it.  Ameni, he says, is not amiably disposed
towards me, because I infringed the ordinance which he values above all
others.  I must submit to double severity, he says, because the people
look first to those of the highest rank; and if I went unpunished for
contempt of the sacred institutions there might be imitators among the
crowd.  He speaks in the name of the Gods, and they measure hearts with
an equal measure.  The ell-measure is the symbol of the Goddess of Truth.
I feel that it is all not unjust; and yet I find it hard to submit to the
priest's decree, for I am the daughter of Rameses!"

"Aye, indeed!"  exclaimed Nefert, "and he is himself a God!"

"But he taught me to respect the laws!" interrupted the princess.
"I discussed another thing with Bek en Chunsu.  You know I rejected the
suit of the Regent.  He must secretly be much vexed with me.  That indeed
would not alarm me, but he is the guardian and protector appointed over
me by my father, and yet can I turn to him in confidence for counsel, and
help?  No! I am still a woman, and Rameses' daughter!  Sooner will I
travel through a thousand deserts than humiliate my father through his
child.  By to-morrow I shall have decided; but, indeed, I have already
decided to make the journey, hard as it is to leave much that is here.
Do not fear, dear!  but you are too tender for such a journey, and to
such a distance; I might--"

"No, no," cried Nefert.  "I am going, too, if you were going to the four
pillars of heaven, at the limits of the earth.  You have given me a new
life, and the little sprout that is green within me would wither again if
I had to return to my mother.  Only she or I can be in our house, and I
will re-enter it only with Mena."

"It is settled--I must go," said the princess.  "Oh! if only my father
were not so far off, and that I could consult him!"

"Yes! the war, and always the war!"  sighed Nefert.  "Why do not men rest
content with what they have, and prefer the quiet peace, which makes life
lovely, to idle fame?"

"Would they be men? should we love them?"  cried Bent-Anat eagerly.
"Is not the mind of the Gods, too, bent on war?  Did you ever see a more
sublime sight than Pentaur, on that evening when he brandished the stake
he had pulled up, and exposed his life to protect an innocent girl who
was in danger?"

"I dared not once look down into the court," said Nefert.  "I was in such
an agony of mind.  But his loud cry still rings in my ears."

"So rings the war cry of heroes before whom the enemy quails!"  exclaimed
Bent-Anat.

"Aye, truly so rings the war cry!"  said prince Rameri, who had entered
his sister's half-dark room unperceived by the two women.

The princess turned to the boy.  "How you frightened me!"  she said.

"You!"  said Rameri astonished.

"Yes, me.  I used to have a stout heart, but since that evening I
frequently tremble, and an agony of terror comes over me, I do not know
why.  I believe some demon commands me."

"You command, wherever you go; and no one commands you," cried Rameri.
"The excitement and tumult in the valley, and on the quay, still agitate
you.  I grind my teeth myself when I remember how they turned me out of
the school, and how Paaker set the dog at us.  I have gone through a
great deal today too."

"Where were you so long?"  asked Bent-Anat.  "My uncle Ani commanded that
you should not leave the palace."

"I shall be eighteen years old next month," said the prince, "and need no
tutor."

"But your father--" said Bent-Anat.

"My father"--interrupted the boy, "he little knows the Regent.  But I
shall write to him what I have today heard said by different people.
They were to have sworn allegiance to Ani at that very feast in the
valley, and it is quite openly said that Ani is aiming at the throne, and
intends to depose the king.  You are right, it is madness--but there must
be something behind it all."

Nefert turned pale, and Bent-Anat asked for particulars.  The prince
repeated all he had gathered, and added laughing: "Ani depose my father!
It is as if I tried to snatch the star of Isis from the sky to light the
lamps--which are much wanted here."

"It is more comfortable in the dark," said Nefert.  "No, let us have
lights," said Bent-Anat.  "It is better to talk when we can see each
other face to face.  I have no belief in the foolish talk of the people;
but you are right--we must bring it to my fathers knowledge."

"I heard the wildest gossip in the City of the Dead," said Rameri.

"You ventured over there?  How very wrong!"

"I disguised myself a little, and I have good news for you.  Pretty Uarda
is much better.  She received your present, and they have a house of
their own again.  Close to the one that was burnt down, there was a
tumbled-down hovel, which her father soon put together again; he is a
bearded soldier, who is as much like her as a hedgehog is like a white
dove.  I offered her to work in the palace for you with the other girls,
for good wages, but she would not; for she has to wait on her sick
grandmother, and she is proud, and will not serve any one."

"It seems you were a long time with the paraschites' people," said Bent-
Anat reprovingly.  "I should have thought that what has happened to me
might have served you as a warning."

"I will not be better than you!"  cried the boy.  "Besides, the
paraschites is dead, and Uarda's father is a respectable soldier, who can
defile no one.  I kept a long way from the old woman.  To-morrow I am
going again.  I promised her."

"Promised who?"  asked his sister.

"Who but Uarda?  She loves flowers, and since the rose which you gave her
she has not seen one.  I have ordered the gardener to cut me a basket
full of roses to-morrow morning, and shall take them to her myself."

"That you will not!"  cried Bent-Anat.  "You are still but half a child--
and, for the girl's sake too, you must give it up."

"We only gossip together," said the prince coloring, "and no one shall
recognize me.  But certainly, if you mean that, I will leave the basket
of roses, and go to her alone.  No--sister, I will not be forbidden this;
she is so charming, so white, so gentle, and her voice is so soft and
sweet!  And she has little feet, as small as--what shall I say?--as small
and graceful as Nefert's hand.  We talked most about Pentaur.  She knows
his father, who is a gardener, and knows a great deal about him.  Only
think! she says the poet cannot be the son of his parents, but a good
spirit that has come down on earth--perhaps a God.  At first she was very
timid, but when I spoke of Pentaur she grew eager; her reverence for him
is almost idolatry--and that vexed me."

"You would rather she should reverence you so," said Nefert smiling.

"Not at all," cried Rameri.  "But I helped to save her, and I am so happy
when I am sitting with her, that to-morrow, I am resolved, I will put a
flower in her hair.  It is red certainly, but as thick as yours, Bent-
Anat, and it must be delightful to unfasten it and stroke it."

The ladies exchanged a glance of intelligence, and the princess said
decidedly:

"You will not go to the City of the Dead to-morrow, my little son!"

"That we will see, my little mother!"  He answered laughing; then he
turned grave.

"I saw my school-friend Anana too," he said.  "Injustice reigns in the
House of Seti!  Pentaur is in prison, and yesterday evening they sat in
judgment upon him.  My uncle was present, and would have pounced upon the
poet, but Ameni took him under his protection.  What was finally decided,
the pupils could not learn, but it must have been something bad, for the
son of the Treasurer heard Ameni saying, after the sitting, to old
Gagabu: 'Punishment he deserves, but I will not let him be overwhelmed;'
and he can have meant no one but Pentaur.  To-morrow I will go over, and
learn more; something frightful, I am afraid--several years of
imprisonment is the least that will happen to him."

Bent-Anat had turned very pale.

"And whatever they do to him," she cried, "he will suffer for my sake!
Oh, ye omnipotent Gods, help him--help me, be merciful to us both!"

She covered her face with her hands, and left the room.  Rameri asked
Nefert:

What can have come to my sister? she seems quite strange to me; and you
too are not the same as you used to be."

"We both have to find our way in new circumstances."

"What are they?"

"That I cannot explain to you!--but it appears to me that you soon may
experience something of the same kind.  Rumeri, do not go again to the
paraschites."



CHAPTER XXXII.

Early on the following clay the dwarf Nemu went past the restored hut of
Uarda's father--in which he had formerly lived with his wife--with a man
in a long coarse robe, the steward of some noble family.  They went
towards old Hekt's cave-dwelling.

"I would beg thee to wait down here a moment, noble lord," said the
dwarf, "while I announce thee to my mother."

"That sounds very grand," said the other.  "However, so be it.  But stay!
The old woman is not to call me by my name or by my title.  She is to
call me 'steward'--that no one may know.  But, indeed, no one would
recognize me in this dress."

Nemu hastened to the cave, but before he reached his mother she called
out: "Do not keep my lord waiting--I know him well."

Nemu laid his finger to his lips.

"You are to call him steward," said he.

"Good," muttered the old woman.  "The ostrich puts his head under his
feathers when he does not want to be seen."

"Was the young prince long with Uarda yesterday?"

"No, you fool," laughed the witch, "the children play together.  Rameri
is a kid without horns, but who fancies he knows where they ought to
grow.  Pentaur is a more dangerous rival with the red-headed girl.  Make
haste, now; these stewards must not be kept waiting!"

The old woman gave the dwarf a push, and he hurried back to Ani, while
she carried the child, tied to his board, into the cave, and threw the
sack over him.

A few minutes later the Regent stood before her.  She bowed before him
with a demeanor that was more like the singer Beki than the sorceress
Hekt, and begged him to take the only seat she possessed.

When, with a wave of his hand, he declined to sit down, she said:

"Yes--yes--be seated!  then thou wilt not be seen from the valley, but be
screened by the rocks close by.  Why hast thou chosen this hour for thy
visit?"

"Because the matter presses of which I wish to speak," answered Ani; "and
in the evening I might easily be challenged by the watch.  My disguise is
good.  Under this robe I wear my usual dress.  From this I shall go to
the tomb of my father, where I shall take off this coarse thing, and
these other disfigurements, and shall wait for my chariot, which is
already ordered.  I shall tell people I had made a vow to visit the
grave humbly, and on foot, which I have now fulfilled."

"Well planned," muttered the old woman.

Ani pointed to the dwarf, and said politely: "Your pupil."

Since her narrative the sorceress was no longer a mere witch in his eyes.
The old woman understood this, and saluted him with a curtsey of such
courtly formality, that a tame raven at her feet opened his black beak
wide, and uttered a loud scream.  She threw a bit of cheese within the
cave, and the bird hopped after it, flapping his clipped wings, and was
silent.

"I have to speak to you about Pentaur," said Ani.  The old woman's eyes
flashed, and she eagerly asked, "What of him?"

"I have reasons," answered the Regent, "for regarding him as dangerous to
me.  He stands in my way.  He has committed many crimes, even murder; but
he is in favor at the House of Seti, and they would willingly let him go
unpunished.  They have the right of sitting in judgment on each other,
and I cannot interfere with their decisions; the day before yesterday
they pronounced their sentence.  They would send him to the quarries of
Chennu.

[Chennu is now Gebel Silsileh; the quarries there are of enormous
extent, and almost all the sandstone used for building the temples
of Upper Egypt was brought from thence.  The Nile is narrower there
than above, and large stela, were erected there by Rameses II.  his
successor Mernephtah, on which were inscribed beautiful hymns to the
Nile, and lists of the sacrifices to be offered at the Nile-
festivals.  These inscriptions can be restored by comparison, and my
friend Stern and I had the satisfaction of doing this on the spot
(Zeitschrift fur Agyptishe Sprache, 1873, p.  129.)]

"All my objections were disregarded, and now Nemu, go over to the grave of
Anienophis, and wait there for me--I wish to speak to your mother alone."

Nemu bowed, and then went down the slope, disappointed, it is true, but
sure of learning later what the two had discussed together.

When the little man had disappeared, Ani asked:

"Have you still a heart true to the old royal house, to which your
parents were so faithfully attached?"  The old woman nodded.

"Then you will not refuse your help towards its restoration.  You
understand how necessary the priesthood is to me, and I have sworn not to
make any attempt on Pentaur's life; but, I repeat it, he stands in my
way.  I have my spies in the House of Seti, and I know through them what
the sending of the poet to Chennu really means.  For a time they will let
him hew sandstone, and that will only improve his health, for he is as
sturdy as a tree.  In Chennu, as you know, besides the quarries there is
the great college of priests, which is in close alliance with the temple
of Seti.  When the flood begins to rise, and they hold the great Nile-
festival in Chennu, the priests there have the right of taking three of
the criminals who are working in the quarries into their house as
servants.  Naturally they will, next year, choose Pentaur, set him at
liberty--and I shall be laughed at."

"Well considered!"  said aid Hekt.

"I have taken counsel with myself, with Katuti, and even with Nemu,"
continued Ani, "but all that they have suggested, though certainly
practicable, was unadvisable, and at any rate must have led to
conjectures which I must now avoid.  What is your opinion?"

"Assa's race must be exterminated!" muttered the old woman hoarsely.

She gazed at the ground, reflecting.

"Let the boat be scuttled," she said at last, "and sink with the chained
prisoners before it reaches Chennu."

"No-no; I thought of that myself, and Nemu too advised it," cried Ani.
"That has been done a hundred times, and Ameni will regard me as a
perjurer, for I have sworn not to attempt Pentaur's life."

"To be sure, thou hast sworn that, and men keep their word--to each
other.  Wait a moment, how would this do?  Let the ship reach Chennu with
the prisoners, but, by a secret order to the captain, pass the quarries
in the night, and hasten on as fast as possible as far as Ethiopia.  From
Suan,--[The modem Assuan at the first cataract.]--the prisoners may be
conducted through the desert to the gold workings.  Four weeks or even
eight may pass before it is known here what has happened.  If Ameni
attacks thee about it, thou wilt be very angry at this oversight, and
canst swear by all the Gods of the heavens and of the abyss, that thou
hast not attempted Pentaur's life.  More weeks will pass in enquiries.
Meanwhile do thy best, and Paaker do his, and thou art king.  An oath is
easily broken by a sceptre, and if thou wilt positively keep thy word
leave Pentaur at the gold mines.  None have yet returned from thence.
My father's and my brother's bones have bleached there."

"But Ameni will never believe in the mistake," cried Ani, anxiously
interrupting the witch.

"Then admit that thou gavest the order," exclaimed Hekt.  "Explain that
thou hadst learned what they proposed doing with Pentaur at Chennu, and
that thy word indeed was kept, but that a criminal could not be left
unpunished.  They will make further enquiries, and if Assa's grandson is
found still living thou wilt be justified.  Follow my advice, if thou
wilt prove thyself a good steward of thy house, and master of its
inheritance."

"It will not do," said  the  Regent.  "I need Ameni's support--not for
to-day and to-morrow only.  I will not become his blind tool; but he must
believe that I am."

The old woman shrugged her shoulders, rose, went into her cave, and
brought out a phial.

"Take this," she said.  "Four drops of it in his wine infallibly destroys
the drinker's senses;  try the drink on a slave, and thou wilt see how
effectual it is."

"What shall I do with it?"  asked Ani.

"Justify thyself to Ameni," said the witch laughing.  "Order the ship's
captain to come to thee as soon as he returns; entertain him with wine--
and when Ameni sees the distracted wretch, why should he not believe that
in a fit of craziness he sailed past Chennu?"

"That is clever! that is splendid!"  exclaimed Ani.  "What is once
remarkable never becomes common.  You were the greatest of singers--you
are now the wisest of women--my lady Beki."

"I am no longer Beki, I am Hekt," said the old woman shortly.

"As you will!  In truth, if I had ever heard Beki's singing, I should be
bound to still greater gratitude to her than I now am to Hekt," said Ani
smiling.  "Still, I cannot quit the wisest woman in Thebes without asking
her one serious question.  Is it given to you to read the future?  Have
you means at your command whereby you can see whether the great stake--
you know which I mean--shall be won or lost?"

Hekt looked at the ground, and said after reflecting a short time:

"I cannot decide with certainty, but thy affair stands well.  Look at
these two hawks with the chain on their feet.  They take their food from
no one but me.  The one that is moulting, with closed, grey eyelids, is
Rameses; the smart, smooth one, with shining eyes, is thyself.  It comes
to this--which of you lives the longest.  So far, thou hast the
advantage."

Ani cast an evil glance at the king's sick hawk; but Hekt said: "Both
must be treated exactly alike.  Fate will not be done violence to."

"Feed them well," exclaimed the Regent; he threw a purse into Hekt's lap,
and added, as he prepared to leave her: "If anything happens to either of
the birds let me know at once by Nemu."

Ani went down the hill, and walked towards the neighboring tomb of his
father; but Hekt laughed as she looked after him, and muttered to
herself:

"Now the fool will take care of me for the sake of his bird!  That
smiling, spiritless, indolent-minded man would rule Egypt!  Am I then so
much wiser than other folks, or do none but fools come to consult Hekt?
But Rameses chose Ani to represent him! perhaps because he thinks that
those who are not particularly clever are not particularly dangerous.  If
that is what he thought, he was not wise, for no one usually is so self-
confident and insolent as just such an idiot."




ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Age when usually even bad liquor tastes of honey
How easy it is to give wounds, and how hard it is to heal
Kisra called wine the soap of sorrow
No one so self-confident and insolent as just such an idiot
The mother of foresight looks backwards






UARDA

Volume 8.

By Georg Ebers



CHAPTER XXXIII.

An hour later, Ani, in rich attire, left his father's tomb, and drove his
brilliant chariot past the witch's cave, and the little cottage of
Uarda's father.

Nemu squatted on the step, the dwarf's usual place.  The little man
looked down at the lately rebuilt hut, and ground his teeth, when,
through an opening in the hedge, he saw the white robe of a man,
who was sitting by Uarda.

The pretty child's visitor was prince Rameri, who had crossed the Nile in
the early morning, dressed as a young scribe of the treasury, to obtain
news of Pentaur--and to stick a rose into Uarda's hair.

This purpose was, indeed, the more important of the two, for the other
must, in point of time at any rate, be the second.

He found it necessary to excuse himself to his own conscience with a
variety of cogent reasons.  In the first place the rose, which lay
carefully secured in a fold of his robe, ran great danger of fading if he
first waited for his companions near the temple of Seti; next, a hasty
return from thence to Thebes might prove necessary; and finally, it
seemed to him not impossible that Bent-Anat might send a master of the
ceremonies after him, and if that happened any delay might frustrate his
purpose.

His heart beat loud and violently, not for love of the maiden, but
because he felt he was doing wrong.  The spot that he must tread was
unclean, and he had, for the first time, told a lie.  He had given
himself out to Uarda to be a noble youth of Bent-Anat's train, and, as
one falsehood usually entails another, in answer to her questions he had
given her false information as to his parents and his life.

Had evil more power over him in this unclean spot than in the House of
Seti, and at his father's?  It might very well be so, for all disturbance
in nature and men was the work of Seth, and how wild was the storm in his
breast!  And yet!  He wished nothing but good to come of it to Uarda.
She was so fair and sweet--like some child of the Gods: and certainly the
white maiden must have been stolen from some one, and could not possibly
belong to the unclean people.

When the prince entered the court of the hut, Uarda was not to be seen,
but he soon heard her voice singing out through the open door.  She came
out into the air, for the dog barked furiously at Rameri.  When she saw
the prince, she started, and said:

"You are here already again, and yet I warned you.  My grandmother in
there is the wife of a paraschites."

"I am not come to visit her," retorted the prince, "but you only; and you
do not belong to them, of that I am convinced.  No roses grow in the
desert."

"And yet: am my father's child," said Uarda decidedly, "and my poor dead
grandfather's grandchild.  Certainly I belong to them, and those that do
not think me good enough for them may keep away."

With these words she turned to re-enter the house; but Rameri seized her
hand, and held her back, saying:

"How cruel you are!  I tried to save you, and came to see you before I
thought that you might--and, indeed, you are quite unlike the people whom
you call your relations.  You must not misunderstand me; but it would be
horrible to me to believe that you, who are so beautiful, and as white as
a lily, have any part in the hideous curse.  You charm every one, even my
mistress, Bent-Anat, and it seems to me impossible--"

"That I should belong to the unclean!--say it out," said Uarda softly,
and casting down her eyes.

Then she continued more excitedly: "But I tell you, the curse is unjust,
for a better man never lived than my grandfather was."

Tears sprang from her eyes, and Rameri said: "I fully believe it; and
it must be very difficult to continue good when every one despises and
scorns one; I at least can be brought to no good by blame, though I can
by praise.  Certainly people are obliged to meet me and mine with
respect."

"And us with contempt!"  exclaimed Uarda.  "But I will tell you
something.  If a man is sure that he is good, it is all the same to
him whether he be despised or honored by other people.  Nay--we may be
prouder than you; for you great folks must often say to yourselves that
you are worth less than men value you at, and we know that we are worth
more."

"I have often thought that of you," exclaimed Rameri, "and there is one
who recognizes your worth; and that is I.  Even if it were otherwise, I
must always--always think of you."

"I have thought of you too," said Uarda.  "Just now, when I was sitting
with my sick grandmother, it passed through my mind how nice it would be
if I had a brother just like you.  Do you know what I should do if you
were my brother?"

"Well?"

"I should buy you a chariot and horse, and you should go away to the
king's war."

"Are you so rich?"  asked Rameri smiling.

"Oh yes!"  answered Uarda.  "To be sure, I have not been rich for more
than an hour.  Can you read?"

"Yes."

"Only think, when I was ill they sent a doctor to me from the House of
Seti.  He was very clever, but a strange man.  He often looked into my
eyes like a drunken man, and he stammered when he spoke."

"Is his name Nebsecht?"  asked the prince.

"Yes, Nebsecht.  He planned strange things with grandfather, and after
Pentaur and you had saved us in the frightful attack upon us he
interceded for us.  Since then he has not come again, for I was already
much better.  Now to-day, about two hours ago, the dog barked, and an old
man, a stranger, came up to me, and said he was Nebsecht's brother, and
had a great deal of money in his charge for me.  He gave me a ring too,
and said that he would pay the money to him, who took the ring to him
from me.  Then he read this letter to me."

Rameri took the letter and read.  "Nebsecht to the fair Uarda."