"Nebsecht greets Uarda, and informs her that he owed her grandfather in

Osiris, Pinem--whose body the kolchytes are embalming like that of a
noble--a sum of a thousand gold rings.  These he has entrusted to his
brother Teta to hold ready for her at any moment.  She may trust Teta
entirely, for he is honest, and ask him for money whenever she needs it.
It would be best that she should ask Teta to take care of the money for
her, and to buy her a house and field; then she could remove into it, and
live in it free from care with her grandmother.  She may wait a year, and
then she may choose a husband.  Nebsecht loves Uarda much.  If at the end
of thirteen months he has not been to see her, she had better marry whom
she will; but not before she has shown the jewel left her by her mother
to the king's interpreter."

"How strange!"  exclaimed Rameri.  "Who would have given the singular
physician, who always wore such  dirty clothes, credit  for such
generosity?  But what is this jewel that you have?"

Uarda opened her shirt, and showed the prince the sparkling ornament.

"Those are diamonds---it is very valuable!"  cried the prince; "and there
in the middle on the onyx there are sharply engraved signs.  I cannot
read them, but I will show them to the interpreter.  Did your mother wear
that?"

"My father found it on her when she died," said Uarda.  "She came to
Egypt as a prisoner of war, and was as white as I am, but dumb, so she
could not tell us the name of her home."

"She belonged to some great house among the foreigners, and the children
inherit from the mother," cried the prince joyfully.  "You are a
princess, Uarda!  Oh! how glad I am, and how much I love you!"

The girl smiled and said, "Now you will not be afraid to touch the
daughter of the unclean."

"You are cruel," replied the prince.  "Shall I tell you what I determined
on yesterday,--what would not let me sleep last night,--and for what I
came here today?"

"Well?"

Rameri took a most beautiful white rose out of his robe and said:

"It is very childish, but I thought how it would be if I might put this
flower with my own hands into your shining hair.  May I?"

"It is a splendid rose!  I never saw such a fine one."

"It is for my haughty princess.  Do pray let me dress your hair!  It is
like silk from Tyre, like a swan's breast, like golden star-beams--there,
it is fixed safely!  Nay, leave it so.  If the seven Hathors could see
you, they would be jealous, for you are fairer than all of them."

"How you flatter!" said Uarda, shyly blushing, and looking into his
sparkling eyes.

"Uarda," said the prince, pressing her hand to his heart.  "I have now
but one wish.  Feel how my heart hammers and beats.  I believe it will
never rest again till you--yes, Uarda--till you let me give you one, only
one, kiss."

The girl drew back.

"Now," she said seriously.  "Now I see what you want.  Old Hekt knows
men, and she warned me."

"Who is Hekt, and what can she know of me?"

"She told me that the time would come when a man would try to make
friends with me.  He would look into my eyes, and if mine met his, then
he would ask to kiss me.  But I must refuse him, because if I liked him
to kiss me he would seize my soul, and take it from me, and I must
wander, like the restless ghosts, which the abyss rejects, and the storm
whirls before it, and the sea will not cover, and the sky will not
receive, soulless to the end of my days.  Go away--for I cannot refuse
you the kiss, and yet I would not wander restless, and without a soul!"

"Is the old woman who told you that a good woman?"  asked Rameri.

Uarda shook her head.

"She cannot be good," cried the prince.  "For she has spoken a falsehood.
I will not seize your soul; I will give you mine to be yours, and you
shall give me yours to be mine, and so we shall neither of us be poorer--
but both richer!"

"I should like to believe it," said Uarda thoughtfully, "and I have
thought the same kind of thing.  When I was strong, I often had to go
late in the evening to fetch water from the landing-place where the great
water-wheel stands.  Thousands of drops fall from the earthenware pails
as it turns, and in each you can see the reflection of a moon, yet there
is only one in the sky.  Then I thought to myself, so it must be with the
love in our hearts.  We have but one heart, and yet we pour it out into
other hearts without its losing in strength or in warmth.  I thought of
my grandmother, of my father, of little Scherau, of the Gods, and of
Pentaur.  Now I should like to give you a part of it too."

"Only a part?"  asked Rameri.

"Well, the whole will be reflected in you, you know," said Uarda, "as the
whole moon is reflected in each drop."

"It shall!"  cried the prince, clasping the trembling girl in his arms,
and the two young souls were united in their first kiss.

"Now do go!"  Uarda entreated.

"Let me stay a little while," said Rameri.  "Sit down here by me on the
bench in front of the house.  The hedge shelters us, and besides this
valley is now deserted, and there are no passers by."

"We are doing what is not right," said Uarda.  "If it were right we
should not want to hide ourselves."

"Do you call that wrong which the priests perform in the Holy of Holies?"
asked the prince.  "And yet it is concealed from all eyes."

"How you can argue!"  laughed Uarda.  "That shows you can write, and are
one of his disciples."

"His, his!"  exclaimed Rameri.  "You mean Pentaur.  He was always the
dearest to me of all my teachers, but it vexes me when you speak of him
as if he were more to you than I and every one else.  The poet, you said,
was one of the drops in which the moon of your soul finds a reflection--
and I will not divide it with many."

"How you are talking!"  said Uarda.  "Do you not honor your father, and
the Gods?  I love no one else as I do you--and what I felt when you
kissed me--that was not like moon-light, but like this hot mid-day sun.
When I thought of you I had no peace.  I will confess to you now, that
twenty times I looked out of the door, and asked whether my preserver--
the kind, curly-headed boy--would really come again, or whether he
despised a poor girl like me?  You came, and I am so happy, and I could
enjoy myself with you to my heart's content.  Be kind again--or I will
pull your hair!"

"You!"  cried Rameri.  "You cannot hurt with your little hands, though
you can with your tongue.  Pentaur is much wiser and better than I, you
owe much to him, and nevertheless I--"

"Let that rest," interrupted the girl, growing grave.  "He is not a man
like other men.  If he asked to kiss me, I should crumble into dust, as
ashes dried in the sun crumble if you touch them with a finger, and I
should be as much afraid of his lips as of a lion's.  Though you may
laugh at it, I shall always believe that he is one of the Immortals.
His own father told me that a great wonder was shown to him the very day
after his birth.  Old Hekt has often sent me to the gardener with a
message to enquire after his son, and though the man is rough he is kind.
At first he was not friendly, but when he saw how much I liked his
flowers he grew fond of me, and set me to work to tie wreaths and
bunches, and to carry them to his customers.  As we sat together, laying
the flowers side by side, he constantly told me something about his son,
and his beauty and goodness and wisdom.  When he was quite a little boy
he could write poems, and he learned to read before any one had shown him
how.  The high-priest Ameni heard of it and took him to the House of
Seti, and there he improved, to the astonishment of the gardener; not
long ago I went through the garden with the old man.  He talked of
Pentaur as usual, and then stood still before a noble shrub with broad
leaves, and said, My son is like this plant, which has grown up close to
me, and I know not how.  I laid the seed in the soil, with others that I
bought over there in Thebes; no one knows where it came from, and yet it
is my own.  It certainly is not a native of Egypt;  and is not Pentaur as
high above me and his mother and his brothers, as this shrub is above the
other flowers?  We are all small and bony, and he is tall and slim; our
skin is dark and his is rosy; our speech is hoarse, his as sweet as a
song.  I believe he is a child of the Gods that the Immortals have laid
in my homely house.  Who knows their decrees?'  And then I often saw
Pentaur at the festivals, and asked myself which of the other priests of
the temple came near him in height and dignity?  I took him for a God,
and when I saw him who saved my life overcome a whole mob with superhuman
strength must I not regard him as a superior Being?  I look up to him as
to one of them; but I could never look in his eyes as I do in yours.  It
would not make my blood flow faster, it would freeze it in my veins.  How
can I say what I mean! my soul looks straight out, and it finds you; but
to find him it must look up to the heavens.  You are a fresh rose-garland
with which I crown myself--he is a sacred persea-tree before which I
bow."

Rameri listened to her in silence, and then said, "I am still young, and
have done nothing yet, but the time shall come in which you shall look up
to me too as to a tree, not perhaps a sacred tree, but as to a sycamore
under whose shade we love to rest.  I am no longer gay; I will leave you
for I have a serious duty to fulfil.  Pentaur is a complete man, and I
will be one too.  But you shall be the rose-garland to grace me.  Men who
can be compared to flowers disgust me!"

The prince rose, and offered Uarda his hand.

"You have a strong hand," said the girl.  "You will be a noble man, and
work for good and great ends; only look, my fingers are quite red with
being held so tightly.  But they too are not quite useless.  They have
never done anything very hard certainly, but what they tend flourishes,
and grandmother says they are 'lucky.'  Look at the lovely lilies and the
pomegrenate bush in that corner.  Grandfather brought the earth here from
the Nile, Pentaur's father gave me the seeds, and each little plant that
ventured to show a green shoot through the soil I sheltered and nursed
and watered, though I had to fetch the water in my little pitcher, till
it was vigorous, and thanked me with flowers.  Take this pomegranate
flower.  It is the first my tree has borne; and it is very strange, when
the bud first began to lengthen and swell my grandmother said, 'Now your
heart will soon begin to bud and love.'  I know now what she meant, and
both the first flowers belong to you--the red one here off the tree, and
the other, which you cannot see, but which glows as brightly as this
does."

Rameri pressed the scarlet blossom to his lips, and stretched out his
hand toward Uarda; but she shrank back, for a little figure slipped
through an opening in the hedge.

It was Scherau.

His pretty little face glowed with his quick run, and his breath was
gone.  For a few minutes he tried in vain for words, and looked anxiously
at the prince.

Uarda saw that something unusual agitated him; she spoke to him kindly,
saying that if he wished to speak to her alone he need not be afraid of
Rameri, for he was her best friend.

"But it does not concern you and me," replied the child, "but the good,
holy father Pentaur, who was so kind to me, and who saved your life."

"I am a great friend of Pentaur," said the prince.  "Is it not true,
Uarda?  He may speak with confidence before me."

"I may?"  said  Scherau,  "that  is  well.  I  have slipped away; Hekt
may come back at any moment, and if she sees that I have taken myself off
I shall get a beating and nothing to eat."

"Who is this horrible Hekt?"  asked Rameri indignantly.

"That Uarda can tell you by and by," said the little one hurriedly.  "Now
only listen.  She laid me on my board in the cave, and threw a sack over
me, and first came Nemu, and then another man, whom she spoke to as
Steward.  She talked to him a long time.  At first I did not listen, but
then I caught the name of Pentaur, and I got my head out, and now I
understand it all.  The steward declared that the good Pentaur was
wicked, and stood in his way, and he said that Ameni was going to send
him to the quarries at Chennu, but that that was much too small a
punishment.  Then Hekt advised him to give a secret commission to the
captain of the ship to go beyond Chennu, to the frightful mountain-mines,
of which she has often told me, for her father and her brother were
tormented to death there."

"None ever return from thence," said the prince.  "But go on."

"What came next, I only half understood, but they spoke of some drink
that makes people mad.  Oh! what I see and hear!--I would he contentedly
on my board all my life long, but all else is too horrible--I wish that
I were dead."

And the child began to cry bitterly.

Uarda, whose cheeks had turned pale, patted him affectionately; but
Rameri exclaimed:

"It is frightful! unheard of!  But who was the steward? did you not hear
his name?  Collect yourself, little man, and stop crying.  It is a case
of life and death.  Who was the scoundrel?  Did she not name him?  Try to
remember."

Scherau bit his red lips, and tried for composure.  His tears ceased, and
suddenly he exclaimed, as he put his hand into the breast of his ragged
little garment: "Stay, perhaps you will know him again--I made him!"

"You did what?"  asked the prince.

"I made him," repeated the little artist, and he carefully brought out an
object wrapped up in a scrap of rag, "I could just see his head quite
clearly from one side all the time he was speaking, and my clay lay by
me.  I always must model something when my mind is excited, and this time
I quickly made his face, and as the image was successful, I kept it about
me to show to the master when Hekt was out."

While he spoke he had carefully unwrapped the figure with trembling
fingers, and had given it to Uarda.

"Ani!"  cried the prince.  "He, and no other!  Who could have thought it!
What spite has he against Pentaur?  What is the priest to him?"

For a moment he reflected, then he struck his hand against his forehead.

"Fool that I am!"  he exclaimed vehemently.  "Child that I am! of course,
of course; I see it all.  Ani asked for Bent-Anat's hand, and she--now
that I love you, Uarda, I understand what ails her.  Away with deceit!
I will tell you no more lies, Uarda.  I am no page of honor to Bent-Anat;
I am her brother, and king Rameses' own son.  Do not cover your face with
your hands, Uarda, for if I had not seen your mother's jewel, and if I
were not only a prince, but Horus himself, the son of Isis, I must have
loved you, and would not have given you up.  But now other things have to
be done besides lingering with you; now I will show you that I am a man,
now that Pentaur is to be saved.  Farewell, Uarda, and think of me!"

He would have hurried off, but Scherau held him by the robe, and said
timidly: Thou sayst thou art Rameses' son.  Hekt spoke of him too.  She
compared him to our moulting hawk."

"She shall soon feel the talons of the royal eagle," cried Rameri.  "Once
more, farewell!"

He gave Uarda his hand, she pressed it passionately to her lips, but he
drew it away, kissed her forehead, and was gone.

The maiden looked after him pale and speechless.  She saw another man
hastening towards her, and recognizing him as her father, she went
quickly to meet him.  The soldier had come to take leave of her, he had
to escort some prisoners.

"To Chennu?"  asked Uarda.

"No, to the north," replied the man.

His daughter now related what she had heard, and asked whether he could
help the priest, who had saved her.

"If I had money, if I had money!"  muttered the soldier to himself.

"We have some," cried Uarda;  she told him of Nebsecht's gift, and said:
"Take me over the Nile, and in two hours you will have enough to make a
man rich.

[It may be observed that among the Egyptian women were qualified to
own and dispose of property.  For example a papyrus (vii) in the
Louvre contains an agreement between Asklepias (called Semmuthis),
the daughter or maid-servant of a corpse-dresser of Thebes, who is
the debtor, and Arsiesis, the creditor, the son of a kolchytes; both
therefore are of the same rank as Uarda.]

But no; I cannot leave my sick grandmother.  You yourself take the ring,
and remember that Pentaur is being punished for having dared to protect
us."

"I remember it," said the soldier.  "I have but one life, but I will
willingly give it to save his.  I cannot devise schemes, but I know
something, and if it succeeds he need not go to the gold-mines.  I will
put the wine-flask aside--give me a drink of water, for the next few
hours I must keep a sober head."

"There is the water, and I will pour in a mouthful of wine.  Will you
come back and bring me news?"

"That will not do, for we set sail at midnight, but if some one returns
to you with the ring you will know that what I propose has succeeded."

Uarda went into the hut, her father followed her; he took leave of his
sick mother and of his daughter.  When they went out of doors again, he
said: "You have to live on the princess's gift till I return, and I do
not want half of the physician's present.  But where is your pomegranate
blossom?"

"I have picked it and preserved it in a safe place."

"Strange things are women!"  muttered the bearded man; he tenderly kissed
his child's forehead, and returned to the Nile down the road by which he
had come.

The prince meanwhile had hurried on, and enquired in the harbor of the
Necropolis where the vessel destined for Chennu was lying--for the ships
loaded with prisoners were accustomed to sail from this side of the
river, starting at night.  Then he was ferried over the river, and
hastened to Bent-Anat.  He found her and Nefert in unusual excitement,
for the faithful chamberlain had learned--through some friends of the
king in Ani's suite--that the Regent had kept back all the letters
intended for Syria, and among them those of the royal family.

A lord in waiting, who was devoted to the king, had been encouraged by
the chamberlain to communicate to Bent-Anat other things, which hardly
allowed any doubts as to the ambitious projects of her uncle; she was
also exhorted to be on her guard with Nefert, whose mother was the
confidential adviser of the Regent.

Bent-Anat smiled at this warning, and sent at once a message to Ani
to inform him that she was ready to undertake the pilgrimage to the
"Emerald-Hathor," and to be purified in the sanctuary of that Goddess.

She purposed sending a message to her father from thence, and if he
permitted it, joining him at the camp.

She imparted this plan to her friend, and Nefert thought any road best
that would take her to her husband.

Rameri was soon initiated into all this, and in return he told them all
he had learned, and let Bent-Anat guess that he had read her secret.

So dignified, so grave, were the conduct and the speech of the boy who
had so lately been an overhearing mad-cap, that Bent-Anat thought to
herself that the danger of their house had suddenly ripened a boy into a
man.

She had in fact no objection to raise to his arrangements.  He proposed
to travel after sunset, with a few faithful servants on swift horses as
far as Keft, and from thence ride fast across the desert to the Red Sea,
where they could take a Phoenician ship, and sail to Aila.  From thence
they would cross the peninsula of Sinai, and strive to reach the Egyptian
army by forced marches, and make the king acquainted with Ani's criminal
attempts.

To Bent-Anat was given the task of rescuing Pentaur, with the help of the
faithful chamberlain.

Money was fortunately not wanting, as the high treasurer was on their
side.  All depended on their inducing the captain to stop at Chennu; the
poet's fate would there, at the worst, be endurable.  At the same time, a
trustworthy messenger was to be sent to the governor of Chennu,
commanding him in the name of the king to detain every ship that might
pass the narrows of Chennu by night, and to prevent any of the prisoners
that had been condemned to the quarries from being smuggled on to
Ethiopia.

Rameri took leave of the two women, and he succeeded in leaving Thebes
unobserved.

Bent-Anat knelt in prayer before the images of her mother in Osiris, of
Hathor, and of the guardian Gods of her house, till the chamberlain
returned, and told her that he had persuaded the captain of the ship to
stop at Chennu, and to conceal from Ani that he had betrayed his charge.

The princess breathed more freely, for she had come to a resolution that
if the chamberlain had failed in his mission, she would cross over to the
Necropolis forbid the departure of the vessel, and in the last extremity
rouse the people, who were devoted to her, against Ani.

The following morning the Lady Katuti craved permission of the princess
to see her daughter.  Bent-Anat did not show herself to the widow, whose
efforts failed to keep her daughter from accompanying the princess on
her journey, or to induce her to return home.  Angry and uneasy, the
indignant mother hastened to Ani, and implored him to keep Nefert at home
by force; but the Regent wished to avoid attracting attention, and to let
Bent-Anat set out with a feeling of complete security.

"Do not be uneasy," he said.  "I will give the ladies a trustworthy
escort, who will keep them at the Sanctuary of the 'Emerald-Hathor' till
all is settled.  There you can deliver Nefert to Paaker, if you still
like to have him for a son-in-law after hearing several things that I
have learned.  As for me, in the end I may induce my haughty niece to
look up instead of down; I may be her second love, though for that
matter she certainly is not my first."

On the following day the princess set out.

Ani took leave of her with kindly formality, which she returned with
coolness.  The priesthood of the temple of Amon, with old Bek en Chunsu
at their head, escorted her to the harbor.  The people on the banks
shouted Bent-Anat's name with a thousand blessings, but many insulting
words were to be heard also.

The pilgrim's Nile-boat was followed by two others, full of soldiers, who
accompanied the ladies "to protect them."

The south-wind filled the sails, and carried the little procession
swiftly down the stream.  The princess looked now towards the palace of
her fathers, now towards the tombs and temples of the Necropolis.  At
last even the colossus of Anienophis disappeared, and the last houses of
Thebes.  The brave maiden sighed deeply, and tears rolled down her
checks.  She felt as if she were flying after a lost battle, and yet not
wholly discouraged, but hoping for future victory.  As she turned to go
to the cabin, a veiled girl stepped up to her, took the veil from her
face, and said: "Pardon me, princess; I am Uarda, whom thou didst run
over, and to whom thou hast since been so good.  My grandmother is dead,
and I am quite alone.  I slipped in among thy maid-servants, for I wish
to follow thee, and to obey all thy commands.  Only do not send me away."

"Stay, dear child," said the princess, laying her hand on her hair.

Then, struck by its wonderful beauty, she remembered her brother, and his
wish to place a rose in Uarda's shining tresses.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

Two months had past since Bent-Anat's departure from Thebes, and the
imprisonment of Pentaur.  Ant-Baba is the name of the valley, in the
western half of the peninsula of Sinai,

[I have described in detail the peninsula of Sinai, its history, and
the sacred places on it, in my book "Durch Gosen zum Sinai,"
published in 1872.  In depicting this scenery in the present
romance, I have endeavored to reproduce the reality as closely as
possible.  He who has wandered through this wonderful mountain
wilderness can never forget it.  The valley now called "Laba," bore
the same name in the time of the Pharaohs.]

through which a long procession of human beings, and of beasts of burden,
wended their way.

It was winter, and yet the mid-day sun sent down glowing rays, which
were reflected from the naked rocks.  In front of the caravan marched
a company of Libyan soldiers, and another brought up the rear.  Each man
was armed with a dagger and battle-axe, a shield and a lance, and was
ready to use his weapons; for those whom they were escorting were
prisoners from the emerald-mines, who had been convoyed to the shores of
the Red Sea to carry thither the produce of the mines, and had received,
as a return-load, provisions which had arrived from Egypt, and which were
to be carried to the storehouses of the mountain mines.  Bent and
panting, they made their way along.  Each prisoner had a copper chain
riveted round his ankles, and torn rags hanging round their loins, were
the only clothing of these unhappy beings, who, gasping under the weight
of the sacks they had to carry, kept their staring eyes fixed on the
ground.  If one of them threatened to sink altogether under his burden,
he was refreshed by the whip of one of the horsemen, who accompanied the
caravan.  Many a one found it hard to choose whether he could best endure
the suffering of mere endurance, or the torture of the lash.

No one spoke a word, neither the prisoners nor their guards; and even
those who were flogged did not cry out, for their powers were exhausted,
and in the souls of their drivers there was no more impulse of pity
than there was a green herb on the rocks by the way.  This melancholy
procession moved silently onwards, like a procession of phantoms, and
the ear was only made aware of it when now and then a low groan broke
from one of the victims.

The sandy path, trodden by their naked feet, gave no sound, the mountains
seemed to withhold their shade, the light of clay was a torment--every
thing far and near seemed inimical to the living.  Not a plant, not a
creeping thing, showed itself against the weird forms of the barren grey
and brown rocks, and no soaring bird tempted the oppressed wretches to
raise their eyes to heaven.

In the noontide heat of the previous day they had started with their
loads from the harbor-creek.  For two hours they had followed the shore
of the glistening, blue-green sea,

[The Red Sea--in Hebrew and Coptic the reedy sea--is of a lovely
blue green color.  According to the Ancients it was named red either
from its red banks or from the Erythraeans, who were called the red
people.  On an early inscription it is called "the water of the Red
country."  See "Durch Gosen zum Sinai."]

then they had climbed a rocky shoulder and crossed a small plateau.  They
had paused for their night's rest in the gorge which led to the mines;
the guides and soldiers lighted fires, grouped themselves round them, and
lay down to sleep under the shelter of a cleft in the rocks; the
prisoners stretched themselves on the earth in the middle of the valley
without any shelter, and shivering with the cold which suddenly succeeded
the glowing heat of the day.  The benumbed wretches now looked forward to
the crushing misery of the morning's labor as eagerly as, a few hours
since, they had longed for the night, and for rest.

Lentil-broth and hard bread in abundance, but a very small quantity of
water was given to them before they started; then they set out through
the gorge, which grew hotter and hotter, and through ravines where they
could pass only one by one.  Every now and then it seemed as if the path
came to an end, but each time it found an outlet, and went on--as endless
as the torment of the wayfarers.

Mighty walls of rock composed the view, looking as if they were formed of
angular masses of hewn stone piled up in rows; and of all the miners one,
and one only, had eyes for these curious structures of the evervarious
hand of Nature.

This one had broader shoulders than his companions, and his burden
Weighed on him comparatively lightly.  "In this solitude," thought he,
"which repels man, and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu,
the laborers who form the world, have spared themselves the trouble of
filling up the seams, and rounding off the corners.  How is it that Man
should have dedicated this hideous land--in which even the human heart
seems to be hardened against all pity--to the merciful Hathor?  Perhaps
because it so sorely stands in need of the joy and peace which the loving
goddess alone can bestow."

"Keep the line, Huni!"  shouted a driver.

The man thus addressed, closed up to the next man, the panting leech
Nebsecht.  We know the other stronger prisoner.  It is Pentaur, who had
been entered as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by
that name.  The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged.
Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of
man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost
perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees.  Here another gorge opened
before them, and this time there seemed to be no outlet.

"Load the asses less!" cried the captain of the escort to the prisoners.
Then he turned to the soldiers, and ordered them, when the beasts were
eased, to put the extra burthens on the inen.  Putting forth their utmost
strength, the overloaded men labored up the steep and hardly
distinguishable mountain path.

The man in front of Pentaur, a lean old man, when half way up the hill-
side, fell in a heap under his load, and a driver, who in a narrow defile
could not reach the bearers, threw a stone at him to urge him to a
renewed effort.

The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry--the paraschites
stricken down with stones--his own struggle with the mob--and the
appearance of Bent Anat flashed into Pentaur's lnernory.  Pity and a
sense of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he hastily
snatched the sack from the shoulders of the old man, threw it over his
own, helped up the fallen wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in
mounting the rocky wall.

The pulses throbbed in Pentaur's temples, and he shuddered with horror,
as he looked down from the height of the pass into the abyss below, and
round upon the countless pinnacles and peaks, cliffs and precipices, in
many-colored rocks-white and grey, sulphurous yellow, blood-red and
ominous black.  He recalled the sacred lake of Muth in Thebes, round
which sat a hundred statues of the lion-headed Goddess in black basalt,
each on a pedestal; and the rocky peaks, which surrounded the valley at
his feet, seemed to put on a semblance of life and to move and open their
yawning jaws; through the wild rush of blood in his ears he fancied he
heard them roar, and the load beyond his strength which he carried gave
him a sensation as though their clutch was on his breast.

Nevertheless he reached the goal.

The other prisoners flung their loads from their shoulders, and threw
themselves down to rest.  Mechanically he did the same: his pulses beat
more calmly, by degrees the visions faded from his senses, he saw and
heard once more, and his brain recovered its balance.  The old man and
Nebsecht were lying beside him.

His grey-haired companion rubbed the swollen veins in his neck, and
called down all the blessings of the Gods upon his head; but the captain
of the caravan cut him short, exclaiming:

"You have strength for three, Huni; farther on, we will load you more
heavily."

"How much the kindly Gods care for our prayers for the blessing of
others!"  exclaimed Nebsecht.  "How well they know how to reward a good
action!"

"I am rewarded enough," said Pentaur, looking kindly at the old man.
"But you, you everlasting scoffer--you look pale.  How do you feel?"

"As if I were one of those donkeys there," replied the naturalist.  "My
knees shake like theirs, and I think and I wish neither more nor less
than they do; that is to say--I would we were in our stalls."

"If you can think," said Pentaur smiling, "you are not so very bad."

"I had a good thought just now, when you were staring up into the sky.
The intellect, say the priestly sages, is a vivifying breath of the
eternal spirit, and our soul is the mould or core for the mass of matter
which we call a human being.  I sought the spirit at first in the heart,
then in the brain; but now I know that it resides in the arms and legs,
for when I have strained them I find thought is impossible.  I am too
tired to enter on further evidence, but for the future I shall treat my
legs with the utmost consideration."

"Quarrelling again you two?  On again, men!"  cried the driver.

The weary wretches rose slowly, the beasts were loaded, and on went the
pitiable procession, so as to reach the mines before sunset.

The destination of the travellers was a wide valley, closed in by two
high and rocky mountain-slopes; it was called Ta Mafka by the Egyptians,
Dophka by the Hebrews.  The southern cliff-wall consisted of dark
granite, the northern of red sandstone; in a distant branch of the valley
lay the mines in which copper was found.  In the midst of the valley rose
a hill, surrounded by a wall, and crowned with small stone houses, for
the guard, the officers, and the overseers.  According to the old
regulations, they were without roofs, but as many deaths and much
sickness had occurred among the workmen in consequence of the cold
nights, they had been slightly sheltered with palm-branches brought from
the oasis of the Alnalckites, at no great distance.

On the uttermost peak of the hill, where it was most exposed to the wind,
were the smelting furnaces, and a manufactory where a peculiar green
glass was prepared, which was brought into the market under the name of
Mafkat, that is to say, emerald.  The genuine precious stone was found
farther to the south, on the western shore of the Red Sea, and was highly
prized in Egypt.

Our friends had already for more than a month belonged to the mining-
community of the Mafkat valley, and Pentaur had never learned how it was