[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D. W. ]

UARDA

Volume 10. 

By Georg Ebers

CHAPTER XLII. 

The cloudless vault of heaven spread over the plain of Pelusium, thestars were bright, the moon threw her calm light over the thousands oftents which shone as white as little hillocks of snow. All was silent, the soldiers and the Egyptians, who had assembled to welcome the king, were now all gone to rest. 

There had been great rejoicing and jollity in the camp; three enormousvats, garlanded with flowers and overflowing with wine, which spilt withevery movement of the trucks on which they were drawn by thirty oxen, were sent up and down the little streets of tents, and as the eveningclosed in tavern-booths were erected in many spots in the camp, at whichthe Regent's servants supplied the soldiers with red and white wine. Thetents of the populace were only divided from the pavilion of the Pharaohby the hastily-constructed garden in the midst of which it stood, and thehedge which enclosed it. 

The tent of the Regent himself was distinguished from all the others byits size and magnificence; to the right of it was the encampment of thedifferent priestly deputations, to the left that of his suite; among thelatter were the tents of his friend Katuti, a large one for her own use, and some smaller ones for her servants. Behind Ani's pavilion stood atent, enclosed in a wall or screen of canvas, within which old Hekt waslodged; Ani had secretly conveyed her hither on board his own boat. OnlyKatuti and his confidential servants knew who it was that lay concealedin the mysteriously shrouded abode. 

While the banquet was proceeding in the great pavilion, the witch wassitting in a heap on the sandy earth of her conical canvas dwelling; shebreathed with difficulty, for a weakness of the heart, against which shehad long struggled, now oppressed her more frequently and severely; alittle lamp of clay burned before her, and on her lap crouched a sick andruffled hawk; the creature shivered from time to time, closing the filmylids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took himup in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak, still ever ready to peck and tear her. 

At her feet little Scherau lay asleep. Presently she pushed the childwith her foot. "Wake up, " she said, as he raised himself still halfasleep. "You have young ears--it seemed to me that I heard a womanscream in Ani's tent. Do you hear any thing?"

"Yes, indeed, " exclaimed the little one. "There is a noise like crying, and that--that was a scream! It came from out there, from Nemu's tent. "

"Creep through there, " said the witch, "and see what is happening!"

The child obeyed: Hekt turned her attention again to the bird, which nolonger perched in her lap, but lay on one side, though it still tried touse its talons, when she took him up in her hand. 

"It is all over with him, " muttered the old woman, "and the one I calledRameses is sleeker than ever. It is all folly and yet--and yet! theRegent's game is over, and he has lost it. The creature is stretchingitself--its head drops--it draws itself up--one more clutch at my dress--now it is dead!"

She contemplated the dead hawk in her lap for some minutes, then she tookit up, flung it into a corner of the tent, and exclaimed:

"Good-bye, King Ani. The crown is not for you!" Then she went on: "Whatproject has he in hand now, I wonder? Twenty times he has asked mewhether the great enterprise will succeed; as if I knew any more than he!And Nemu too has hinted all kinds of things, though he would not speakout. Something is going on, and I--and I? There it comes again. "

The old woman pressed her hand to her heart and closed her eyes, herfeatures were distorted with pain; she did not perceive Scherau's return, she did not hear him call her name, or see that, when she did not answerhim, he left her again. For an hour or more she remained unconscious, then her senses returned, but she felt as if some ice-cold fluid slowlyran through her veins instead of the warm blood. 

"If I had kept a hawk for myself too, " she muttered, "it would soonfollow the other one in the corner! If only Ani keeps his word, and hasme embalmed!

"But how can he when he too is so near his end. They will let me rot anddisappear, and there will be no future for me, no meeting with Assa. "

The old woman remained silent for a long time; at last she murmuredhoarsely with her eyes fixed on the ground:

"Death brings release, if only from the torment of remembrance. Butthere is a life beyond the grave. I do not, I will not cease to hope. The dead shall all be equally judged, and subject to the inscrutabledecrees. --Where shall I find him? Among the blest, or among the damned?And I? It matters not! The deeper the abyss into which they fling methe better. Can Assa, if he is among the blest, remain in bliss, when hesees to what he has brought me? Oh! they must embalm me--I cannot bearto vanish, and rot and evaporate into nothingness!"

While she was still speaking, the dwarf Nemu had come into the tent;Scherau, seeing the old woman senseless, had run to tell him that hismother was lying on the earth with her eyes shut, and was dying. Thewitch perceived the little man. 

"It is well, " she said, "that you have come; I shall be dead beforesunrise. "

"Mother!" cried the dwarf horrified, "you shall live, and live betterthan you have done till now! Great things are happening, and for us!"

"I know, I know, " said Hekt. "Go away, Scherau--now, Nemu, whisper in myear what is doing?" The dwarf felt as if he could not avoid theinfluence of her eye, he went up to her, and said softly--"The pavilion, in which the king and his people are sleeping, is constructed of wood;straw and pitch are built into the walls, and laid under the boards. Assoon as they are gone to rest we shall set the tinder thing on fire. Theguards are drunk and sleeping. "

"Well thought of, " said Hekt. "Did you plan it?" "I and my mistress, "said the dwarf not without pride. "You can devise a plot, " said the oldwoman, "but you are feeble in the working out. Is your plan a secret?Have you clever assistants?"

"No one knows of it, " replied the dwarf, "but Katuti, Paaker, and I; wethree shall lay the brands to the spots we have fixed upon. I am goingto the rooms of Bent-Anat; Katuti, who can go in and out as she pleases, will set fire to the stairs, which lead to the upper story, and whichfall by touching a spring; and Paaker to the king's apartments. "

"Good-good, it may succeed, " gasped the old woman. "But what was thescream in your tent?" The dwarf seemed doubtful about answering; butHekt went on:

"Speak without fear--the dead are sure to be silent. " The dwarf, trembling with agitation, shook off his hesitation, and said:

"I have found Uarda, the grandchild of Pinem, who had disappeared, and Idecoyed her here, for she and no other shall be my wife, if Ani is king, and if Katuti makes me rich and free. She is in the service of thePrincess Bent-Anat, and sleeps in her anteroom, and she must not be burntwith her mistress. She insisted on going back to the palace, so, as shewould fly to the fire like a gnat, and I would not have her risk beingburnt, I tied her up fast. "

"Did she not struggle?" said Hekt. 

"Like a mad thing, " said the dwarf. "But the Regent's dumb slave, whowas ordered by his master to obey me in everything to-day, helped me. We tied up her mouth that she might not be heard screaming!"

"Will you leave her alone when you go to do your errand?"

"Her father is with her!"

"Kaschta, the red-beard?" asked the old woman in surprise. "And did henot break you in pieces like an earthenware pot?"

"He will not stir, " said Nemu laughing. "For when I found him, I madehim so drunk with Ani's old wine that he lies there like a mummy. It wasfrom him that I learned where Uarda was, and I went to her, and got herto come with me by telling her that her father was very ill, and beggedher to go to see him once more. She flew after me like a gazelle, andwhen she saw the soldier lying there senseless she threw herself uponhim, and called for water to cool his head, for he was raving in hisdreams of rats and mice that had fallen upon him. As it grew late shewanted to return to her mistress, and we were obliged to prevent her. How handsome she has grown, mother; you cannot imagine how pretty sheis. "

"Aye, aye!" said Hekt. "You will have to keep an eye upon her when sheis your wife. "

"I will treat her like the wife of a noble, " said Nemu. "And pay a reallady to guard her. But by this time Katuti has brought home herdaughter, Mena's wife; the stars are sinking and--there--that was thefirst signal. When Katuti whistles the third time we are to go to work. Lend me your fire-box, mother. "

"Take it, " said Hekt. "I shall never need it again. It is all over withme! How your hand shakes! Hold the wood firmly, or you will drop itbefore you have brought the fire. "

The dwarf bid the old woman farewell, and she let him kiss her withoutmoving. When he was gone, she listened eagerly for any sound that mightpierce the silence of the night, her eyes shone with a keen light, and athousand thoughts flew through her restless brain. When she heard thesecond signal on Katuti's silver whistle, she sat upright and muttered:

"That gallows-bird Paaker, his vain aunt and that villain Ani, are nomatch for Rameses, even when he is asleep. Ani's hawk is dead; he hasnothing to hope for from Fortune, and I nothing to hope for from him. But if Rameses--if the real king would promise me--then my poor old body--Yes, that is the thing, that is what I will do. "

She painfully raised herself on her feet with the help of her stick, shefound a knife and a small flask which she slipped into her dress, andthen, bent and trembling, with a last effort of her remaining strengthshe dragged herself as far as Nemu's tent. Here she found Uarda boundhand and foot, and Kaschta lying on the ground in a heavy drunkenslumber. 

The girl shrank together in alarm when she saw the old woman, andScherau, who crouched at her side, raised his hands imploringly to thewitch. 

"Take this knife, boy, " she said to the little one. "Cut the ropes thepoor thing is tied with. The papyrus cords are strong, saw them with theblade. "

 [Papyrus was used not only for writing on, but also for ropes. The bridge of boats on which Xerxes crossed the Hellespont was fastened with cables of papyrus. ]

While the boy eagerly followed her instructions with all his littlemight, she rubbed the soldier's temples with an essence which she had inthe bottle, and poured a few drops of it between his lips. Kaschta cameto himself, stretched his limbs, and stared in astonishment at the placein which he found himself. She gave him some water, and desired him todrink it, saying, as Uarda shook herself free from the bonds:

"The Gods have predestined you to great things, you white maiden. Listento what I, old Hekt, am telling you. The king's life is threatened, hisand his children's; I purpose to save them, and I ask no reward but this-that he should have my body embalmed and interred at Thebes. Swear to methat you will require this of him when you have saved him. "

"In God's name what is happening?" cried Uarda. "Swear that you willprovide for my burial, " said the old woman. 

"I swear it!" cried the girl. "But for God's sake--"

"Katuti, Paaker, and Nemu are gone to set fire to the palace when Ramesesis sleeping, in three places. Do you hear, Kaschta! Now hasten, flyafter the incendiaries, rouse the servants, and try to rescue the king. "

"Oh fly, father, " cried the girl, and they both rushed away in thedarkness. 

"She is honest and will keep her word, " muttered Hekt, and she tried todrag herself back to her own tent; but her strength failed her half-way. Little Scherau tried to support her, but he was too weak; she sank downon the sand, and looked out into the distance. There she saw the darkmass of the palace, from which rose a light that grew broader andbroader, then clouds of black smoke, then up flew the soaring flame, anda swarm of glowing sparks. 

"Run into the camp, child, " she cried, "cry fire, and wake the sleepers. "

Scherau ran off shouting as loud as he could. 

The old woman pressed her hand to her side, she muttered: "There it isagain. "

"In the other world--Assa--Assa, " and her trembling lips were silent forever. 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

Katuti had kept her unfortunate nephew Paaker concealed in one of herservants' tents. He had escaped wounded from the battle at Kadesh, andin terrible pain he had succeeded, by the help of an ass which he hadpurchased from a peasant, in reaching by paths known to hardly any onebut himself, the cave where he had previously left his brother. Here hefound his faithful Ethiopian slave, who nursed him till he was strongenough to set out on his journey to Egypt. He reached Pelusium, aftermany privations, disguised as an Ismaelite camel-driver; he left hisservant, who might have betrayed him, behind in the cave. 

Before he was permitted to pass the fortifications, which lay across theisthmus which parts the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, and which wereintended to protect Egypt from the incursions of the nomad tribes of theChasu, he was subjected to a strict interrogatory, and among otherquestions was asked whether he had nowhere met with the traitor Paaker, who was minutely described to him. No one recognized in the shrunken, grey-haired, one-eyed camel-driver, the broad-shouldered, muscular andthick-legged pioneer. To disguise himself the more effectually, heprocured some hair-dye--a cosmetic known in all ages--and blackenedhimself. 

 [In my papyrus there are several recipes for the preparation of hair-dye; one is ascribed to the Lady Schesch, the mother of Teta, wife of the first king of Egypt. The earliest of all the recipes preserved to us is a prescription for dyeing the hair. ]

Katuti had arrived at Pelusium with Ani some time before, to superintendthe construction of the royal pavilion. He ventured to approach herdisguised as a negro beggar, with a palm-branch in his hand. She gavehim some money and questioned him concerning his native country, for shemade it her business to secure the favor even of the meanest; but thoughshe appeared to take an interest in his answers, she did not recognizehim; now for the first time he felt secure, and the next day he went upto her again, and told her who he was. 

The widow was not unmoved by the frightful alteration in her nephew, andalthough she knew that even Ani had decreed that any intercourse with thetraitor was to be punished by death, she took him at once into herservice, for she had never had greater need than now to employ thedesperate enemy of the king and of her son-in-law. 

The mutilated, despised, and hunted man kept himself far from the otherservants, regarding the meaner folk with undiminished scorn. He thoughtseldom, and only vaguely of Katuti's daughter, for love had quite givenplace to hatred, and only one thing now seemed to him worth living for--the hope of working with others to cause his enemies' downfall, and ofbeing the instrument of their death; so he offered himself to the widowa willing and welcome tool, and the dull flash in his uninjured eye whenshe set him the task of setting fire to the king's apartments, showed herthat in the Mohar she had found an ally she might depend on to theuttermost. 

Paaker had carefully examined the scene of his exploit before the king'sarrival. Under the windows of the king's rooms, at least forty feet fromthe ground, was a narrow parapet resting on the ends of the beams whichsupported the rafters on which lay the floor of the upper story in whichthe king slept. These rafters had been smeared with pitch, and straw hadbeen laid between them, and the pioneer would have known how to find theopening where he was to put in the brand even if he had been blind ofboth eyes. 

When Katuti first sounded her whistle he slunk to his post; he waschallenged by no watchman, for the few guards who had been placed in theimmediate vicinity of the pavilion, had all gone to sleep under theinfluence of the Regent's wine. Paaker climbed up to about the height oftwo men from the ground by the help of the ornamental carving on theoutside wall of the palace; there a rope ladder was attached, heclambered up this, and soon stood on the parapet, above which were thewindows of the king's rooms, and below which the fire was to be laid. 

Rameses' room was brightly illuminated. Paaker could see into it withoutbeing seen, and could bear every word that was spoken within. The kingwas sitting in an arm-chair, and looked thoughtfully at the ground;before him stood the Regent, and Mena stood by his couch, holding in hishand the king's sleeping-robe. 

Presently Rameses raised his head, and said, as he offered his hand withfrank affection to Ani:

"Let me bring this glorious day to a worthy end, cousin. I have foundyou my true and faithful friend, and I had been in danger of believingthose over-anxious counsellors who spoke evil of you. I am never proneto distrust, but a number of things occurred together that clouded myjudgment, and I did you injustice. I am sorry, sincerely sorry; nor am Iashamed to apologize to you for having for an instant doubted your goodintentions. You are my good friend--and I will prove to you that I amyours. There is my hand-take it; and all Egypt shall know that Ramesestrusts no man more implicitly than his Regent Ani. I will ask you toundertake to be my guard of honor to-night--we will share this room. I sleep here; when I lie down on my couch take your place on the divanyonder. " Ani had taken Rameses' offered hand, but now he turned pale ashe looked down. Paaker could see straight into his face, and it was notwithout difficulty that he suppressed a scornful laugh. 

Rameses did not observe the Regent's dismay, for he had signed to Mena tocome closer to him. 

"Before I sleep, " said the king, "I will bring matters to an end with youtoo. You have put your wife's constancy to a severe test, and she hastrusted you with a childlike simplicity that is often wiser than thearguments of sages, because she loved you honestly, and is herselfincapable of guile. I promised you that I would grant you a wish if yourfaith in her was justified. Now tell me what is your will?"

Mena fell on his knees, and covered the king's robe with kisses. 

"Pardon!" he exclaimed. "Nothing but pardon. My crime was a heavy one, I know; but I was driven to it by scorn and fury--it was as if I saw thedishonoring hand of Paaker stretched out to seize my innocent wife, who, as I now know, loathes him as a toad--"

"What was that?" exclaimed the king. "I thought I heard a groanoutside. "

He went up to the window and looked out, but he did not see the pioneer, who watched every motion of the king, and who, as soon as he perceivedthat his involuntary sigh of anguish had been heard, stretched himselfclose under the balustrade. Mena had not risen from his knees when theking once more turned to him. 

"Pardon me, " he said again. "Let me be near thee again as before, anddrive thy chariot. I live only through thee, I am of no worth butthrough thee, and by thy favor, my king, my lord, my father!"

Rameses signed to his favorite to rise. "Your request was granted, " saidhe, "before you made it. I am still in your debt on your fair wife'saccount. Thank Nefert--not me, and let us give thanks to the Immortalsthis day with especial fervor. What has it not brought forth for us! Ithas restored to me you two friends, whom I regarded as lost to me, andhas 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, andthen, unmindful of his own danger, raised himself to listen for anyfurther 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 havebeen too much for me; I can hardly stand on my feet, and the guard ofhonor--"

"Mena will watch, " said the king. "Sleep in all security, cousin. Iwill have it known to all men that I have put away from me all distrustof you. Give the my night-robe, Mena. Nay-one thing more I must tellyou. Youth smiles on the young, Ani. Bent-Anat has chosen a worthyhusband, my preserver, the poet Pentaur. He was said to be a man ofhumble origin, the son of a gardener of the House of Seti; and now whatdo I learn through Ameni? He is the true son of the dead Mohar, and thefoul traitor Paaker is the gardener's son. A witch in the Necropolischanged the children. That is the best news of all that has reached meon this propitious day, for the Mohar's widow, the noble Setchem, hasbeen brought here, and I should have been obliged to choose between twosentences on her as the mother of the villain who has escaped us. EitherI must have sent her to the quarries, or have had her beheaded before allthe 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 noiseas 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 weremet by a cloud of smoke. 

"Call the watch!" cried the king. 

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

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 inbefore his very eyes; Katuti, after she had set fire to the interior ofthe palace, had made them fall by one blow of a hammer. Ani saw her robeas she herself fled, clenched his fist with rage as he shouted her name, and then, not knowing what he did, rushed headlong through the corridorinto which the different royal apartments opened. 

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

"There lie the stairs! that is serious!" said the king cooly; then hewent back into his room, and looked out of a window to estimate thedanger. Bright flames were already bursting from the northern end of thepalace, and gave the grey dawn the brightness of day; the southern wingor the pavilion was not yet on fire. Mena observed the parapet fromwhich Paaker had fallen to the ground, tested its strength, and found itfirm enough to bear several persons. He looked round, particularly atthe 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 issquatting down and pushing a brand into the woodwork. "

He leaped back into the room, which was now filling with smoke, snatchedthe 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 arrowthrough his heart. After setting fire to Bent-Anat's rooms, he haddetermined to lay a brand to the wing of the palace where, with the otherprinces, Uarda's friend Rameri was sleeping. 

Mena had again leaped out of window, and was estimating the height of theleap to the ground; the Pharaoh's room was getting more and more filledwith 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 terrorand excitement. 

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

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

But Nemu's brand had been effectual, the flames flared up, and thesoldiers strained every nerve to conquer them. Their cries mingled withthe 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 clothestogether to form a rope, and one by one escaped down it. 

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

"Bring some straw and make a heap below!" shouted Rameses, above theroar 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 wasimpossible 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, andcalled 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 hadsprung across the space which divided one piece of the balustrade fromanother. The king's blood ran cold as Mena, a second time, ventured thefrightful leap; one false step, and he must meet with the same fearfuldeath as his enemy Paaker. 

While the bystanders watched him in breathless silence--while thecrackling of the wood, the roar of the flames, and the dull thump offalling timber mingled with the distant chant of a procession of priestswho were now approaching the burning pile, Nefert roused by littleScherau knelt on the bare ground in fervent and passionate prayer to thesaving Gods. She watched every movement of her husband, and she bit herlips till they bled not to cry out. She felt that he was acting bravelyand nobly, and that he was lost if even for an instant his attention weredistracted from his perilous footing. Now he had reached Rameri, andbound one end of the rope made out of cloaks and handkerchiefs, round hisbody; 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 hereyes, 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 theking held out his hand to him, and saved him from a fall. Then Rameseshelped him to unfasten the rope from round his waist to fasten it to theend 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 kingstood in safety on the ground. Rameri followed him, and then Mena, whosefaithful wife went to meet him, and wiped the sweat from his throbbingtemples. 

Rameses hurried to the north wing, where Bent-Anat had her apartments; hefound her safe indeed, but wringing her hands, for her young favoriteUarda had disappeared in the flames after she had roused her and savedher with her father's assistance. Kaschta ran up and down in front ofthe burning pavilion, tearing his hair; now calling his child in tones ofanguish, now holding his breath to listen for an answer. To rush atrandom into the immense-burning building would have been madness. Theking observed the unhappy man, and set him to lead the soldiers, whom hehad commanded to hew down the wall of Bent-Anat's rooms, so as to rescuethe girl who might be within. Kaschta seized an axe, and raised it tostrike. 

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

With all his might he struck the edge of the axe between the shutter andthe wall, and a stream of smoke poured out of the new outlet, and beforehim, enveloped in its black clouds, stood a staggering man who held Uardain his arms. Kaschta sprang forward into the midst of the smoke andsparks, and snatched his daughter from the arms of her preserver, whofell half smothered on his knees. He rushed out into the air with hislight and precious burden, and as he pressed his lips to her closedeyelids his eyes were wet, and there rose up before him the image of thewoman 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 theburning house. 

He had recognized his daughter's preserver; it was the physicianNebsecht, 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 theshutter, the broad flames streamed out of the window, but still Nebsechtwas alive, for his groans could be heard through the smoke. Once moreKaschta rushed towards the window, the bystanders could see that theceiling of the room was about to fail, and called out to warn him, but hewas already astride the sill. 

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

He soon reappeared with Nebsecht in his arms, whose robe was alreadyscorched by the flames. He could be seen approaching the window with hisheavy burden; a hundred soldiers, and with them Pentaur, pressed forwardto 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 swinghimself over, the beams above gave way and fell, burying the brave son ofthe paraschites. 

Pentaur had his insensible friend carried to his tent, and helped thephysicians to bind up his burns. When the cry of fire had been firstraised, 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 ofone of the noblest families in the land. The foundations of life seemedto be subverted under his feet, Ameni's revelation lifted him out of thedust and set him on the marble floor of a palace; and yet Pentaur wasneither excessively surprised nor inordinately rejoiced; he was so wellused to find his joys and sufferings depend on the man within him, andnot 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 numberof soldiers who had hurried up from the camp, intending to venture anattempt to save Rameses from the inside of the house. Among those whofollowed him in this hopeless effort was Katuti's reckless son, who haddistinguished himself by his valor before Kadesh, and who hailed thisopportunity of again proving his courage. Falling walls choked up theway in front of these brave adventurers; but it was not till several hadfallen choked or struck down by burning logs, that they made up theirminds 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 inBent-Anat's lap, and Nefert tried to restore her to animation by rubbingher temples with strong essences. Presently the girl's lips moved: withreturning consciousness all she had seen and suffered during the lasthour or two recurred to her mind; she felt herself rushing through thecamp with her father, hurrying through the corridor to the princess'srooms, while he broke in the doors closed by Katuti's orders; she sawBent-Anat as she roused her, and conducted her to safety; she rememberedher horror when, just as she reached the door, she discovered that shehad left in her chest her jewel, the only relic of her lost mother, andher 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 oncemore had the trinket safe in her bosom, the horror that fell upon herwhen she found her escape impeded by smoke and flames, and the weaknesswhich overcame her; and she felt as if the strange white-robed priestonce more raised her in his arms. She remembered the tenderness of hiseyes as he looked into hers, and she smiled half gratefully but halfdispleased at the tender kiss which had been pressed on her lips beforeshe found herself in her father's strong arms. 

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

CHAPTER XLIV. 

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

Soon after she had slipped out for the purpose of setting fire to thepalace, Scherau's cry had waked up Nefert, and Katuti found herdaughter's bed empty when, with blackened hands and limbs trembling withagitation, 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 theRegent had returned, constantly brought back a negative answer, and addedthe information that he had found the body of old Hekt lying on the openground. The widow's heart sank with fear; she was full of darkforebodings while she listened to the shouts of the people engaged inputting out the fire, the roll of drums, and the trumpets of the soldierscalling each other to the help of the king. 

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

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, whodoes not deserve such a fate--if we had not fallen into disgrace, and ifsince the occurrences before Kadesh he did not cling to his indulgentlord as a calf follows a cow. "

She gathered fresh courage, and fancied she could hear the voice ofEthiopian troops hailing the Regent as king--could see Ani decoratedwith the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, seated on Rameses' throne, andherself by his side in rich though unpretending splendor. She picturedherself with her son and daughter as enjoying Mena's estate, freed fromdebt and increased by Ani's generosity, and then a new, intoxicating hopecame into her mind. Perhaps already at this moment her daughter was awidow, and why should she not be so fortunate as to induce Ani to selecther child, the prettiest woman in Thebes, for his wife? Then she, themother 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 somefuture time be bestowed upon her son, who had distinguished himself atKadesh, and whom Ani must before long promote to be his charioteer or thecommander of the chariot warriors. 

Flattered by these fancies, she forgot every care as she walked fasterand faster to and fro in her tent. Suddenly the steward, whom she hadthis time sent to the very scene of the fire, rushed into the tent, andwith every token of terror broke to her the news that the king and hischarioteer were hanging in mid air on a narrow wooden parapet, and thatunless some miracle happened they must inevitably be killed. It was saidthat incendiaries had occasioned the fire, and he, the steward, hadhastened forward to prepare her for evil news as the mangled body of thepioneer, which had been identified by the ring on his finger, and thepoor little corpse of Nemu, pierced through by an arrow, had been carriedpast 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 lettingthemselves down to the ground by a rope made of their garments knottedtogether, 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 stormyagitation, then for a moment she controlled herself, and again her heartseemed to cease beating--she closed her eyes as if her anguish of anxietywas too much for her strength. At last, long after sunrise, the stewardreappeared. 

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

"Alas! this night! prepare for the worst, mistress! May Isis comfortthee, who saw thy son fall in the service of his king and father! MayAmon, 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 didnot speak, then she asked in a dull tone:

"And Rameses?"

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

"And Ani?"

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

Katuti gazed into vacancy, and the steward started back as from a madwoman when, instead of bursting into tears, she clenched her smalljewelled hands, shook her fists in the air, and broke into loud, wildlaughter; then, startled at the sound of her own voice, she suddenlybecame silent and fixed her eyes vacantly on the ground. She neither sawnor heard that the captain of the watch, who was called "the eyes andears of the king, " had come in through the door of her tent followed byseveral officers and a scribe; he came up to her, and called her by hername. Not till the steward timidly touched her did she collect hersenses like one suddenly roused from deep sleep. 

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

"In the name of the chief judge of Thebes, " said the captain of the watchsolemnly. "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. Thenwith 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 whileshe arranged her black hair, set her diadem on her brow, opened herlittle ointment chest, and took from it a small phial of the rapid poisonstrychnine, which some months before she had procured through Nemu fromthe old witch Hekt. 

"My mirror!" she called to a maid servant, who squatted in a corner ofthe tent. She held the metal mirror so as to conceal her face from thecaptain of the watch, put the little flask to her lips and emptied it atone mouthful. The mirror fell from her hand, she staggered, a deadlyconvulsion seized her--the officer rushed forward, and while she fixedher 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 wasdead. 

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 itsome drop of bitterness. And yet we should not therefore disdain it, forit is that very drop of bitterness which warns us to drink of the joys oflife thankfully, and in moderation. 

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

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

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

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

He had thrown off all bitterness of feeling when he sent for Bent-Anatand Pentaur to be brought to his tent. He made his daughter relate atfull length how the poet had won her love, and though he frequentlyinterrupted her with blame as well as praise, his heart was full offatherly 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'sgrandson, but she would have clung not less fondly to Pentaur thegardener's son. 

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

The king then called Rameri forward from among his brothers, and thankedhim before them all for his brave conduct during the fire. He hadalready been invested with the robe of manhood after the battle ofKadesh; 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 bestowedon him for his bravery. The prince knelt, and thanked his father; butRameses took the curly head in his hands and said:

"You have won praise and reward by your splendid deeds from the fatherwhom you have saved and filled with pride. But the king watches over thelaws, and guides the destiny cf this land, the king must blame you, nayperhaps punish you. You could not yield to the discipline of school, where we all must learn to obey if we would afterwards exercise ourauthority with moderation, and without any orders you left Egypt andjoined the army. You showed the courage and strength of a man, but thefolly of a boy in all that regards prudence and foresight--things harderto learn for the son of a race of heroes than mere hitting and slashingat random; you, without experience, measured yourself against masters ofthe art of war, and what was the consequence? Twice you fell a prisonerinto 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 herejoices long since in the restoration of his child; but we, in losingher, lost the most powerful means of coercing the seafaring nations ofthe islands and northern coasts of the great sea who are constantlyincreasing in might and daring, and so diminished our chances of securinga solid and abiding peace. 

"Thus--through the careless wilfulness of a boy, the great work isendangered which I had hoped to have achieved. It grieves meparticularly to humiliate your spirit to-day, when I have had so muchreason to encourage you with praise. Nor will I punish you, onlywarn you and teach you. The mechanism of the state is like the workingof 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 strongthe beasts that labor to turn it. Each of you--bear this in mind--is amain-wheel in the great machine of the state, and can serve an end onlyby acting unresistingly in obedience to the motive power. Now rise! wemay 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 therepresentative of the Cheta king and the allied princes were inattendance in the council tent; Rameses put on the crown of Upper andLower Egypt and all his royal adornments; the chamberlain who carried theinsignia of his power, and his head scribe with his decoration of plumesmarched before him, while his sons, the commanders in chief, and theinterpreters followed him. Rameses took his seat on his throne withgreat dignity, and the sternest gravity marked his demeanor while hereceived the homage of the conquered and fettered kings. 

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

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

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

The captive prince preserved his dignified demeanor, which wasnevertheless free from insolence, when these words of the king wereinterpreted to him, and replied that he had come intending to procurepeace at any cost, but that he never could nor would grovel in the dustat any man's feet nor before any crown. He would depart on the followingday; 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 aprisoner but as a sister, and Praxilla now felt a wish, which he himselfshared, to bid farewell to the noble Mena, and his wife, and to thank himfor his magnanimous generosity. Would Rameses permit him once more tocross the Nile before his departure, and with his daughter to visit Menain his tent. 

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

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

Rameses was not perfectly satisfied. If the Danaids went away withoutconcluding a treaty with him, it was to be expected that the peace whichhe was so earnestly striving for would before long be again disturbed;and he nevertheless felt that, out of regard for the other conqueredprinces, he could not forego any jot of the humiliation which he hadrequired of their king, and which he believed to be due to himself--though he bad been greatly impressed by his dignified manliness andby 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 theking, came in great excitement up to the table where the princes weresitting and craved the king's permission to make an importantcommunication. Rameses signed consent; the charioteer went close up tohim, 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 whosaved you to-day, but who so nearly fell a victim to the flames, is ofnoble origin. "

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

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

CHAPTER XLV. 

Rameri had rushed off to summon the physicians, while Bent-Anat wasendeavoring to restore the rescued Uarda to consciousness, and hefollowed them into his sister's tent. He gazed with tender anxiety intothe face of the half suffocated girl, who, though uninjured, stillremained unconscious, and took her hand to press his lips to her slenderfingers, but Bent-Anat pushed him gently away; then in low tones thattrembled with emotion he implored her not to send him away, and told herhow dear the girl whose life he had saved in the fight in the Necropolishad become to him--how, since his departure for Syria, he had neverceased to think of her night and day, and that he desired to make her hiswife. 

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

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

"I know, " interrupted Bent-Anat. "Nebsecht has already told us that shewas a dumb woman, a prisoner of war, and I myself believe that she was ofno 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. "Hervoice 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 sunsonly rise again. "

Bent-Anat smiled, and drew her brother away from the heavily-breathinggirl, for a leech came into the tent to say that a warm medicated bathhad been prepared and was ready for Uarda. The princess ordered herwaiting-women to help lift the senseless girl, and was preparing tofollow her when a message from her father required her presence in histent. She could guess at the significance of this command, and desiredRameri to leave her that she might dress in festal garments; she couldentrust 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 hergood. Her heart is torn between sorrow for her lost relations, and joyat being united again to her love. My father has given Mena leave ofabsence from his office for several days, and I have excused her from herattendance on me, for the time during which we were so necessary to eachother really came to an end yesterday. I feel, Rameri, as if we, afterour escape, were like the sacred phoenix which comes to Heliopolis andburns 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 hermother and prayed long and earnestly; she poured an offering of sweetperfume on the little altar of the Goddess Hathor, which alwaysaccompanied her, had herself dressed in happy preparation for meeting herfather, and--she did not conceal it from herself--Pentaur, then she wentfor a moment to Nefert's tent to beg her to take good care of Uarda, andfinally obeyed the summons of the king, who, as we know, fulfilled herutmost hopes. 

As Rameri quitted his sister's tent he saw the watch seize and lead awaya little boy; the child cried bitterly, and the prince in a momentrecognized the little sculptor Scherau, who had betrayed the Regent'splot to him and to Uarda, and whom he had already fancied he had seenabout the place. The guards had driven him away several times from theprincess's tent, but he had persisted in returning, and this obstinatewaiting in the neighborhood had aroused the suspicions of an officer; forsince the fire a thousand rumors of conspiracies and plots against theking had been flying about the camp. Rameri at once freed the littleprisoner, 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 hehimself had helped to rouse the troops, that now he had no home andwished to go to Uarda. 

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

The leeches had treated Uarda with judgment, for under the influence ofthe bath she recovered her senses; when she had been dressed again infresh garments and refreshed by the essences and medicines which theygave 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 peculiarand touching beauty. 

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

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

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

"Kaschta was rough but, oh! so kind, " replied Uarda. "He was always sofond of me; he was like the fruit of the doom palm; its husk is hard andrough, but he who knows how to open it finds the sweet pulp within. Nowhe is dead, and my grandfather and grandmother are gone before him, and Iam like the green leaf that I saw floating on the waters when we werecrossing the sea; anything so forlorn I never saw, abandoned by all itbelonged to or had ever loved, the sport of a strange element in whichnothing resembling itself ever grew or ever can grow. "

Nefert kissed her forehead. "You have friends, " she said, "who willnever abandon you. "

"I know, I know!" said Uarda thoughtfully, "and yet I am alone--for thefirst time really alone. In Thebes I have often looked after the wildswans as they passed across the sky; one flies in front, then comes thebody of the wandering party, and very often, far behind, a solitarystraggler; and even this last one I do not call lonely, for he can stillsee his brethren in front of him. But when the hunters have shot downall the low-flying loiterers, and the last one has lost sight of theflock, and knows that he never again can find them or follow them he isindeed to be pitied. I am as unhappy as the abandoned bird, for I havelost sight to-day of all that I belong to, and I am alone, and can neverfind them again. "

"You will be welcomed into some more noble house than that to which youbelong by birth, " said Nefert, to comfort her. 

Uarda's eyes flashed, and she said proudly, almost defiantly:

"My race is that of my mother, who was a daughter of no mean house; thereason I turned back this morning and went into the smoke and fire againafter I had escaped once into the open air--what I went back for, becauseI felt it was worth dying for, was my mother's legacy, which I had putaway with my holiday dress when I followed the wretched Nemu to his tent. I threw myself into the jaws of death to save the jewel, but certainlynot because it is made of gold and precious stones--for I do not care tobe rich, and I want no better fare than a bit of bread and a few datesand a cup of water--but because it has a name on it in strangecharacters, and because I believe it will serve to discover the peoplefrom whom my mother was carried off; and now I have lost the jewel, andwith it my identity and my hopes and happiness. "

Uarda wept aloud; Nefert put her arm around her affectionately. 

"Poor child!" she said, "was your treasure destroyed in the flames?"

"No, no, " cried Uarda eagerly. "I snatched it out of my chest and heldit in my hand when Nebsecht took me in his arms, and I still had it in myhand when I was lying safe on the ground outside the burning house, andBent-Anat was close to me, and Rameri came up. I remember seeing him asif I were in a dream, and I revived a little, and I felt the jewel in myfingers then. "

"Then it was dropped on the way to the tent?" said Nefert. 

Uarda nodded; little Scherau, who had been crouching on the floor besideher, gave Uarda a loving glance, dimmed with tears, and quietly slippedout of the tent. 

Time went by in silence; Uarda sat looking at the ground, Nefert and Menaheld each other's hands, but the thoughts of all three were with thedead. A perfect stillness reigned, and the happiness of the reunitedcouple was darkly overshadowed by their sorrow. From time to time thesilence was broken by a trumpet-blast from the royal tent; first when theAsiatic princes were introduced into the Council-tent, then when theDanaid king departed, and lastly when the Pharaoh preceded the conqueredprinces to the banquet. 

The charioteer remembered how his master had restored him to dignity andhonor, for the sake of his faithful wife; and gratefully pressed herhand. 

Suddenly there was a noise in front of the tent, and an officer enteredto announce to Mena that the Danaid king and his daughter, accompanied bybody-guard, requested to see and speak with him and Nefert. 

The entrance to the tent was thrown wide open. Uarda retired modestlyinto the back-ground, and Mena and Nefert went forward hand in hand tomeet their unexpected guests. 

The Greek prince was an old man, his beard and thick hair were grey, buthis movements were youthful and light, though dignified and deliberate. His even, well-formed features were deeply furrowed, he had large, bright, clear blue eyes, but round his fine lips were lines of care. Close to him walked his daughter; her long white robe striped with purplewas held round her hips by a golden girdle, and her sunny yellow hairfell in waving locks over her neck and shoulders, while it was confinedby a diadem which encircled her head; she was of middle height, and hermotions were measured and calm like her father's. Her brow was narrow, and in one line with her straight nose, her rosy mouth was sweet andkind, and beyond everything beautiful were the lines of her oval face andthe turn of her snow-white throat. By their side stood the interpreterwho translated every word of the conversation on both sides. Behind themcame two men and two women, who carried gifts for Mena and his wife. 

The prince praised Mena's magnanimity in the warmest terms. 

"You have proved to me, " he said, "that the virtues of gratitude, ofconstancy, and of faith are practised by the Egyptians; although yourmerit certainly appears less to me now that I see your wife, for he whoowns the fairest may easily forego any taste for the fair. "

Nefert blushed. 

"Your generosity, " she answered, "does me more than justice at yourdaughter's expense, and love moved my husband to the same injustice, butyour beautiful daughter must forgive you and me also. "

Praxilla went towards her and expressed her thanks; then she offered herthe costly coronet, the golden clasps and strings of rare pearls whichher women carried; her father begged Mena to accept a coat of mail and ashield of fine silver work. The strangers were then led into the tent, and were there welcomed and entertained with all honor, and offered breadand wine. While Mena pledged her father, Praxilla related to Nefert, with the help of the interpreter, what hours of terror she had livedthrough after she had been taken prisoner by the Egyptians, and wasbrought into the camp with the other spoils of war; how an oldercommander had asserted his claim to her, how Mena had given her his hand, had led her to his tent, and had treated her like his own daughter. Hervoice shook with emotion, and even the interpreter was moved as sheconcluded her story with these words: "How grateful I am to him, you willfully understand when I tell you that the man who was to have been myhusband fell wounded before my eyes while defending our camp; but he hasrecovered, and now only awaits my return for our wedding. "

"May the Gods only grant it!" cried the king, "for Praxilla is the lastchild of my house. The murderous war robbed me of my four fair sonsbefore they had taken wives, my son-in-law was slain by the Egyptians atthe taking of our camp, and his wife and new-born son fell into theirhands, and Praxilla is my youngest child, the only one left to me by theenvious Gods. "

While he was still speaking, they heard the guards call out and a child'sloud cry, and at the same instant little Scherau rushed into the tentholding up his hand exclaiming. 

"I have it! I have found it!"

Uarda, who had remained behind the curtain which screened the sleepingroom of the tent--but who had listened with breathless attention to everyword of the foreigners, and who had never taken her eyes off the fairPraxilla--now came forward, emboldened by her agitation, into the midstof the tent, and took the jewel from the child's hand to show it to theGreek king; for while she stood gazing at Praxilla it seemed to her thatshe was looking at herself in a mirror, and the idea had rapidly grown toconviction that her mother had been a daughter of the Danaids. Her heartbeat violently as she went up to the king with a modest demeanor, herhead bent down, but holding her jewel up for him to see. 

The bystanders all gazed in astonishment at the veteran chief, for hestaggered as she came up to him, stretched out his hands as if in terrortowards the girl, and drew back crying out:

"Xanthe, Xanthe! Is your spirit freed from Hades? Are you come tosummon me?"

Praxilla looked at her father in alarm, but suddenly she, too, gave apiercing cry, snatched a chain from her neck, hurried towards Uarda, andseizing the jewel she held, exclaimed:

"Here is the other half of the ornament, it belonged to my poor sisterXanthe!"

The old Greek was a pathetic sight, he struggled hard to collect himself, looking with tender delight at Uarda, his sinewy hands trembled as hecompared the two pieces of the necklet; they matched precisely--eachrepresented the wing of an eagle which was attached to half an ovalcovered with an inscription; when they were laid together they formed thecomplete figure of a bird with out-spread wings, on whose breast thelines exactly matched of the following oracular verse:

 "Alone each is a trifling thing, a woman's useless toy But with its counterpart behold! the favorite bird of Zeus. "

A glance at the inscription convinced the king that he held in his handthe very jewel which he had put with his own hands round the neck of hisdaughter Xanthe on her marriage-day, and of which the other half had beenpreserved by her mother, from whom it had descended to Praxilla. It hadoriginally been made for his wife and her twin sister who had died young. Before he made any enquiries, or asked for any explanations, he tookUarda's head between his hands, and turning her face close to his hegazed at her features, as if he were reading a book in which he expectedto find a memorial of all the blissful hours of his youth, and the girlfelt no fear; nor did she shrink when he pressed his lips to herforehead, for she felt that this man's blood ran in her own veins. Atlast the king signed to the interpreter; Uarda was asked to tell all sheknew of her mother, and when she said that she had come a captive toThebes with an infant that had soon after died, that her father hadbought her and had loved her in spite of her being dumb, the prince'sconviction became certainty; he acknowledged Uarda as his grandchild, and Praxilla clasped her in her arms. 

Then he told Mena that it was now twenty years since his son-in-law hadbeen killed, and his daughter Xanthe, whom Uarda exactly resembled, hadbeen carried into captivity. Praxilla was then only just born, and hiswife died of the shock of such terrible news. All his enquiries forXanthe and her child had been fruitless, but he now remembered that once, when he had offered a large ransom for his daughter if she could befound, the Egyptians had enquired whether she were dumb, and that he hadanswered "no. " No doubt Xanthe had lost the power of speech throughgrief, terror, and suffering. 

The joy of the king was unspeakable, and Uarda was never tired of gazingat his daughter and holding her hand. 

Then she turned to the interpreter. 

"Tell me, " she said. "How do I say 'I am so very happy?'"

He told her, and she smilingly repeated his words. "Now 'Uarda will loveyou with all her heart?'" and she said it after him in broken accentsthat sounded so sweet and so heart-felt, that the old man clasped her tohis breast. 

Tears of emotion stood in Nefert's eyes, and when Uarda flung herselfinto her arms she said:

"The forlorn swan has found its kindred, the floating leaf has reachedthe shore, and must be happy now!" Thus passed an hour of the puresthappiness; at last the Greek king prepared to leave, and the wished totake Uarda with him; but Mena begged his permission to communicate allthat had occurred to the Pharaoh and Bent-Anat, for Uarda was attached tothe princess's train, and had been left in his charge, and he dared nottrust her in any other hands without Bent-Anat's permission. Withoutwaiting for the king's reply he left the tent, hastened to the banquetingtent, and, as we know, Rameses and the princess had at once attended tohis summons. 

On the way Mena gave them a vivid description of the exciting events thathad taken place, and Rameses, with a side glance at Bent-Anat, askedRameri:

"Would you be prepared to repair your errors, and to win the friendshipof the Greek king by being betrothed to his granddaughter?"

The prince could not answer a word, but he clasped his father's hand, andkissed it so warmly that Rameses, as he drew it away, said:

"I really believe that you have stolen a march on me, and have beenstudying diplomacy behind my back!"

Rameses met his noble opponent outside Mena's tent, and was about tooffer him his hand, but the Danaid chief had sunk on his knees before himas the other princes had done. 

"Regard me not as a king and a warrior, " he exclaimed, "only as asuppliant father; let us conclude a peace, and permit me to take thismaiden, my grandchild, home with me to my own country. "

Rameses raised the old man from the ground, gave him his hand, and saidkindly:

"I can only grant the half of what you ask. I, as king of Egypt, am mostwilling to grant you a faithful compact for a sound and lasting peace; asregards this maiden, you must treat with my children, first with mydaughter Bent-Anat, one of whose ladies she is, and then with yourreleased prisoner there, who wishes to make Uarda his wife. "

"I will resign my share in the matter to my brother, " said Bent-Anat, "and I only ask you, maiden, whether you are inclined to acknowledge himas your lord and master?"

Uarda bowed assent, and looked at her grandfather with an expressionwhich he understood without any interpreter. 

"I know you well, " he said, turning to Rameri. "We stood face to face inthe fight, and I took you prisoner as you fell stunned by a blow from mysword. You are still too rash, but that is a fault which time will amendin a youth of your heroic temper. Listen to me now, and you too, noblePharaoh, permit me these few words; let us betroth these two, and maytheir union be the bond of ours, but first grant me for a year to take mylong-lost child home with me that she may rejoice my old heart, and thatI may hear from her lips the accents of her mother, whom you took fromme. They are both young; according to the usages of our country, whereboth men and women ripen later than in your country, they are almost tooyoung for the solemn tie of marriage. But one thing above all willdetermine you to favor my wishes; this daughter of a royal house hasgrown up amid the humblest surroundings; here she has no home, no family-ties. The prince has wooed her, so to speak, on the highway, but if shenow comes with me he can enter the palace of kings as suitor to aprincess, and the marriage feast I will provide shall be a right royalone. "

"What you demand is just and wise, " replied Rameses. "Take your grand-child with you as my son's betrothed bride--my future daughter. Give meyour hands, my children. The delay will teach you patience, for Ramerimust remain a full year from to-day in Egypt, and it will be to yourprofit, sweet child, for the obedience which he will learn through histraining in the army will temper the nature of your future husband. You, Rameri, shall in a year from to-day--and I think you will not forget thedate--find at your service a ship in the harbor of Pelusium, fitted andmanned with Phoenicians, to convey you to your wedding. "

"So be it!" exclaimed the old man. "And by Zeus who hears me swear--Iwill not withhold Xanthe's daughter from your son when he comes to claimher!"

When Rameri returned to the princes' tent he threw himself on their necksin turn, and when he found himself alone with their surly old house-steward, he snatched his wig from his head, flung it in the air, and thencoaxingly stroked the worthy officer's cheeks as he set it on his headagain. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

Uarda accompanied her grandfather and Praxilla to their tent on thefarther side of the Nile, but she was to return next morning to theEgyptian camp to take leave of all her friends, and to provide for herfather's internment. Nor did she delay attending to the last wishes ofold Hekt, and Bent-Anat easily persuaded her father, when he learnt howgreatly he had been indebted to her, to have her embalmed like a lady ofrank. 

Before Uarda left the Egyptian camp, Pentaur came to entreat her toafford her dying preserver Nebsecht the last happiness of seeing her oncemore; Uarda acceded with a blush, and the poet, who had watched all nightby his friend, went forward to prepare him for her visit. 

Nebsecht's burns and a severe wound on his head caused him greatsuffering; his cheeks glowed with fever, and the physicians told Pentaurthat he probably could not live more than a few hours. 

The poet laid his cool hand on his friend's brow, and spoke to himencouragingly; but Nebsecht smiled at his words with the peculiarexpression of a man who knows that his end is near, and said in a lowvoice and with a visible effort:

"A few breaths more and here, and here, will be peace. " He laid his handon his head and on his heart. 

"We all attain to peace, " said Pentaur. "But perhaps only to labor moreearnestly and unweariedly in the land beyond the grave. If the Godsreward any thing it is the honest struggle, the earnest seeking aftertruth; if any spirit can be made one with the great Soul of the world itwill be yours, and if any eye may see the Godhead through the veil whichhere shrouds the mystery of His existence yours will have earned theprivilege. "

"I have pushed and pulled, " sighed Nebsecht, "with all my might, and nowwhen I thought I had caught a glimpse of the truth the heavy fist ofdeath comes down upon me and shuts my eyes. What good will it do me tosee with the eye of the Divinity or to share in his omniscience? It isnot seeing, it is seeking that is delightful--so delightful that I wouldwillingly set my life there against another life here for the sake ofit. " He was silent, for his strength failed, and Pentaur begged him tokeep quiet, and to occupy his mind in recalling all the hours of joywhich life had given him. 

"They have been few, " said the leech. "When my mother kissed me and gaveme dates, when I could work and observe in peace, when you opened my eyesto the beautiful world of poetry--that was good!"

And you have soothed the sufferings of many men, added Pentaur, "andnever caused pain to any one. "

Nebsecht shook his head. 

"I drove the old paraschites, " he muttered, "to madness and to death. "

He was silent for a long time, then he looked up eagerly and said: "Butnot intentionally--and not in vain! In Syria, at Megiddo I could workundisturbed; now I know what the organ is that thinks. The heart! Whatis the heart? A ram's heart or a man's heart, they serve the same end;they turn the wheel of animal life, they both beat quicker in terror orin joy, for we feel fear or pleasure just as animals do. But Thought, the divine power that flies to the infinite, and enables us to form andprove our opinions, has its seat here--Here in the brain, behind thebrow. "

He paused exhausted and overcome with pain. Pentaur thought he waswandering in his fever, and offered him a cooling drink while twophysicians walked round his bed singing litanies; then, as Nebsechtraised himself in bed with renewed energy, the poet said to him:

"The fairest memory of your life must surely be that of the sweet childwhose face, as you once confessed to me, first opened your soul to thesense of beauty, and whom with your own hands you snatched from death atthe cost of your own life. You know Uarda has found her own relativesand is happy, and she is very grateful to her preserver, and would liketo see him once more before she goes far away with her grandfather. "

The sick man hesitated before he answered softly:

"Let her come--but I will look at her from a distance. "

Pentaur went out and soon returned with Uarda, who remained standing withglowing cheeks and tears in her eyes at the door of the tent. The leechlooked at her a long time with an imploring and tender expression, thenhe said:

"Accept my thanks--and be happy. "

The girl would have gone up to him to take his hand, but he waved her offwith his right hand enveloped in wrappings. 

"Come no nearer, " he said, "but stay a moment longer. You have tears inyour eyes; are they for me or only for my pain?"

"For you, good noble man! my friend and my preserver!" said Uarda. "Foryou dear, poor Nebsecht!" The leech closed his eyes as she spoke thesewords with earnest feeling, but he looked up once more as she ceasedspeaking, and gazed at her with tender admiration; then he said softly:

"It is enough--now I can die. "

Uarda left the tent, Pentaur remained with him listening to his hoarseand difficult breathing; suddenly:

Nebsecht raised himself, and said: "Farewell, my friend, --my journey isbeginning, who knows whither?"

"Only not into vacancy, not to end in nothingness!" cried Pentaur warmly. 

The leech shook his head. "I have been something, " he said, "and beingsomething I cannot become nothing. Nature is a good economist, andutilizes the smallest trifle; she will use me too according to her need. She brings everything to its end and purpose in obedience to some ruleand measure, and will so deal with me after I am dead; there is no waste. Each thing results in being that which it is its function to become; ourwish or will is not asked--my head! when the pain is in my head I cannotthink--if only I could prove--could prove----"

The last words were less and less audible, his breath was choked, and ina few seconds Pentaur with deep regret closed his eyes. 

Pentaur, as he quitted the tent where the dead man lay, met the high-priest Ameni, who had gone to seek him by his friend's bed-side, and theyreturned together to gaze on the dead. Ameni, with much emotion, put upa few earnest prayers for the salvation of his soul, and then requestedPentaur to follow him without delay to his tent. On the way he preparedthe poet, with the polite delicacy which was peculiar to him, for ameeting which might be more painful than joyful to him, and must in anycase bring him many hours of anxiety and agitation. 

The judges in Thebes, who had been compelled to sentence the ladySetchem, as the mother of a traitor, to banishment to the mines had, without any demand on her part, granted leave to the noble and mostrespectable matron to go under an escort of guards to meet the king onhis return into Egypt, in order to petition for mercy for herself, butnot, as it was expressly added--for Paaker; and she had set out, but withthe secret resolution to obtain the king's grace not for herself but forher son. 

 [Agatharchides, in Diodorus III. 12, says that in many cases not only the criminal but his relations also were condemned to labor in the mines. In the convention signed between Rameses and the Cheta king it is expressly provided that the deserter restored to Egypt shall go unpunished, that no injury shall be done "to his house, his wife or his children, nor shall his mother be put to death. "]

Ameni had already left Thebes for the north when this sentence waspronounced, or he would have reversed it by declaring the true origin ofPaaker; for after he had given up his participation in the Regent'sconspiracy, he no longer had any motive for keeping old Hekt's secret. 

Setchem's journey was lengthened by a storm which wrecked the ship inwhich she was descending the Nile, and she did not reach Pelusium tillafter the king. The canal which formed the mouth of the Nile close tothis fortress and joined the river to the Mediterranean, was so over-crowded with the boats of the Regent and his followers, of theambassadors, nobles, citizens, and troops which had met from all parts ofthe country, that the lady's boat could find anchorage only at a greatdistance from the city, and accompanied by her faithful steward she hadsucceeded only a few hours before in speaking to the high-priest. 

Setchem was terribly changed; her eyes, which only a few months since hadkept an efficient watch over the wealthy Theban household, were now dimand weary, and although her figure had not grown thin it had lost itsdignity and energy, and seemed inert and feeble. Her lips, so ready fora wise or sprightly saying, were closely shut, and moved only in silentprayer or when some friend spoke to her of her unhappy son. His deed shewell knew was that of a reprobate, and she sought no excuse or defence;her mother's heart forgave it without any. Whenever she thought of him--and she thought of him incessantly all through the day and through hersleepless nights-her eyes overflowed with tears. 

Her boat had reached Pelusium just as the flames were breaking out in thepalace; the broad flare of light and the cries from the various vesselsin the harbor brought her on deck. She heard that the burning house wasthe pavilion erected by Ani for the king's residence; Rameses she wastold was in the utmost danger, and the fire had beyond a doubt been laidby traitors. 

As day broke and further news reached her, the names of her son and ofher sister came to her ear; she asked no questions--she would not hearthe truth--but she knew it all the same; as often as the word "traitor"caught her ear in her cabin, to which she had retreated, she felt as ifsome keen pain shot through her bewildered brain, and shuddered as iffrom a cold chill. 

All through that day she could neither eat nor drink, but lay with closedeyes on her couch, while her steward--who had soon learnt what a terribleshare his former master had taken in the incendiarism, and who now gaveup his lady's cause for lost--sought every where for the high-priestAmeni; but as he was among the persons nearest to the king it wasimpossible to see him that day, and it was not till the next morning thathe was able to speak with him. Ameni inspired the anxious and sorrowfulold retainer with, fresh courage, returned with him in his own chariot tothe harbor, and accompanied him to Setchem's boat to prepare her for thehappiness which awaited her after her terrible troubles. But he came toolate, the spirit of the poor lady was quite clouded, and she listened tohim without any interest while he strove to restore her to courage and torecall her wandering mind. She only interrupted him over and over againwith the questions: "Did he do it?" or "Is he alive?"

At last Ameni succeeded in persuading her to accompany him in her litterto his tent, where she would find her son. Pentaur was wonderfully likeher lost husband, and the priest, experienced in humanity, thought thatthe sight of him would rouse the dormant powers of her mind. When shehad arrived at his tent, he told her with kind precaution the wholehistory of the exchange of Paaker for Pentaur, and she followed the storywith attention but with indifference, as if she were hearing of theadventures of others who did not concern her. When Ameni enlarged on thegenius of the poet and on his perfect resemblance to his dead father shemuttered:

"I know--I know. You mean the speaker at the Feast of the Valley, " andthen although she had been told several times that Paaker had beenkilled, she asked again if her son was alive. 

Ameni decided at last to fetch Pentaur himself, When he came back with him, fully prepared to meet his heavily-strickenmother, the tent was empty. The high-priest's servants told him thatSetchem had persuaded the easily-moved old prophet Gagabu to conduct herto the place where the body of Paaker lay. Ameni was very much vexed, for he feared that Setchem was now lost indeed, and he desired the poetto follow him at once. 

The mortal remains of the pioneer had been laid in a tent not far fromthe scene of the fire; his body was covered with a cloth, but his paleface, which had not been injured in his fall, remained uncovered; by hisside knelt the unhappy mother. 

She paid no heed to Ameni when he spoke to her, and he laid his hand onher shoulder and said as he pointed to the body:

"This was the son of a gardener. You brought him up faithfully as if hewere your own; but your noble husband's true heir, the son you bore him, is Pentaur, to whom the Gods have given not only the form and featuresbut the noble qualities of his father. The dead man may be forgiven--forthe sake of your virtues; but your love is due to this nobler soul--thereal son of your husband, the poet of Egypt, the preserver of the king'slife. "

Setchem rose and went up to Pentaur, she smiled at him and stroked hisface and breast. 

"It is he, " she said. "May the Immortals bless him!"

Pentaur would have clasped her in his arms, but she pushed him away as ifshe feared to commit some breach of faith, and turning hastily to thebier she said softly:

Poor Paaker--poor, poor Paaker!"

"Mother, mother, do you not know your son?" cried Pentaur deeply moved. 

She turned to him again: "It is his voice, " she said. "It is he. "

She went up to Pentaur, clung to him, clasped her arm around his neck ashe bent over her, then kissing him fondly:

"The Gods will bless you!" she said once more. She tore herself from himand threw herself down by the body of Paaker, as if she had done him someinjustice and robbed him of his rights. 

Thus she remained, speechless and motionless, till they carried her backto her boat, there she lay down, and refused to take any nourishment;from time to time she whispered "Poor Paaker!" She no longer repelledPentaur, for she did not again recognize him, and before he left her shehad followed the rough-natured son of her adoption to the other world. 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

The king had left the camp, and had settled in the neighboring city ofRameses' Tanis, with the greater part of his army. The Hebrews, who weresettled in immense numbers in the province of Goshen, and whom Ani hadattached to his cause by remitting their task-work, were now driven tolabor at the palaces and fortifications which Rameses had begun to build. 

At Tanis, too, the treaty of peace was signed and was presented toRameses inscribed on a silver tablet by Tarthisebu, the representative ofthe Cheta king, in the name of his lord and master. 

Pentaur followed the king as soon as he had closed his mother's eyes, and accompanied her body to Heliopolis, there to have it embalmed; fromthence the mummy was to be sent to Thebes, and solemnly placed in thegrave of her ancestors. This duty of children towards their parents, andindeed all care for the dead, was regarded as so sacred by the Egyptians, that neither Pentaur nor Bent-Anat would have thought of being unitedbefore it was accomplished. 

On the 21st day of the month Tybi, of the 21st year of the reign ofRameses, the day on which the peace was signed, the poet returned toTanis, sad at heart, for the old gardener, whom he had regarded and lovedas his father, had died before his return home; the good old man had notlong survived the false intelligence of the death of the poet, whom hehad not only loved but reverenced as a superior being bestowed upon hishouse as a special grace from the Gods. 

It was not till seven months after the fire at Pelusium that Pentaur'smarriage with Bent-Anat was solemnized in the palace of the Pharaohs atThebes; but time and the sorrows he had suffered had only united theirhearts more closely. She felt that though he was the stronger she wasthe giver and the helper, and realized with delight that like the sun, which when it rises invites a thousand flowers to open and unfold, theglow of her presence raised the poet's oppressed soul to fresh life andbeauty. They had given each other up for lost through strife andsuffering, and now had found each other again; each knew how preciousthe other was. To make each other happy, and prove their affection, was now the aim of their lives, and as they each had proved that theyprized honor and right-doing above happiness their union was a truemarriage, ennobling and purifying their souls. She could share hisdeepest thoughts and his most difficult undertakings, and if their housewere filled with children she would know how to give him the fullestenjoyment of those small blessings which at the same time are thegreatest joys of life. 

Pentaur finding himself endowed by the king with superabundant wealth, gave up the inheritance of his fathers to his brother Horus, who wasraised to the rank of chief pioneer as a reward for his interposition atthe battle of Kadesh; Horus replaced the fallen cedar-trees which hadstood at the door of his house by masts of more moderate dimensions. 

The hapless Huni, under whose name Pentaur had been transferred to themines of Sinai, was released from the quarries of Chennu, and restored tohis children enriched by gifts from the poet. 

The Pharaoh fully recognized the splendid talents of his daughter'shusband; she to his latest days remained his favorite child, even afterhe had consolidated the peace by marrying the daughter of the Cheta king, and Pentaur became his most trusted adviser, and responsible for theweightiest affairs in the state. 

Rameses learned from the papers found in Ani's tent, and from otherevidence which was only too abundant, that the superior of the House ofSeti, and with him the greater part of the priesthood, had for a longtime been making common cause with the traitor; in the first instance hedetermined on the severest, nay bloodiest punishment, but he waspersuaded by Pentaur and by his son Chamus to assert and support theprinciples of his government by milder and yet thorough measures. Rameses desired to be a defender of religion--of the religion which couldcarry consolation into the life of the lowly and over-burdened, and givetheir existence a higher and fuller meaning--the religion which to him, as king, appeared the indispensable means of keeping the grandsignificance of human life ever present to his mind--sacred as theinheritance of his fathers, and useful as the school where the people, who needed leading, might learn to follow and obey. 

But nevertheless no one, not even the priests, the guardians of souls, could be permitted to resist the laws of which he was the bulwark, to which he himself was subject, and which enjoined obedience to hisauthority; and before be left Tanis he had given Ameni and his followersto understand that he alone was master in Egypt. 

The God Seth, who had been honored by the Semite races since the time ofthe Hyksos, and whom they called upon under the name of Baal, had fromthe earliest times never been allowed a temple on the Nile, as being theGod of the stranger; but Rameses--in spite of the bold remonstrances ofthe priestly party who called themselves the 'true believers'--raised amagnificent temple to this God in the city of Tanis to supply thereligious needs of the immigrant foreigners. In the same spirit oftoleration he would not allow the worship of strange Gods to beinterfered with, though on the other hand he was jealous in honoringthe Egyptian Gods with unexampled liberality. He caused temples to beerected in most of the great cities of the kingdom, he added to thetemple of Ptah at Memphis, and erected immense colossi in front of itspylons in memory of his deliverance from the fire. 

 [One of these is still in existence. It lies on the ground among the ruins of ancient Memphis. ]

In the Necropolis of Thebes he had a splendid edifice constructed-whichto this day delights the beholder by the symmetry of its proportions inmemory of the hour when he escaped death as by a miracle; on its pylon hecaused the battle of Kadesh to be represented in beautiful pictures inrelief, and there, as well as on the architrave of the great banqueting--hall, he had the history inscribed of the danger he had run when he stood"alone and no man with him!"

By his order Pentaur rewrote the song he had sung at Pelusium; it ispreserved in three temples, and, in fragments, on several papyrus-rollswhich can be made to complete each other. It was destined to become thenational epic--the Iliad of Egypt. 

Pentaur was commissioned to transfer the school of the House of Seti tothe new votive temple, which was called the House of Rameses, and arrangeit on a different plan, for the Pharaoh felt that it was requisite toform a new order of priests, and to accustom the ministers of the Gods tosubordinate their own designs to the laws of the country, and to thedecrees of their guardian and ruler, the king. Pentaur was made thesuperior of the new college, and its library, which was called "thehospital for the soul, " was without an equal; in this academy, which wasthe prototype of the later-formed museum and library of Alexandria, sagesand poets grew up whose works endured for thousands of years--andfragments of their writings have even come down to us. The most famousare the hymns of Anana, Pentaur's favorite disciple, and the tale of thetwo Brothers, composed by Gagabu, the grandson of the old Prophet. 

Ameni did not remain in Thebes. Rameses had been informed of the way inwhich he had turned the death of the ram to account, and the use he hadmade of the heart, as he had supposed it, of the sacred animal, and hetranslated him without depriving him of his dignity or revenues toMendes, the city of the holy rams in the Delta, where, as he observed notwithout satirical meaning, he would be particularly intimate with thesesacred beasts; in Mendes Ameni exerted great influence, and in spite ofmany differences of opinion which threatened to sever them, he andPentaur remained fast friends to the day of his death. 

In the first court of the House of Rameses there stands--now brokenacross the middle--the wonder of the traveller, the grandest colossus inEgypt, made of the hardest granite, and exceeding even the well-knownstatue of Memnon in the extent of its base. It represents Rameses theGreat. Little Scherau, whom Pentaur had educated to be a sculptor, executed it, as well as many other statues of the great sovereign ofEgypt. 

A year after the burning of the pavilion at Pelusium Rameri sailed to theland of the Danaids, was married to Uarda, and then remained in hiswife's native country, where, after the death of her grandfather, heruled over many islands of the Mediterranean and became the founder of agreat and famous race. Uarda's name was long held in tender remembranceby their subjects, for having grown up in misery she understood thesecret of alleviating sorrow and relieving want, and of doing good andgiving happiness without humiliating those she benefitted. 

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Drink of the joys of life thankfully, and in moderationIt is not seeing, it is seeking that is delightfulThe man within him, and not on the circumstances without