is the priest?” asked Ani with apparent calmness.
“A low-born man,” replied Nemu, “to whom a free education was given at the House of Seti, and who is well known as a verse-maker and interpreter of dreams. His name is Pentaur, and it certainly must be admitted that he is handsome and dignified. He is line for line the image of the pioneer Paaker’s late father. Didst thou ever see him, my lord?”
The Regent looked gloomily at the floor and nodded that he had. But Katuti cried out; “Fool that I am! the dwarf is right! I saw how she blushed when her brother told her how the boys had rebelled on his account against Ameni. It is Pentaur and none other!”
“Good!” said Ani, “we will see.”
With these words he took leave of Katuti, who, as he disappeared in the garden, muttered to herself: “He was wonderfully clear and decided to-day; but jealousy is already blinding him and will soon make him feel that he cannot get on without my sharp eyes.”
Nemu had slipped out after the Regent.
He called to him from behind a fig-tree, and hastily whispered, while he bowed with deep respect:
“My mother knows a great deal, most noble highness! The sacred Ibis97 wades through the fen when it goes in search of prey, and why shouldst thou not stoop to pick up gold out of the dust? I know how thou couldst speak with the old woman without being seen.”
“Speak,” said Ani.
“Throw her into prison for a day, hear what she has to say, and then release her—with gifts if she is of service to you—if not, with blows. But thou wilt learn something important from her that she obstinately refused to tell me even.”
“We will see!” replied the Regent. He threw a ring of gold to the dwarf and got into his chariot.
So large a crowd had collected in the vicinity of the palace, that Ani apprehended mischief, and ordered his charioteer to check the pace of the horses, and sent a few police-soldiers to the support of the out-runners; but good news seemed to await him, for at the gate of the castle he heard the unmistakable acclamations of the crowd, and in the palace court he found a messenger from the temple of Seti, commissioned by Ameni to communicate to him and to the people, the occurrence of a great miracle, in that the heart of the ram of Anion, that had been torn by wolves, had been found again within the breast of the dead prophet Rui.
Ani at once descended from his chariot, knelt down before all the people, who followed his example, lifted his arms to heaven, and praised the Gods in a loud voice. When, after some minutes, he rose and entered the palace, slaves came out and distributed bread to the crowd in Ameni’s name.
“The Regent has an open hand,” said a joiner to his neighbor; “only look how white the bread is. I will put it in my pocket and take it to the children.”
“Give me a bit!” cried a naked little scamp, snatching the cake of bread from the joiner’s hand and running away, slipping between the legs of the people as lithe as a snake.
“You crocodile’s brat!” cried his victim. “The insolence of boys gets worse and worse every day.”
“They are hungry,” said the woman apologetically. “Their fathers are gone to the war, and the mothers have nothing for their children but papyrus-pith and lotus-seeds.”
“I hope they enjoy it,” laughed the joiner. “Let us push to the left; there is a man with some more bread.”
“The Regent must rejoice greatly over the miracle,” said a shoemaker. “It is costing him something.”
“Nothing like it has happened for a long time,” said a basket-maker. “And he is particularly glad it should be precisely Rui’s body, which the sacred heart should have blessed. You ask why?—Hatasu is Ani’s ancestress, blockhead!”
“And Rui was prophet of the temple of Hatasu,” added the joiner.
“The priests over there are all hangers-on of the old royal house, that I know,” asserted a baker.
“That’s no secret!” cried the cobbler. “The old times were better than these too. The war upsets everything, and quite respectable people go barefoot because they cannot pay for shoe-leather. Rameses is a great warrior, and the son of Ra, but what can he do without the Gods; and they don’t seem to like to stay in Thebes any longer; else why should the heart of the sacred ram seek a new dwelling in the Necropolis, and in the breast of an adherent of the old—”
“Hold your tongue,” warned the basket-maker. “Here comes one of the watch.”
“I must go back to work,” said the baker. “I have my hands quite full for the feast to-morrow.”
“And I too,” said the shoemaker with a sigh, “for who would follow the king of the Gods through the Necropolis barefoot.”
“You must earn a good deal,” cried the basket-maker. “We should do better if we had better workmen,” replied the shoemaker, “but all the good hands are gone to the war. One has to put up with stupid youngsters. And as for the women! My wife must needs have a new gown for the procession, and bought necklets for the children. Of course we must honor the dead, and they repay it often by standing by us when we want it—but what I pay for sacrifices no one can tell. More than half of what I earn goes in them—”
“In the first grief of losing my poor wife,” said the baker, “I promised a small offering every new moon, and a greater one every year. The priests will not release us from our vows, and times get harder and harder. And my dead wife owes me a grudge, and is as thankless as she was is her lifetime; for when she appears to me in a dream she does not give me a good word, and often torments me.”
“She is now a glorified all-seeing spirit,” said the basket-maker’s wife, “and no doubt you were faithless to her. The glorified souls know all that happens, and that has happened on earth.”
The baker cleared his throat, having no answer ready; but the shoemaker exclaimed:
“By Anubis, the lord of the under-world, I hope I may die before my old woman! for if she finds out down there all I have done in this world, and if she may be changed into any shape she pleases, she will come to me every night, and nip me like a crab, and sit on me like a mountain.”
“And if you die first,” said the woman, “she will follow you afterwards to the under-world, and see through you there.”
“That will be less dangerous,” said the shoemaker laughing, “for then I shall be glorified too, and shall know all about her past life. That will not all be white paper either, and if she throws a shoe at me I will fling the last at her.”
“Come home,” said the basket-maker’s wife, pulling her husband away. “You are getting no good by hearing this talk.”
The bystanders laughed, and the baker exclaimed:
“It is high time I should be in the Necropolis before it gets dark, and see to the tables being laid for to-morrow’s festival. My trucks are close to the narrow entrance to the valley. Send your little ones to me, and I will give them something nice. Are you coming over with me?”
“My younger brother is gone over with the goods,” replied the shoemaker. “We have plenty to do still for the customers in Thebes, and here am I standing gossiping. Will the wonderful heart of the sacred ram be exhibited to-morrow do you know?”
“Of course—no doubt,” said the baker, “good-bye, there go my cases!”
CHAPTER XXVI.
Notwithstanding the advanced hour, hundreds of people were crossing over to the Necropolis at the same time as the baker. They were permitted to linger late on into the evening, under the inspection of the watch, because it