temple of her age whose birth was noble.

Once when he came back from his school in the evening Rames asked her
if she had not been lonely without him. She answered, No, as she had
another companion.

"Who is it?" he asked jealously. "Show me and I will fight him."

"No one that you can see, Rames," she replied. "Only my own Ka."

"Your Ka! I have heard of Kas, but I never saw one. What is it like?"

"Just like me, except that it throws no shadow, and only comes when I
am quite by myself, and then, although I hear it often, I see it rarely,
for it is mixed up with the light."

"I don't believe in Kas," exclaimed Rames scornfully, "you make them up
out of your head."

A little while after this talk something happened that caused Rames to
change his mind about Kas, or at any rate the Ka of Tua. In a hidden
court of the temple was a deep pool of water with cemented sides, where,
it was said, lived a sacred crocodile, an enormous beast that had
dwelt there for hundreds of years. Rames and Tua having heard of this
crocodile, often talked of it and longed to see it, but could not for
there was a high wall round the tank, and in it a door of copper that
was kept locked, except when once in every eight days the priests took
in food to the crocodile--living goats and sheep, and sometimes a calf,
none of which ever came back again.

Now one day Rames watching them return, saw the priest, who was called
Guardian of the Door, put his hand behind him to thrust the key with
which he had just locked the door, into his wallet, and missing the
mouth of the wallet, let it fall upon the sand, then go upon his way
knowing nothing of what he had done.

When he had gone in a great hurry, for he was a fat old priest and the
dinner hour was at hand, Rames pounced upon the key and hid it in his
robe. Then he sought out the princess and said,

"Morning Star, this evening, when I come back from school and am allowed
to play with you, we can look at the wonderful beast in the tank, for
look, I have the key which that fat priest will not search for till
seven days are gone by, before which I can take it to him, saying that I
found it in the sand, or perhaps put it back into his wallet."

When she heard this Tua's eyes shone, since above all things she desired
to see this holy monster. But in the evening when the boy came running
to her eagerly--for he had thought of nothing but the crocodile all
day, and had bought a pigeon from a schoo