out: "Hail to the gracious daughter of the Sun!"--to
hear the joyful exclamations of the crowd of women--to see the gorgeous
apparition leave the hut of the despised people, and then to see, instead
of the lovely sick child who still breathed audibly, a silent corpse on
the crumpled mat, and in the place of the two tender nurses at her head
and feet, two heart-broken, loud-lamenting wretches.

Pentaur's hot spirit was full of wrath. As soon as the noisy cortege
appeared actually in sight he would place himself in the doorway, forbid
the princess to enter, and receive her with strong words.

She could hardly come hither out of human kindness.

"She wants variety," said he to himself, "something new at Court; for
there is little going on there now the king tarries with the troops in a
distant country; it tickles the vanity of the great to find themselves
once in a while in contact with the small, and it is well to have your
goodness of heart spoken of by the people. If a little misfortune
opportunely happens, it is not worth the trouble to inquire whether the
form of our benevolence does more good or mischief to such wretched
people."

He ground his teeth angrily, and thought no more of the defilement which
might threaten Bent-Anat from the paraschites, but exclusively, on the
contrary, of the impending desecration by the princess of the holy
feelings astir in this silent room.

Excited as he was to fanaticism, his condemning lips could not fail to
find vigorous and impressive words.

He stood drawn to his full height and drawing his breath deeply, like a
spirit of light who holds his weapon raised to annihilate a demon of
darkness, and he looked out into the valley to perceive from afar the cry
of the runners and the rattle of the wheels of the gay train he expected.

And he saw the doorway darkened by a lowly, bending figure, who, with
folded arms, glided into the room and sank down silently by the side of
the sick girl. The physicians and the old people moved as if to rise; but
she signed to them without opening her lips, and with moist, expressive
eyes, to keep their places; she looked long and lovingly in the face of
the wounded girl, stroked her white arm, and turning to the old woman
softly whispered to her

"How pretty she is!"

The paraschites' wife nodded assent, and the girl smiled and moved her
lips as though she had caught the words and wished to speak.

Bent-Anat took a rose from her hair and lai