ing rightly, those are the
worst contemners of every supersensual manifestation."

"And the students of nature in the Museum?" asked Krates. "They believe
nothing to be real that they cannot see and observe."

"And for that very reason," replied the high-priest, "they are often
singularly easy to deceive by your skill, since, seeing an effect without
a cause, they are inclined to regard the invisible cause as something
supersensual. Now, open the door again and let us get out by the side
door; do you, this time, undertake the task of cooperating with Serapis
yourself. Consider that Philometor will not confirm the donation of the
land unless he quits the temple deeply penetrated by the greatness of our
god. Would it be possible, do you think, to have the new censer ready in
time for the birthday of King Euergetes, which is to be solemnly kept at
Memphis?"

"We will see," replied Krates, "I must first put together the lock of the
great door of the tomb of Apis, for so long as I have it in my workshop
any one can open it who sticks a nail into the hole above the bar, and
any one can shut it inside who pushes the iron bolt. Send to call me
before the performance with the lights begins; I will come in spite of my
wretched feet. As I have undertaken the thing I will carry it out, but
for no other reason, for it is my opinion that even without such means of
deception--"

"We use no deception," interrupted the high-priest, sternly rebuking his
colleague. "We only present to short-sighted mortals the creative power
of the divinity in a form perceptible and intelligible to their senses."

With these words the tall priest turned his back on the smith and quitted
the hall by a side door; Krates opened the brazen door, and as he
gathered together his tools he said to himself, but loud enough for Klea
to hear him distinctly in her hiding-place:

"It may be right for me, but deceit is deceit, whether a god deceives a
king or a child deceives a beggar."

"Deceit is deceit," repeated Klea after the smith when he had left the
hall and she had emerged from her corner.

She stood still for a moment and looked round her. For the first time she
observed the shabby colors on the walls, the damage the pillars had
sustained in the course of years, and the loose slabs in the pavement.

The sweetness of the incense sickened her, and as she passed by an old
man who threw up his arms in fervent supplication, she looked at him with
a glanc