the deity. The population had joined them,
for the shrill lamentations of women and wild cries of despair, such as
he had never heard before in all his long life within these sacred walls,
blended in the solemn litany.

Or were his senses playing him false? Was the groaning throng of restless
spirits which his grandson had pointed out to him from the observatory,
pouring into the sanctuary of the gods?

New horror seized upon him; with arms flung upward to bid the specters
avaunt he muttered the exorcism against the wiles of evil spirits. But he
soon let his hands fall again; for among the throng he noted some of his
friends who yesterday, at least, had still walked among living men.
First, the tall form of the second prophet of the god, then the women
consecrated to the service of Amon-Ra, the singers and the holy fathers
and, when he perceived behind the singers, astrologers, and pastophori
his own brother-in-law, whose house had yesterday been spared by the
plague, he summoned fresh courage and spoke to him. But his voice was
smothered by the shouts of the advancing multitude.

The courtyard was now lighted, but each individual was so engrossed by
his own sorrows that no one noticed the old astrologer. Tearing the cloak
from his shivering limbs to make a pillow for the lad's tossing head, he
heard, while tending him with fatherly affection, fierce imprecations on
the Hebrews who had brought this woe on Pharaoh and his people, mingling
with the chants and shouts of the approaching crowd and, recurring again
and again, the name of Prince Rameses, the heir to the throne, while the
tone in which it was uttered, the formulas of lamentation associated with
it, announced the tidings that the eyes of the monarch's first-born son
were closed in death.

The astrologer gazed at his grandson's wan features with increasing
anxiety, and even while the wailing for the prince rose louder and louder
a slight touch of gratification stirred his soul at the thought of the
impartial justice Death metes out alike to the sovereign on his throne
and the beggar by the roadside. He now realized what had brought the
noisy multitude to the temple!

With as much swiftness as his aged limbs would permit, he hastened
forward to meet the mourners; but ere he reached them he saw the
gate-keeper and his wife come out of their house, carrying between them
on a mat the dead body of a boy. The husband held one end, his fragile
little wife the other