he voices of the choir-boys.

"I will examine the silly fellows at once. Rameri--Rameses' son--was
among the young miscreants?"

"He seems to have been the ring-leader," answered Septah.

Ameni looked at the old man with a significant smile, and said:

"The royal family are covering themselves with honor! His eldest daughter
must be kept far from the temple and the gathering of the pious, as being
unclean and refractory, and we shall be obliged to expel his son too from
our college. You look horrified, but I say to you that the time for
action is come. More of this, this evening. Now, one question: Has the
news of the death of the ram of Anion reached you? Yes? Rameses himself
presented him to the God, and they gave it his name. A bad omen."

"And Apis too is dead!" The haruspex threw up his arms in lamentation.

"His Divine spirit has returned to God," replied Ameni. "Now we have much
to do. Before all things we must prove ourselves equal to those in Thebes
over there, and win the people over to our side. The panegyric prepared
by us for to-morrow must offer some great novelty. The Regent Ani grants
us a rich contribution, and--"

"And," interrupted Septah, "our thaumaturgists understand things very
differently from those of the house of Anion, who feast while we
practise."

Ameni nodded assent, and said with a smile: "Also we are more
indispensable than they to the people. They show them the path of life,
but we smooth the way of death. It is easier to find the way without a
guide in the day-light than in the dark. We are more than a match for the
priests of Anion."

"So long as you are our leader, certainly," cried the haruspex.

"And so long as the temple has no lack of men of your temper!" added
Ameni, half to Septah, and half to the second prophet of the temple,
sturdy old Gagabu, who had come into the room.

Both accompanied him into the garden, where the two priests were awaiting
him with the miraculous heart.

Ameni greeted the priest from the temple of Anion with dignified
friendliness, the head kolchytes with distant reserve, listened to their
story, looked at the heart which lay in the box, with Septah and Gagabu,
touched it delicately with the tips of his fingers, carefully examining
the object, which diffused a strong perfume of spices; then he said
earnestly:

"If this, in your opinion, kolchytes, is not a human heart, and if in
yours, my brother of the temple of Anion, it is a ram's heart,