ned.

The old man tried with still more loud and crazy laughter to reach and
seize the heart, but the crowd kept him back; and while the last groups
passed on after the priests, he contrived to slip back as far as the door
of his hovel, though much damaged and hurt.

There he fell, and Uarda rushed out and threw herself over the old man,
who lay on the earth, scarcely recognizable in the dust and darkness.

"Crush the scoffer!"

"Tear him in pieces!"

"Burn down the foul den!"

"Throw him and the wench into the fire!" shouted the people who had been
disturbed in their devotions, with wild fury.

Two old women snatched the lanterns froth the posts, and flung them at
the unfortunate creatures, while an Ethiopian soldier seized Uarda by the
hair, and tore her away from her grandfather.

At this moment Pinem's wife appeared, and with her Pentaur. She had found
not Nebsecht, but Pentaur, who had returned to the temple after his
speech. She had told him of the demon who had fallen upon her husband,
and implored him to come with her. Pentaur immediately followed her in
his working dress, just as he was, without putting on the white priest's
robe, which he did not wish to wear on this expedition.

When they drew near to the paraschites' hovel, he perceived the tumult
among the people, and, loud above all the noise, heard Uarda's shrill cry
of terror. He hurried forward, and in the dull light of the scattered
fire-brands and colored lanterns, he saw the black hand of the soldier
clutching the hair of the helpless child; quick as thought he gripped the
soldier's throat with his iron fingers, seized him round the body, swung
him in the air, and flung him like a block of stone right into the little
yard of the hut.

The people threw themselves on the champion in a frenzy of rage, but he
felt a sudden warlike impulse surging up in him, which he had never felt
before. With one wrench he pulled out the heavy wooden pole, which
supported the awning which the old paraschites had put up for his sick
grandchild; he swung it round his head, as if it were a reed, driving
back the crowd, while he called to Uarda to keep close to him.

"He who touches the child is a dead man!" he cried. "Shame on
you!--falling on a feeble old man and a helpless child in the middle of a
holy festival!"

For a moment the crowd was silent, but immediately after rushed forward
with fresh impetus, and wilder than ever rose the shouts of:

"Tear him