gone through a great
deal today too."

"Where were you so long?" asked Bent-Anat. "My uncle Ani commanded that
you should not leave the palace."

"I shall be eighteen years old next month," said the prince, "and need no
tutor."

"But your father--" said Bent-Anat.

"My father"--interrupted the boy, "he little knows the Regent. But I
shall write to him what I have today heard said by different people. They
were to have sworn allegiance to Ani at that very feast in the valley,
and it is quite openly said that Ani is aiming at the throne, and intends
to depose the king. You are right, it is madness--but there must be
something behind it all."

Nefert turned pale, and Bent-Anat asked for particulars. The prince
repeated all he had gathered, and added laughing: "Ani depose my father!
It is as if I tried to snatch the star of Isis from the sky to light the
lamps--which are much wanted here."

"It is more comfortable in the dark," said Nefert. "No, let us have
lights," said Bent-Anat. "It is better to talk when we can see each other
face to face. I have no belief in the foolish talk of the people; but you
are right--we must bring it to my fathers knowledge."

"I heard the wildest gossip in the City of the Dead," said Rameri.

"You ventured over there? How very wrong!"

"I disguised myself a little, and I have good news for you. Pretty Uarda
is much better. She received your present, and they have a house of their
own again. Close to the one that was burnt down, there was a tumbled-down
hovel, which her father soon put together again; he is a bearded soldier,
who is as much like her as a hedgehog is like a white dove. I offered her
to work in the palace for you with the other girls, for good wages, but
she would not; for she has to wait on her sick grandmother, and she is
proud, and will not serve any one."

"It seems you were a long time with the paraschites' people," said
Bent-Anat reprovingly. "I should have thought that what has happened to
me might have served you as a warning."

"I will not be better than you!" cried the boy. "Besides, the paraschites
is dead, and Uarda's father is a respectable soldier, who can defile no
one. I kept a long way from the old woman. To-morrow I am going again. I
promised her."

"Promised who?" asked his sister.

"Who but Uarda? She loves flowers, and since the rose which you gave her
she has not seen one. I have ordered the gardener to cut me a basket full
of roses to-morro