began to lengthen and swell my grandmother said, 'Now your
heart will soon begin to bud and love.' I know now what she meant, and
both the first flowers belong to you--the red one here off the tree, and
the other, which you cannot see, but which glows as brightly as this
does."

Rameri pressed the scarlet blossom to his lips, and stretched out his
hand toward Uarda; but she shrank back, for a little figure slipped
through an opening in the hedge.

It was Scherau.

His pretty little face glowed with his quick run, and his breath was
gone. For a few minutes he tried in vain for words, and looked anxiously
at the prince.

Uarda saw that something unusual agitated him; she spoke to him kindly,
saying that if he wished to speak to her alone he need not be afraid of
Rameri, for he was her best friend.

"But it does not concern you and me," replied the child, "but the good,
holy father Pentaur, who was so kind to me, and who saved your life."

"I am a great friend of Pentaur," said the prince. "Is it not true,
Uarda? He may speak with confidence before me."

"I may?" said Scherau, "that is well. I have slipped away; Hekt may come
back at any moment, and if she sees that I have taken myself off I shall
get a beating and nothing to eat."

"Who is this horrible Hekt?" asked Rameri indignantly.

"That Uarda can tell you by and by," said the little one hurriedly. "Now
only listen. She laid me on my board in the cave, and threw a sack over
me, and first came Nemu, and then another man, whom she spoke to as
Steward. She talked to him a long time. At first I did not listen, but
then I caught the name of Pentaur, and I got my head out, and now I
understand it all. The steward declared that the good Pentaur was wicked,
and stood in his way, and he said that Ameni was going to send him to the
quarries at Chennu, but that that was much too small a punishment. Then
Hekt advised him to give a secret commission to the captain of the ship
to go beyond Chennu, to the frightful mountain-mines, of which she has
often told me, for her father and her brother were tormented to death
there."

"None ever return from thence," said the prince. "But go on."

"What came next, I only half understood, but they spoke of some drink
that makes people mad. Oh! what I see and hear!--I would he contentedly
on my board all my life long, but all else is too horrible--I wish that I
were dead."

And the child began to cry bitterly.

Uarda, whose ch