composed the view, looking as if they were formed of
angular masses of hewn stone piled up in rows; and of all the miners one,
and one only, had eyes for these curious structures of the ever-various
hand of Nature.

This one had broader shoulders than his companions, and his burden
Weighed on him comparatively lightly. "In this solitude," thought he,
"which repels man, and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu, the
laborers who form the world, have spared themselves the trouble of
filling up the seams, and rounding off the corners. How is it that Man
should have dedicated this hideous land--in which even the human heart
seems to be hardened against all pity--to the merciful Hathor? Perhaps
because it so sorely stands in need of the joy and peace which the loving
goddess alone can bestow."

"Keep the line, Huni!" shouted a driver.

The man thus addressed, closed up to the next man, the panting leech
Nebsecht. We know the other stronger prisoner. It is Pentaur, who had
been entered as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by
that name. The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged.
Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of
man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost
perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. Here another gorge opened
before them, and this time there seemed to be no outlet.

"Load the asses less!" cried the captain of the escort to the prisoners.
Then he turned to the soldiers, and ordered them, when the beasts were
eased, to put the extra burthens on the men. Putting forth their utmost
strength, the overloaded men labored up the steep and hardly
distinguishable mountain path.

The man in front of Pentaur, a lean old man, when half way up the
hill-side, fell in a heap under his load, and a driver, who in a narrow
defile could not reach the bearers, threw a stone at him to urge him to a
renewed effort.

The old man cried out at the blow, and at the cry--the paraschites
stricken down with stones--his own struggle with the mob--and the
appearance of Bent Anat flashed into Pentaur's memory. Pity and a sense
of his own healthy vigor prompted him to energy; he hastily snatched the
sack from the shoulders of the old man, threw it over his own, helped up
the fallen wretch, and finally men and beasts succeeded in mounting the
rocky wall.

The pulses throbbed in Pentaur's temples, and he shuddered with horror,
as he