is deed of Mena's, which must certainly be quite
excusable if you can smile when you speak of it," said the princess, "for
it was the cause of his wife's coming to me. Her mother blamed her
husband with bitter severity, but she would not cease to believe in him,
and left her house because it was impossible for her to endure to hear
him blamed."

"Is this the fact?" asked Rameses.

Nefert bowed her pretty head, and two tears ran down her blushing cheeks.

"How good a man must be," cried the king, "on whom the Gods bestow such
happiness! My lord Chamberlain, inform Mena that I require his services
at dinner to-day--as before the battle at Kadesh. He flung away the reins
in the fight when he saw his enemy, and we shall see if he can keep from
flinging down the beaker when, with his own eyes, he sees his beloved
wife sitting at the table.--You ladies will join me at the banquet."

Nefert sank on her knees before the king; but he turned from her to speak
to the nobles and officers who had come to meet him, and then proceeded
to the temple to assist at the slaughter of the victims, and to solemnly
renew his vow in the presence of the priests and the people, to erect a
magnificent temple in Thebes as a thank-offering for his preservation
from death. He was received with rapturous enthusiasm; his road led to
the harbor, past the tents in which lay the wounded, who had been brought
home to Egypt by ship, and he greeted them graciously from his chariot.

Ani again acted as his charioteer; they drove slowly through the long
ranks of invalids and convalescents, but suddenly Ani gave the reins an
involuntary pull, the horses reared, and it was with difficulty that he
soothed them to a steady pace again.

Rameses looked round in anxious surprise, for at the moment when the
horses had started, he too had felt an agitating thrill--he thought he
had caught sight of his preserver at Kadesh.

Had the sight of a God struck terror into the horses? Was he the victim
of a delusion? or was his preserver a man of flesh and blood, who had
come home from the battle-field among the wounded!

The man who stood by his side, and held the reins, could have informed
him, for Ani had recognized Pentaur, and in his horror had given the
reins a perilous jerk.

CHAPTER XLI.

The king did not return to the great pavilion till after sun-down; the
banqueting hall, illuminated with a thousand lamps, was now filled with
the gay crowd of guests