nd thus their conference begins: "O Nu, thou the eldest of
the gods, from whom I took my being, and ye the ancestor-gods, behold!
men who are the emanation of mine eye have taken counsel together
against me! Tell me what ye would do, for I have bidden you here before
I slay them, that I may hear what ye would say thereto." Nu, as the
eldest, has the right to speak first, and demands that the guilty shall
be brought to judgment and formally condemned. "My son Ra, god greater
than the god who made him, older than the gods who created him, sit thou
upon thy throne, and great shall be the terror when thine eye shall
rest upon those who plot together against thee!" But Ra not unreasonably
fears that when men see the solemn pomp of royal justice, they may
suspect the fate that awaits them, and "flee into the desert, their
hearts terrified at that which I have to say to them." The desert was
even then hostile to the tutelary gods of Egypt, and offered an almost
inviolable asylum to their enemies. The conclave admits that the
apprehensions of Ra are well founded, and pronounces in favour of
summary execution; the Divine Eye is to be the executioner. "Let it go
forth that it may smite those who have devised evil against thee, for
there is no Eye more to be feared than thine when it attacketh in the
form of Hathor." So the Eye takes the form of Hathor, suddenly falls
upon men, and slays them right and left with great strokes of the knife.
After some hours, Ra, who would chasten but not destroy his children,
commands her to cease from her carnage; but the goddess has tasted
blood, and refuses to obey him. "By thy life," she replies, "when I
slaughter men then is my heart right joyful!"

[Illustration: 236.jpg SOKHIT, THE LIONESS-HEADED. 1]

1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a bronze statuette of the
Saite period in the Gizeh Museum (Mariette, _Album
photographique du Musee de Boulaq_, pl. 6).

That is why she was afterwards called Sokhit the slayer, and represented
under the form of a fierce lioness. Nightfall stayed her course in the
neighbourhood of Heracleopolis; all the way from Heliopolis she had
trampled through blood. As soon as she had fallen asleep, Ra hastily
took effectual measures to prevent her from beginning her work again on
the morrow. "He said: 'Call on my behalf messengers agile and swift,
who go like the wind.' When these messengers were straightway brought
to him, the Majesty of the god said: 'Let