ater
with discordant cries and flapping of wings as the presence of the
young men disturbed the solitude. The sedge was wind-mown, and there
were numberless prints of bird claws, but no mark of boat-keel or human
foot. The place should have been a favorite haunt of fowlers, but it
was lonely and overshadowed with a sense of absolute desertion.

"But," Hotep began suddenly, "thou hast spoken of offense and pardon,
and now thou boastest that Athor abetted thee."

"Why is this called the Marsh of the Discontented Soul?"

The scribe smiled patiently. "Of a truth, dost thou not know?"

"As the immortals hear me, I do not. I have never asked and the
chronicles do not speak of it."

"Nay; the story is four hundred years old, and the chroniclers do not
tell it because it is out of the scope of history, I doubt not. But it
has become tradition throughout Egypt to shun the spot, though few know
why they must. A curse is laid upon the place. An unfaithful wife
whom the priests denied repose with her ancestors is entombed yonder."
He pointed toward an angle between an outstanding buttress and the
limestone wall. "Her soul haunts him who comes here with the plea that
her mummy be removed to On, where she dwelt in life, and laid with the
respected dead, in the necropolis."

Kenkenes shrugged his shoulders. "I trust the unhappy soul will not
trouble us. We came here by way of misadventure--not to disturb her.
But how came it they did not entomb her nearer On?"

"She betrayed one great man and tempted another. She offended against
the lofty. Therefore, her punishment was the more heavy--her isolation
in death like to banishment in life."

"So; if she had slighted a paraschite and tempted a beer brewer, her
fate would have been less harsh. O, the justness of justice!"

The morning was well advanced when they reached the niche on the
hillside--Hotep, wondering; Kenkenes, silent and expectant.

The sculptor led the way into the presence of Athor, and stepped aside.
The scribe halted and gazed without sound or movement--petrified with
amazement.

Before him, in hue and quiescence was a statue in stone--in all other
respects, a human being. The figure was of white magnesium limestone,
and stood upon rock yet unhewn.

The ritual had been trampled into the dust.

The eye of the most unlearned Egyptian could detect the sacrilege at a
single glance.

It was the image of a girl, draped in an overlong robe, fastened