ck the sound of the wheels, which sounded like low thunder through the
vast halls, in the midst of the night silence. The hideous old woman,
clinging with her bony fingers to the rim of the chariot by the side of
the godlike Pharaoh, presented a strange sight, which fortunately was
seen by none but the stars twinkling in the deep blue heavens. She
resembled one of the evil genii of mysterious face which accompany the
guilty souls to Hades.

"Is this the way?" said the Pharaoh to the woman at the forks of a
street.

"Yes," replied Thamar, stretching her withered hand in the right
direction.

The horses, urged on by the whip, sprang forward, and the chariot leaped
upon the stones with a noise of brass.

Meanwhile Tahoser slept by the side of Ra'hel. A strange dream filled
her sleep. She seemed to be in a temple of immense size. Huge columns of
prodigious height upbore the blue ceiling studded with stars like the
heavens; innumerable lines of hieroglyphs ascended and descended along
the walls between the panels of symbolic frescoes painted in bright
colours. All the gods of Egypt had met in this universal sanctuary, not
as brass, basalt, or porphyry effigies, but as living shapes. In the
first rank were seated the gods Knef, Buto, Phtah, Pan-Mendes, Hathor,
Phre, Isis; then came the twelve celestial gods,--six male gods:
Rempha, Pi-Zeous, Ertosi, Pi-Hermes, Imuthi; and six female deities:
the Moon, Ether, Fire, Air, Water, Earth. Behind these swarmed vaguely
and indistinctly three hundred and sixty-five Decans, the familiar
daemons of each day. Next appeared the terrestrial deities: the second
Osiris, Haroeri, Typhon, the second Isis, Nephthys, the dog-headed
Anubis, Thoth, Busiris, Bubastis, the great Serapis. Beyond, in the
shade, were faintly seen idols in form of animals,--oxen, crocodiles,
ibises, hippopotami. In the centre of the temple, in his open
mummy-case, lay the high-priest Petamounoph, who, the bandages having
been unwound from his face, gazed with an ironical air at that strange
and mysterious assembly. He was dead, not living, and spoke, as it often
happens in dreams; and he said to his daughter, "Question them and ask
them if they are gods."

And Tahoser proceeded to put to each one that question, and each and all
replied: "We are only numbers, laws, forces, attributes, effluvia, and
thoughts of God, but not one of us is the true God."

Then Poeri appeared on the threshold of the temple, and took Ta