t is all arranged. I wish to
tell my father, too, of my trouble."

"What trouble?" Amuba asked in surprise. "You have told me nothing
about anything troubling you."

"Do you not understand, Amuba? I am in trouble because I struck the
crocodile; it is an impious action, and yet what could I do?"

Amuba repressed an inclination to smile.

"You could do nothing else, Chebron, for there was no time to mince
matters. He was going too fast for you to explain to him that he was
doing wrong in carrying off a girl, and you therefore took the only
means in your power of stopping him; besides, the blow you dealt him
did him no injury whatever. It was Jethro and the hunter who killed
him."

"But had I not delayed his flight they could not have done so."

"That is true enough, Chebron; but in that case he would have reached
the water with his burden and devoured her at his leisure. Unless you
think that his life is of much more importance than hers, I cannot see
that you have anything to reproach yourself with."

"You do not understand me, Amuba," Chebron said pettishly. "Of course
I do not think that the life of an ordinary animal is of as much
importance as that of a human being; but the crocodiles are sacred,
and misfortune falls upon those who injure them."

"Then in that case, Chebron, misfortune must fall very heavily on the
inhabitants of those districts where the crocodile is killed wherever
he is found. I have not heard that pestilence and famine visit those
parts of Egypt with more frequency than they do the districts where
the crocodile is venerated."

Chebron made no answer. What Amuba said was doubtless true; but upon
the other hand, he had always been taught that the crocodile was
sacred, and if so he could not account for the impunity with which
these creatures were destroyed in other parts of Egypt. It was another
of the puzzles that he so constantly met with. After a long pause he
replied:

"It may seem to be as you say; but you see, Amuba, there are some
gods specially worshiped in one district, others in another. In the
district that a god specially protects he would naturally be indignant
were the animals sacred to him to be slain, while he might pay no heed
to the doings in those parts in which he is little concerned."

"In that case, Chebron, you can clearly set your mind at rest. Let us
allow that it is wrong to kill a crocodile in the district in which he
is sacred and where a god is concerned a