your griefs by gazing on a lifeless face.

"During the last month you have fortunately had so much to distract
your thoughts that you have not had time to dwell upon your loss.
Moreover, you have needed all your strength and your energy for your
search for your sister, and right sure am I that your father, who was
as sensible as he was wise--and the two things do not always go
together--would be far better pleased to see you energetic and active
in your search for your sister and in preparation for this new life on
which we are entering, than in vain regrets for him; therefore, lad,
for every reason I thought it better to keep silent upon the subject.
It may be a satisfaction, however, for you to know that everything
will be done to do honor to the dead.

"The king and all the great men of Egypt will be present, and Thebes
will turn out its thousands to express its grief for the deed done by
a section of its population. Had it not been for the express commands
of your father I should have thought that it might have been worth
while for you to present yourself on that occasion and it may be that
for once even the fanatics would have been satisfied to have pardoned
the offense of the son because of the wrong done to the father.
However, this affair of Ptylus puts that out of the question, for when
it is generally known that Mysa was carried off when Ptylus was slain,
public opinion will arrive at the truth and say that the fugitives of
whom they were in search, the slayers of the sacred cat, were the
rescuers of the daughter of Ameres and the slayers of the high
priest."

"You are right, Jethro, it will be better for me not to have seen my
father; I can always think of him now as I saw him last, which is a
thousand times better than if he dwelt in my memory as he lies in the
cere-clothes in the embalming room of Chigron. As to what you say
about my appearing at the funeral, I would in no case have done it; I
would a thousand times rather live an exile or meet my death at the
hands of savages than crave mercy at the hands of the mob of Thebes,
and live to be pointed at all my life as the man who had committed the
abhorred offense of killing the sacred cat."

The conversation in the cabin had all been carried on in an undertone;
for although through an opening in the curtains they could see the
crew--who had been eating their meal by the light of a torch of
resinous wood, and were now wrapped up in thick garments to ke