were not yet strong enough to dazzle her, she thought
of her childhood, and the tears gathered in her eyes. Then she looked
down over the broad plain. There was the Euphrates with his yellow waves
looking so like the Nile; the many villages, just as in her own
home, peeping out from among luxuriant cornfields and plantations of
fig-trees. To the west lay the royal hunting-park; she could see its
tall cypresses and nut-trees miles away in the distance. The dew was
glistening on every little leaf and blade of grass, and the birds sang
deliciously in the shrubberies round her dwelling. Now and then a gentle
breath of wind arose, carrying the sweet scent of the roses across to
her, and playing in the tops of the slender, graceful palms which grew
in numbers on the banks of the river and in the fields around.

She had so often admired these beautiful trees, and compared them to
dancing-girls, as she watched the wind seizing their heavy tops and
swaying the slender stems backwards and forwards. And she had often said
to herself that here must be the home of the Phoenix, that wonderful
bird from the land of palms, who, the priests said, came once in every
five hundred years to the temple of Ra in Heliopolis and burnt himself
in the sacred incense-flames, only to rise again from his own ashes more
beautiful than before, and, after three days, to fly back again to his
home in the East. While she was thinking of this bird, and wishing that
she too might rise again from the ashes of her unhappiness to a new and
still more glorious joy, a large bird with brilliant plumage rose out of
the dark cypresses, which concealed the palace of the man she loved and
who had made her so miserable, and flew towards her. It rose higher and
higher, and at last settled on a palmtree close to her window. She had
never seen such a bird before, and thought it could not possibly be a
usual one, for a little gold chain was fastened to its foot, and its
tail seemed made of sunbeams instead of feathers. It must be Benno, the
bird of Ra! She fell on her knees again and sang with deep reverence
the ancient hymn to the Phoenix, never once turning her eyes from the
brilliant bird.

The bird listened to her singing, bending his little head with its
waving plumes, wisely and inquisitively from side to side, and flew
away directly she ceased. Nitetis looked after him with a smile. It was
really only a bird of paradise that had broken the chain by which he had