s' hoofs in the
distance. In a waking dream he had seen Cambyses enter his native land
at the head of immense hosts; he had seen its cities and temples on
fire, and its gigantic pyramids crumbling to pieces under the powerful
blows of his mighty hand. Women and children lay in the smouldering
ruins, and plaintive cries arose from the tombs in which the very
mummies moved like living beings; and all these-priests, warriors,
women, and children--the living and the dead--all had uttered
his,--Nebenchari's,--name, and had cursed him as a traitor to his
country. A cold shiver struck to his heart; it beat more convulsively
than the blood in the veins of the dying girl at his side. Again the
curtain was raised; Atossa stole in once more and laid her hand on his
shoulder. He started and awoke. Nebenchari had been sitting three days
and nights with scarcely any intermission by this sick-bed, and such
dreams were the natural consequence.

Atossa slipped back to her mother. Not a sound broke the sultry air of
the sick-room, and Nebenchiari's thoughts reverted to his dream. He told
himself that he was on the point of becoming a traitor and a criminal,
the visions he had just beheld passed before him again, but this time
it was another, and a different one which gained the foremost place. The
forms of Amasis, who had laughed at and exiled him,--of Psamtik and the
priests,--who had burnt his works,--stood near him; they were heavily
fettered and besought mercy at his hands. His lips moved, but this was
not the place in which to utter the cruel words which rose to them. And
then the stern man wiped away a tear as he remembered the long nights,
in which he had sat with the reed in his hand, by the dull light of the
lamp, carefully painting every sign of the fine hieratic character
in which he committed his ideas and experience to writing. He had
discovered remedies for many diseases of the eye, spoken of in the
sacred books of Thoth and the writings of a famous old physician of
Byblos as incurable, but, knowing that he should be accused of sacrilege
by his colleagues, if he ventured on a correction or improvement of the
sacred writings, he had entitled his work, "Additional writings on
the treatment of diseases of the eye, by the great god Thoth, newly
discovered by the oculist Nebenchari."

He had resolved on bequeathing his works to the library at Thebes, that
his experience might be useful to his successors and bring forth fruit
f