gardener's son, named
Pentaur."

"Pentaur?" said the dwarf. "Pentaur? He has the haughty air and the
expression of the old Mohar, and would be sure to rise; but they are
going to break his proud neck for him."

"So much the better," said the old woman. "Uarda would be just the wife
for you, she is good and steady, and no one knows--"

"What?" said Nemu.

"Who her mother was--for she was not one of us. She came here from
foreign parts, and when she died she left a trinket with strange letters
on it. We must show it to one of the prisoners of war, after you have
got her safe; perhaps they could make out the queer inscription. She
comes of a good stock, that I am certain; for Uarda is the very living
image of her mother, and as soon as she was born, she looked like the
child of a great man. You smile, you idiot! Why thousands of infants
have been in my hands, and if one was brought to me wrapped in rags I
could tell if its parents were noble or base-born. The shape of the foot
shows it--and other marks. Uarda may stay where she is, and I will help
you. If anything new occurs let me know."

CHAPTER XXI.

When Nemu, riding on an ass this time, reached home, he found neither
his mistress nor Nefert within.

The former was gone, first to the temple, and then into the town;
Nefert, obeying an irresistible impulse, had gone to her royal friend
Bent-Anat.

The king's palace was more like a little town than a house. The wing in
which the Regent resided, and which we have already visited, lay away
from the river; while the part of the building which was used by the
royal family commanded the Nile.

It offered a splendid, and at the same time a pleasing prospect to the
ships which sailed by at its foot, for it stood, not a huge and solitary
mass in the midst of the surrounding gardens, but in picturesque groups
of various outline. On each side of a large structure, which contained
the state rooms and banqueting hall, three rows of pavilions of
different sizes extended in symmetrical order. They were connected
with each other by colonnades, or by little bridges, under which flowed
canals, that watered the gardens and gave the palace-grounds the aspect
of a town built on islands.

The principal part of the castle of the Pharaohs was constructed of
light Nile-mud bricks and elegantly carved woodwork, but the extensive
walls which surrounded it were ornamented and fortified with towers, in
front of which heavily arme