of a high-priest; but Rui's body will be hung round with a hundred
amulets, Scarabaei

[Imitations of the sacred beetle Scarabaeus made of various
materials were frequently put into the mummies in the place of the
heart. Large specimens have often the 26th, 30th, and 64th chapters
of the Book of the Dead engraved on them, as they treat of the
heart.]

will be placed over his heart, and holy oil and sacred sentences
will preserve him from all the fiends on his road to
Amenti,--[Underworld]--while no one will devote helping talismans to the
poor. And then! thou hast sworn, in that world, in the hall of judgment,
to take my guilt on thyself."

Nebsecht gave the old man his hand.

"That I will," said he, "and I should have chosen as you did. Now take
this draught, divide it in four parts, and give it to Uarda for four
evenings following. Begin this evening, and by the day after to-morrow I
think she will be quite well. I will come again and look after her. Now
go to rest, and let me stay a while out here; before the star of Isis is
extinguished I will be gone, for they have long been expecting me at the
temple."

When the paraschites came out of his but the next morning, Nebsecht had
vanished; but a blood-stained cloth that lay by the remains of the fire
showed the old man that the impatient investigator had examined the
heart of the high-priest during the night, and perhaps cut it up.

Terror fell upon him, and in agony of mind he threw himself on his knees
as the golden bark of the Sun-God appeared on the horizon, and he prayed
fervently, first for Uarda, and then for the salvation of his imperilled
soul.

He rose encouraged, convinced himself that his granddaughter was
progressing towards recovery, bid farewell to his wife, took his flint
knife and his bronze hook,

[The brains of corpses were drawn out of the nose with a hook.
Herodotus II. 87.]

and went to the house of the embalmer to follow his dismal calling.

The group of buildings in which the greater number of the corpses
from Thebes went through the processes of mummifying, lay on the bare
desert-land at some distance from his hovel, southwards from the House
of Seti at the foot of the mountain. They occupied by themselves a
fairly large space, enclosed by a rough wall of dried mud-bricks.

The bodies were brought in through the great gate towards the Nile, and
delivered to the kolchytes,--[The whole guild of embalmers]--while