ndent of the sacrifices as he
approached the vase. "I can decide in the dark if you have seen rightly.
I examine a hundred animals every day. Give it here!--By all the Gods of
Heaven and Hell that is the heart of a ram!"

"It was found in the breast of Rui," said one of the taricheutes
decisively. "It was opened yesterday in the presence of us all by this
old paraschites."

"It is extraordinary," said the priest of Anion. "And incredible. But
perhaps an exchange was effected.--Did you slaughter any victims here
yesterday or--?"

"We are purifying ourselves," the chief of the kolchytes interrupted,
"for the great festival of the valley, and for ten days no beast can
have been killed here for food; besides, the stables and slaughterhouses
are a long way from this, on the other side of the linen-factories."

"It is strange!" replied the priest. "Preserve this heart carefully,
kolchytes: or, better still, let it be enclosed in a case. We will take
it over to the chief prophet of Anion. It would seem that some miracle
has happened."

"The heart belongs to the Necropolis," answered the chief kolchytes,
"and it would therefore be more fitting if we took it to the chief
priest of the temple of Seti, Ameni."

"You command here!" said the other. "Let us go." In a few minutes
the priest of Anion and the chief of the kolchytes were being carried
towards the valley in their litters. A taricheut followed them, who sat
on a seat between two asses, and carefully carried a casket of ivory, in
which reposed the ram's heart.

The old paraschites watched the priests disappear behind the tamarisk
bushes. He longed to run after them, and tell them everything.

His conscience quaked with self reproach, and if his sluggish
intelligence did not enable him to take in at a glance all the results
that his deed might entail, he still could guess that he had sown a
seed whence deceit of every kind must grow. He felt as if he had fallen
altogether into sin and falsehood, and that the goddess of truth, whom
he had all his life honestly served, had reproachfully turned her back
on him. After what had happened never could he hope to be pronounced a
"truth-speaker" by the judges of the dead. Lost, thrown away, was the
aim and end of a long life, rich in self-denial and prayer! His soul
shed tears of blood, a wild sighing sounded in his ears, which saddened
his spirit, and when he went back to his work again, and wanted to
remove the soles of th