."

"Poor fellow!" said Rameri kindly. "It was striking at random! If only
our attempt had done Pentaur any good!"

"We have done him harm, on the contrary," said Anana vehemently,
"and have behaved like fools!" Rameri nodded in full assent, looked
thoughtful for a moment, and then said:

"Do you know, Anana, that you were not the ringleader? The trick was
planned in this crazy brain; I take the whole blame on my own shoulders.
I am the son of Rameses, and Ameni will be less hard on me than on you."

"He will examine us all," replied Anana, "and I will be punished sooner
than tell a lie."

Rameri colored.

"Have you ever known my tongue sin against the lovely daughter of Ra?"
he exclaimed. "But look here! did I stir up Antef, Hapi, Sent and all
the others or no? Who but I advised you to find out Pentaur? Did I
threaten to beg my father to take me from the school of Seti or not? I
was the instigator of the mischief, I pulled the wires, and if we are
questioned let me speak first. Not one of you is to mention Anana's
name; do you hear? not one of you, and if they flog us or deprive us of
our food we all stick to this, that I was guilty of all the mischief."

"You are a brave fellow!" said the son of the chief priest of Anion,
shaking his right hand, while Anana held his left.

The prince freed himself laughing from their grasp.

"Now the old man may come home," he exclaimed, "we are ready for him.
But all the same I will ask my father to send me to Chennu, as sure as
my name is Rameri, if they do not recall Pentaur."

"He treated us like school-boys!" said the eldest of the young
malefactors.

"And with reason," replied Rameri, "I respect him all the more for it.
You all think I am a careless dog--but I have my own ideas, and I will
speak the words of wisdom."

With these words he looked round on his companions with comical gravity,
and continued--imitating Ameni's manner:

"Great men are distinguished from little men by this--they scorn and
contemn all which flatters their vanity, or seems to them for the moment
desirable, or even useful, if it is not compatible with the laws which
they recognize, or conducive to some great end which they have set
before them; even though that end may not be reached till after their
death.

"I have learned this, partly from my father, but partly I have thought
it out for myself; and now I ask you, could Pentaur as 'a great man'
have dealt with us better?"

"You have p