on board his barge, Bent-Anat and her
companions rose from their knees.

Then came some priests, who carried a box with the sacred evergreen tree
of Amon; and when a fresh outburst of music fell on her ear, and a cloud
of incense was wafted up to her, Bent-Anat said: "Now my father should
be coming."

"And you," cried Rameri, "and close behind, Nefert's husband, Mena,
with the guards. Uncle Ani comes on foot. How strangely he has dressed
himself like a sphinx hind-part before!"

"How so?" asked Nefert.

"A sphinx," said Rameri laughing, it has the body of a lion, and the
head of a man,

[There were no female sphinxes in Egypt. The sphinx was called Neb,
i. e., the lord. The lion-couchant had either a man's or a rams
head.]

and my uncle has a peaceful priest's robe, and on his head the helmet of
a warrior."

"If the king were here, the distributor of life," said Nefert, "you
would not be missing from among his supporters."

"No indeed!" replied the prince, "and the whole thing is altogether
different when my father is here. His heroic form is splendid on his
golden throne; the statues of Truth and justice spread their wings
behind him as if to protect him; his mighty representative in fight, the
lion, lies peacefully before him, and over him spreads the canopy with
the Urmus snake at the top. There is hardly any end to the haruspices,
the pastophori with the standards, the images of the Gods, and the
flocks and herds for sacrifice. Only think, even the North has sent
representatives to the feast, as if my father were here. I know all the
different signs on the standards. Do you recognize the images of the
king's ancestors, Nefert? No? no more do I; but it seemed to me that
Ahmes I., who expelled the Hyksos--from whom our grandmother was
descended--headed the procession, and not my grandfather Seti, as he
should have done. Here come the soldiers; they are the legions which Ani
equipped, and who returned victorious from Ethiopia only last night.
How the people cheer them! and indeed they have behaved valiantly. Only
think, Bent-Anat and Nefert, what it will be when my father comes home,
with a hundred captive princes, who will humbly follow his chariot,
which your Mena will drive, with our brothers and all the nobles of the
land, and the guards in their splendid chariots."

"They do not think of returning yet!" sighed Nefert. While more and more
troops of the Regent's soldiers, more companies of music