e had laughed loud and suddenly, and his wife, greatly
alarmed, had gone at once to fetch the physician Nebsecht.

During her absence Uarda was to rub her grandfather's temples with the
leaves which the witch Hekt had laid on her bruises, for as they had
once proved efficacious they might perhaps a second time scare away the
demon of sickness.

When the procession, with its thousand lamps and torches, paused before
the hovel, which was almost invisible in the dusk, and one citizen said
to another: "Here comes the sacred heart!" the old man started, and
stood up. His eyes stared fixedly at the gleaming relic in its crystal
case; slowly, trembling in every limb, and with outstretched neck he
stood up.

The herald began his eulogy of the miracle.

Then, while all the people were prostrate in adoration, listening
motionless to the loud voice of the speaker, the paraschites rushed
out of his gate, striking his forehead with his fists, and opposite the
sacred heart, he broke out into a mad, loud fit of scornful laughter,
which re-echoed from the bare cliffs that closed in the valley.

Horror full on the crowd, who rose timidly from their knees.

Ameni, who too, was close behind the heart, started too and looked round
on the author of this hideous laugh. He had never seen the paraschites,
but he perceived the glimmer of his little fire through the dust and
gloom, and he knew that he lived in this place. The whole case struck
him at once; he whispered a few significant words to one of the officers
who marched with the troops on each side of the procession; then he gave
the signal, and the procession moved on as if nothing had happened.

The old man tried with still more loud and crazy laughter to reach and
seize the heart, but the crowd kept him back; and while the last groups
passed on after the priests, he contrived to slip back as far as the
door of his hovel, though much damaged and hurt.

There he fell, and Uarda rushed out and threw herself over the old man,
who lay on the earth, scarcely recognizable in the dust and darkness.

"Crush the scoffer!"

"Tear him in pieces!"

"Burn down the foul den!"

"Throw him and the wench into the fire!" shouted the people who had been
disturbed in their devotions, with wild fury.

Two old women snatched the lanterns froth the posts, and flung them at
the unfortunate creatures, while an Ethiopian soldier seized Uarda by
the hair, and tore her away from her grandfather.