ir
astonishment just as those whom he had hurt were once more inciting the
mob to fight just as a boy, whose hand he had crushed, was crying out:
"He is not a priest, he is a sword's-man. Down with the liar!"

A voice from the crowd exclaimed:

"Make way for my white robe, and leave the preacher Pentaur alone, he is
my friend. You most of you know me."

"You are Nebsecht the leech, who set my broken leg," cried a sailor.

"And cured my bad eye," said a weaver.

"That tall handsome man is Pentaur, I know him well," cried the girl,
whose opinion had been overheard by Bent-Anat.

"Preacher this, preacher that!" shouted the boy, and he would have
rushed forward, but the people held him back, and divided respectfully
at Nebsecht's command to make way for him to get at those who had been
hurt.

First he stooped over the old paraschites.

"Shame upon you!" he exclaimed.--"You have killed the old man."

"And I," said Pentaur, "Have dipped my peaceful hand in blood to save
his innocent and suffering grandchild from a like fate."

"Scorpions, vipers, venomous reptiles, scum of men!" shrieked Nebsecht,
and he sprang wildly forward, seeking Uarda. When he saw her sitting
safe at the feet of old Hekt, who had made her way into the courtyard,
he drew a deep breath of relief, and turned his attention to the
wounded.

"Did you knock down all that are lying here?" he whispered to his
friend.

Pentaur nodded assent and smiled; but not in triumph, rather in shame;
like a boy, who has unintentionally squeezed to death in his hand a bird
he has caught.

Nebsecht looked round astonished and anxious. "Why did you not say who
you were?" he asked. "Because the spirit of the God Menth possessed me,"
answered Pentaur. "When I saw that accursed villain there with his hand
in the girl's hair, I heard and saw nothing, I--"

"You did right," interrupted Nebsecht. "But where will all this end?"

At this moment a flourish of trumpets rang through the little valley.
The officer sent by Ameni to apprehend the paraschites came up with his
soldiers.

Before he entered the court-yard he ordered the crowd to disperse; the
refractory were driven away by force, and in a few minutes the valley
was cleared of the howling and shouting mob, and the burning house was
surrounded by soldiers. Bent-Anat, Rameri, and Nefert were obliged to
quit their places by the fence; Rameri, so soon as he saw that Uarda was
safe, had rejoined his sister.

Nef