ay forbidden this temple."

"Oho!" cried the old master of the hunt. "Oho! my lord! Is this the way
to speak of the children of the king?"

Others of the company who were attached to Pharaoh's family expressed
their indignation; but Ameni whispered to Paaker--"Say no more!" then he
continued aloud:

"You never were careful in weighing your words, my friend, and now,
as it seems to me, you are speaking in the heat of fever. Come here,
Gagabu, and examine Paaker's wound, which is no disgrace to him--for it
was inflicted by a prince."

The old man loosened the bandage from the pioneer's swollen hand.

"That was a bad blow," he exclaimed; "three fingers are broken, and--do
you see?--the emerald too in your signet ring."

Paaker looked down at his aching fingers, and uttered a sigh of rehef,
for it was not the oracular ring with the name of Thotmes III., but
the valuable one given to his father by the reigning king that had been
crushed. Only a few solitary fragments of the splintered stone remained
in the setting; the king's name had fallen to pieces, and disappeared.
Paaker's bloodless lips moved silently, and an inner voice cried out to
him: "The Gods point out the way! The name is gone, the bearer of the
name must follow."

"It is a pity about the ring," said Gagabu. "And if the hand is not
to follow it--luckily it is your left hand--leave off drinking, let
yourself be taken to Nebsecht the surgeon, and get him to set the joints
neatly, and bind them up."

Paaker rose, and went away after Ameni had appointed to meet him on the
following day at the Temple of Seti, and the Regent at the palace.

When the door had closed behind him, the treasurer of the temple said:

"This has been a bad day for the Mohar, and perhaps it will teach him
that here in Thebes he cannot swagger as he does in the field. Another
adventure occurred to him to-day; would you like to hear it?"

"Yes; tell it!" cried the guests.

"You all knew old Seni," began the treasurer. "He was a rich man, but he
gave away all his goods to the poor, after his seven blooming sons, one
after another, had died in the war, or of illness. He only kept a small
house with a little garden, and said that as the Gods had taken his
children to themselves in the other world he would take pity on the
forlorn in this. 'Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the
naked' says the law; and now that Seni has nothing more to give away,
he goes through the ci