e creature."

"Now I will return to the banqueting hall," said Ani, after a fete
moments of reflection. "But I must ask you one thing more. I spoke to
you of a secret that will put Paaker into our power. The old sorceress
Hekt, who has taken charge of the paraschites' wife and grandchild,
knows all about it. Send some policeguards over there, and let her be
brought over here as a prisoner; I will examine her myself, and so can
question her without exciting observation."

Ameni at once sent off a party of soldiers, and then quietly ordered a
faithful attendant to light up the so-called audience-chamber, and to
put a seat for him in an adjoining room.

CHAPTER XXX.

While the banquet was going forward at the temple, and Ameni's
messengers were on their way to the valley of the kings' tombs, to waken
up old Hekt, a furious storm of hot wind came up from the southwest,
sweeping black clouds across the sky, and brown clouds of dust across
the earth. It bowed the slender palm-trees as an archer bends his bow,
tore the tentpegs up on the scene of the festival, whirled the light
tent-cloths up in the air, drove them like white witches through the
dark night, and thrashed the still surface of the Nile till its yellow
waters swirled and tossed in waves like a restless sea.

Paaker had compelled his trembling slaves to row him across the stream;
several times the boat was near being swamped, but he had seized the
helm himself with his uninjured hand, and guided it firmly and surely,
though the rocking of the boat kept his broken hand in great and
constant pain. After a few ineffectual attempts he succeeded in landing.
The storm had blown out the lanterns at the masts--the signal lights for
which his people looked--and he found neither servants nor torch-bearers
on the bank, so he struggled through the scorching wind as far as the
gate of his house. His big dog had always been wont to announce his
return home to the door-keeper with joyful barking; but to-night the
boatmen long knocked in vain at the heavy doer. When at last he entered
the court-yard, he found all dark, for the wind had extinguished the
lanterns and torches, and there were no lights but in the windows of his
mother's rooms.

The dogs in their open kennels now began to make themselves heard, but
their tones were plaintive and whining, for the storm had frightened the
beasts; their howling cut the pioneer to the heart, for it reminded him
of the poor sla