paused for their night's rest in the gorge which led to the mines;
the guides and soldiers lighted fires, grouped themselves round them,
and lay down to sleep under the shelter of a cleft in the rocks; the
prisoners stretched themselves on the earth in the middle of the
valley without any shelter, and shivering with the cold which suddenly
succeeded the glowing heat of the day. The benumbed wretches now looked
forward to the crushing misery of the morning's labor as eagerly as, a
few hours since, they had longed for the night, and for rest.

Lentil-broth and hard bread in abundance, but a very small quantity of
water was given to them before they started; then they set out through
the gorge, which grew hotter and hotter, and through ravines where they
could pass only one by one. Every now and then it seemed as if the
path came to an end, but each time it found an outlet, and went on--as
endless as the torment of the wayfarers.

Mighty walls of rock composed the view, looking as if they were formed
of angular masses of hewn stone piled up in rows; and of all the
miners one, and one only, had eyes for these curious structures of the
ever-various hand of Nature.

This one had broader shoulders than his companions, and his burden
Weighed on him comparatively lightly. "In this solitude," thought he,
"which repels man, and forbids his passing his life here, the Chnemu,
the laborers who form the world, have spared themselves the trouble of
filling up the seams, and rounding off the corners. How is it that Man
should have dedicated this hideous land--in which even the human heart
seems to be hardened against all pity--to the merciful Hathor? Perhaps
because it so sorely stands in need of the joy and peace which the
loving goddess alone can bestow."

"Keep the line, Huni!" shouted a driver.

The man thus addressed, closed up to the next man, the panting leech
Nebsecht. We know the other stronger prisoner. It is Pentaur, who had
been entered as Huni on the lists of mine-laborers, and was called by
that name. The file moved on; at every step the ascent grew more rugged.
Red and black fragments of stone, broken as small as if by the hand of
man, lay in great heaps, or strewed the path which led up the almost
perpendicular cliff by imperceptible degrees. Here another gorge opened
before them, and this time there seemed to be no outlet.

"Load the asses less!" cried the captain of the escort to the prisoners.
Then he turned to