looked at them.

Pentaur started as if he had seen a ghost; but Nebsecht gave expression
to his astonishment in a loud cry.

At the same instant a driver laid his whip across their shoulders, and
cried laughing:

"You may hit each other as hard as you like with words, but not with
your hands."

Then he turned to his companions, and said: "Did you see the pretty girl
there, in front of the tent?"

"It is nothing to us!" answered the man he addressed. "She belongs to
the princess's train. She has been three weeks here on a visit to the
holy shrine of Hathor."

"She must have committed some heavy sin," replied the other. "If she
were one of us, she would have been set to sift sand in the diggings,
or grind colors, and not be living here in a gilt tent. Where is our
red-beard?"

Uarda's father had lingered a little behind the party, for the girl had
signed to him, and exchanged a few words with him.

"Have you still an eye for the fair ones?" asked the youngest of the
drivers when he rejoined the gang.

"She is a waiting maid of the princess," replied the soldier not without
embarrassment. "To-morrow morning we are to carry a letter from her to
the scribe of the mines, and if we encamp in the neighborhood she will
send us some wine for carrying it."

"The old red-beard scents wine as a fox scents a goose. Let us encamp
here; one never knows what may be picked up among the Mentu, and the
superintendent said we were to encamp outside the oasis. Put down your
sacks, men! Here there is fresh water, and perhaps a few dates and sweet
Manna for you to eat with it.

["Man" is the name still given by the Bedouins of Sinai to the sweet
gum which exudes from the Tamarix mannifera. It is the result of
the puncture of an insect, and occurs chiefly in May. By many it is
supposed to be the Manna of the Bible.]

But keep the peace, you two quarrelsome fellows--Huni and Nebsecht."

Bent-Anat's journey to the Emerald-Hathor was long since ended. As far
as Keft she had sailed down the Nile with her escort, from thence she
had crossed the desert by easy marches, and she had been obliged to wait
a full week in the port on the Red Sea, which was chiefly inhabited
by Phoenicians, for a ship which had finally brought her to the little
seaport of Pharan. From Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the
oasis, where the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side.

The old priests, who conducted the service of