pian troops, and the desert-prince, Abocharabos, now informed them,
not without pride, that the Ethiopian soldiers, all but a few who were
his prisoners, had been exterminated by his people; at the same time
he assured Pentaur, whom he supposed to be a son of the king, and
Bent-Anat, that he and his were entirely devoted to the Pharaoh Rameses,
who had always respected their rights.

"They are accustomed," he added, "to fight against the cowardly dogs of
Kush; but we are men, and we can fight like the lions of our wilds. If
we are outnumbered we hide like the goats in clefts of the rocks."

Bent-Anat, who was pleased with the daring man, his flashing eyes,
his aquiline nose, and his brown face which bore the mark of a bloody
sword-cut, promised him to commend him and his people to her father's
favor, and told him of her desire to proceed as soon as possible to the
king's camp under the protection of Pentaur, her future husband.

The mountain chief had gazed attentively at Pentaur and at Bent-Anat
while she spoke; then he said: "Thou, princess, art like the moon, and
thy companion is like the Sun-god Dusare. Besides Abocharabos," and he
struck his breast, "and his wife, I know no pair that are like you two.
I myself will conduct you to Hebron with some of my best men of war. But
haste will be necessary, for I must be back before the traitor who now
rules over Mizraim,--[The Semitic name of Egypt]--and who persecutes
you, can send fresh forces against us. Now you can go down again to the
tents, not a hen is missing. To-morrow before daybreak we will be off."

At the door of the hut Pentaur was greeted by the princess's companions.

The chamberlain looked at him not without anxious misgiving.

The king, when he departed, had, it is true, given him orders to obey
Bent-Anat in every particular, as if she were the queen herself; but her
choice of such a husband was a thing unheard of, and how would the king
take it?

Nefert rejoiced in the splendid person of the poet, and frequently
repeated that he was as like her dead uncle--the father of Paaker, the
chief-pioneer--as if he were his younger brother.

Uarda never wearied of contemplating him and her beloved princess.
She no longer looked upon him as a being of a higher order; but the
happiness of the noble pair seemed to her an embodied omen of happiness
for Nefert's love--perhaps too for her own.

Nebsecht kept modestly in the background. The headache, from which he