forward into the midst of the smoke
and sparks, and snatched his daughter from the arms of her preserver,
who fell half smothered on his knees. He rushed out into the air with
his light and precious burden, and as he pressed his lips to her closed
eyelids his eyes were wet, and there rose up before him the image of
the woman who bore her, the wife that had stood as the solitary
green palm-tree in the desert waste of his life. But only for a few
seconds-Bent-Anat herself took Uarda into her care, and he hastened back
to the burning house.

He had recognized his daughter's preserver; it was the physician
Nebsecht, who had not quitted the princess since their meeting on Sinai,
and had found a place among her suite as her personal physician.

The fresh air had rushed into the room through the opening of the
shutter, the broad flames streamed out of the window, but still Nebsecht
was alive, for his groans could be heard through the smoke. Once more
Kaschta rushed towards the window, the bystanders could see that the
ceiling of the room was about to fail, and called out to warn him, but
he was already astride the sill.

"I signed myself his slave with my blood," he cried, "Twice he has
saved my child, and now I will pay my debt," and he disappeared into the
burning room.

He soon reappeared with Nebsecht in his arms, whose robe was already
scorched by the flames. He could be seen approaching the window with his
heavy burden; a hundred soldiers, and with them Pentaur, pressed
forward to help him, and took the senseless leech out of the arms of the
soldier, who lifted him over the window sill.

Kaschta was on the point of following him, but before he could swing
himself over, the beams above gave way and fell, burying the brave son
of the paraschites.

Pentaur had his insensible friend carried to his tent, and helped the
physicians to bind up his burns. When the cry of fire had been
first raised, Pentaur was sitting in earnest conversation with the
high-priest; he had learned that he was not the son of a gardener, but
a descendant of one of the noblest families in the land. The foundations
of life seemed to be subverted under his feet, Ameni's revelation lifted
him out of the dust and set him on the marble floor of a palace; and yet
Pentaur was neither excessively surprised nor inordinately rejoiced;
he was so well used to find his joys and sufferings depend on the man
within him, and not on the circumstances without.