through many
days in loneliness, and may neither earth nor water receive his vile
carcass, may no fire burn it, no wild beasts devour it!"

"Thus let it be!"

After this terrible oath, which Hiram began, and the second half of
which all shouted forth in voices trembling from rage, the three
panting Phoenicians rested. After that Rabsun conducted them to a feast
where with wine, music, and dancers they forgot for a time the work
awaiting them.

CHAPTER XXVI

Not far from the city of Pi-Bast stood the temple of the goddess Hator.

In the month Paoni (March-April), on the day of the vernal equinox,
about nine in the evening, when the star Sirius inclined toward its
setting, two wayfaring priests and one penitent stopped in the gateway.
The penitent, who was barefoot, had ashes on his head, and was covered
with a coarse cloth which concealed his visage.

Though the air was clear, it was impossible to distinguish the faces of
those wayfarers. They stood in the shadow of two immense statues of the
cow-headed divinity which guarded the entrance to the temple and with
kindly eyes protected the province of Habu from pestilence, southern
winds, and bad overflows.

When he had rested somewhat, the penitent fell with his face to the
earth and prayed long in that position. Then he rose, took a copper
knocker, and struck a blow. A deep metallic sound went through all the
courts, reverberated from the thick walls of the temple, and flew over
the wheat-fields, above the mud cottages of earth-tillers, over the
silvery waters of the Nile, where the faint cry of wakened birds
answered it.

After a long time a murmur was heard inside, and the question,

"Who rouses us?"

"Ramses, a slave of the divinity," said the penitent.

"For what hast Thou come?"

"For the light of wisdom."

"What right hast Thou to ask for it?"

"I received the inferior consecration, and in great processions within
the temple I carry a torch."

The gates opened widely. In the centre stood a priest in a white robe;
he stretched forth his hand, and said slowly and distinctly,

"Enter. When Thou crossest this threshold, may divine peace dwell in
thy soul, and may that be accomplished for which Thou implorest
humbly."

When the penitent had fallen at his feet, the priest, making some signs
above his head, whispered,

"In the name of Him who is, who has been, and who will be, who created
everything, whose breath fills the visible and the invis