ation of herself the nomarch recovered, and
looked with compassion on Sarah; the women sobbed, the doorkeeper wiped
away tears. But the holy Mefres closed his blue lips firmly. At last he
said, with emphatic voice, while looking at the police official,

"Servants of his holiness, I surrender this woman, whom ye are to
conduct to the edifice of justice."

"But my son with me!" interrupted Sarah, rushing to the cradle.

"With thee, with thee, poor woman," said the nomarch; and he covered
his face.

The dignitaries went out of the chamber. The police officer had a
litter brought, and with marks of the highest respect conducted Sarah
down to it. The unfortunate woman seized a blood-stained bundle from
the cradle, and took a seat, without resistance, in the litter.

All the servants went after her to the chamber of justice.

When Mefres, with the nomarch, was passing through the garden, the
nomarch said,

"I have compassion on that woman."

"She will be punished properly for lying," answered the high priest.

"Dost Thou think so, worthiness?"

"I am certain that the gods will discover and punish the real
murderer."

At the garden gate the steward of Kama's villa stood in the road before
them.

"The Phoenician woman is gone. She disappeared last night."

"A new misfortune," whispered the nomarch.

"Have no fear," said Mefres; "she followed the prince."

From these answers the worthy nomarch saw that Mefres hated the prince,
and his heart sank in him. If they proved that Ramses had killed his
own son, the heir would never ascend the throne of his fathers, and the
heavy yoke of the priesthood would weigh down still more mightily on
Egypt.

The sadness of the nomarch increased when they told him in the evening
that two physicians of the temple of Hator, when looking at the corpse
of the infant, had expressed the opinion that only a man could have
committed the murder. Some man, said they, seized with his right hand
the feet of the little boy, and broke his skull against the wall of the
building. Sarah's hand could not clasp both legs, on which, moreover,
were traces of large fingers.

After this explanation Mefres, in company with the high priest Sem,
went to Sarah in the prison, and implored her by all the gods of Egypt
and of foreign lands to declare that she was not guilty of the death of
the child, and to describe the person of the murderer.

"We will believe thy word," said Mefres, "and Thou wilt be f