place to place, it even thinks and
expresses thought through various signs, most frequently through
knocking.

"When a man dies his shade lives and shows itself to people. In our
books thousands of such cases are noted; some shades asked for food,
others walked about in houses, worked in a garden, or hunted in the
mountains with the shades of their dogs and cats with them. Other
shades have frightened people, destroyed their property, drunk their
blood, even enticed living persons to excesses. But there are good
shades: those of mothers nursing their children, of soldiers, fallen in
battle, who give warning of an ambush of an enemy, of priests who
reveal important secrets.

"In the eighteenth dynasty the shade of the pharaoh, Cheops, who was
doing penance for oppressing people while building the great pyramid,
appeared in Nubian gold mines, and in compassion for the sufferings of
toiling convicts showed them a new spring of water."

"Thou tellest curious things, holy man," replied Ramses; "let me now
tell thee something. One night in Pi-Bast my own shade appeared to me.
That shade was just like me, and even dressed like me. Soon, however, I
convinced myself that it was no shade. It was a living man, a certain
Lykon, the vile murderer of my son. He began his offences by
frightening the Phoenician woman Kama. I appointed a reward for seizing
him but our police not only did not seize the man, they even permitted
him to seize that same Kama and to slay a harmless infant.

"Today I hear that they have captured Kama, but I know nothing of
Lykon. Of course he is living in freedom, in good health, cheerful and
rich through stolen treasures; may be making ready for new crimes
even."

"So many persons are pursuing that criminal that he must be taken at
last," said Mentezufis. "And if he falls into our hands Egypt will pay
him for the sufferings which he has caused the heir to her throne.
Believe me, lord, Thou mayst forgive all his crimes in advance, for the
punishment will be in accord with their greatness."

"I should prefer to have him in my own hands," said the prince. "It is
always dangerous to have such a 'shade' while one is living." [It is
curious that the theory of shades, on which very likely the uncommon
care of the Egyptians for the dead was built, has revived in our times
in Europe. Adolf d'Assier explains it minutely in a pamphlet "Essai sur
l'humanite posthume et le spiritisme, par un positiviste." ]

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