LITMIR.BIZ

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by the two women.

      The princess turned to the boy. “How you frightened me!” she said.

      “You!” said Rameri astonished.

      “Yes, me. I used to have a stout heart, but since that evening I frequently tremble, and an agony of terror comes over me, I do not know why. I believe some demon commands me.”

      “You command, wherever you go; and no one commands you,” cried Rameri. “The excitement and tumult in the valley, and on the quay, still agitate you. I grind my teeth myself when I remember how they turned me out of the school, and how Paaker set the dog at us. I have gone through a great deal today too.”

      “Where were you so long?” asked Bent-Anat. “My uncle Ani commanded that you should not leave the palace.”

      “I shall be eighteen years old next month,” said the prince, “and need no tutor.”

      “But your father—” said Bent-Anat.

      “My father”—interrupted the boy, “he little knows the Regent. But I shall write to him what I have today heard said by different people. They were to have sworn allegiance to Ani at that very feast in the valley, and it is quite openly said that Ani is aiming at the throne, and intends to depose the king. You are right, it is madness—but there must be something behind it all.”

      Nefert turned pale, and Bent-Anat asked for particulars. The prince repeated all he had gathered, and added laughing: “Ani depose my father! It is as if I tried to snatch the star of Isis from the sky to light the lamps—which are much wanted here.”

      “It is more comfortable in the dark,” said Nefert. “No, let us have lights,” said Bent-Anat. “It is better to talk when we can see each other face to face. I have no belief in the foolish talk of the people; but you are right—we must bring it to my fathers knowledge.”

      “I heard the wildest gossip in the City of the Dead,” said Rameri.

      “You ventured over there? How very wrong!”

      “I disguised myself a little, and I have good news for you. Pretty Uarda is much better. She received your present, and they have a house of their own again. Close to the one that was burnt down, there was a tumbled-down hovel, which her father soon put together again; he is a bearded soldier, who is as much like her as a hedgehog is like a white dove. I offered her to work in the palace for you with the other girls, for good wages, but she would not; for she has to wait on her sick grandmother, and she is proud, and will not serve any one.”

      “It seems you were a long time with the paraschites’ people,” said Bent-Anat reprovingly. “I should have thought that what has happened to me might have served you as a warning.”

      “I will not be better than you!” cried the boy. “Besides, the paraschites is dead, and Uarda’s father is a respectable soldier, who can defile no one. I kept a long way from the old woman. To-morrow I am going again. I promised her.”

      “Promised who?” asked his sister.

      “Who but Uarda? She loves flowers, and since the rose which you gave her she has not seen one. I have ordered the gardener to cut me a basket full of roses to-morrow morning, and shall take them to her myself.”

      “That you will not!” cried Bent-Anat. “You are still but half a child—and, for the girl’s sake too, you must give it up.”

      “We only gossip together,” said the prince coloring, “and no one shall recognize me. But certainly, if you mean that, I will leave the basket of roses, and go to her alone. No—sister, I will not be forbidden this; she is so charming, so white, so gentle, and her voice is so soft and sweet! And she has little feet, as small as—what shall I say?—as small and graceful as Nefert’s hand. We talked most about Pentaur. She knows his father, who is a gardener, and knows a great deal about him. Only think! she says the poet cannot be the son of his parents, but a good spirit that has come down on earth—perhaps a God. At first she was very timid, but when I spoke of Pentaur she grew eager; her reverence for him is almost idolatry—and that vexed me.”

      “You would rather she should reverence you so,” said Nefert smiling.

      “Not at all,” cried Rameri. “But I helped to save her, and I am so happy when I am sitting with her, that to-morrow, I am resolved, I will put a flower in her hair. It is red certainly, but as thick as yours, Bent-Anat, and it must be delightful to unfasten it and stroke it.”

      The ladies exchanged a glance of intelligence, and the princess said decidedly:

      “You will not go to the City of the Dead to-morrow, my little son!”

      “That we will see, my little mother!” He answered laughing; then he turned grave.

      “I saw my school-friend Anana too,” he said. “Injustice reigns in the House of Seti! Pentaur is in prison, and yesterday evening they sat in judgment upon him. My uncle was present, and would have pounced upon the poet, but Ameni took him under his protection. What was finally decided, the pupils could not learn, but it must have been something bad, for the son of the Treasurer heard Ameni saying, after the sitting, to old Gagabu: ‘Punishment he deserves, but I will not let him be overwhelmed;’ and he can have meant no one but Pentaur. To-morrow I will go over, and learn more; something frightful, I am afraid—several years of imprisonment is the least that will happen to him.”

      Bent-Anat had turned very pale.

      “And whatever they do to him,” she cried, “he will suffer for my sake! Oh, ye omnipotent Gods, help him—help me, be merciful to us both!”

      She covered her face with her hands, and left the room. Rameri asked Nefert:

      “What can have come to my sister? she seems quite strange to me; and you too are not the same as you used to be.”

      “We both have to find our way in new circumstances.”

      “What are they?”

      “That I cannot explain to you!—but it appears to me that you soon may experience something of the same kind. Rumeri, do not go again to the paraschites.”

      CHAPTER XXXII.

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      Early on the following clay the dwarf Nemu went past the restored hut of Uarda’s father—in which he had formerly lived with his wife—with a man in a long coarse robe, the steward of some noble family. They went towards old Hekt’s cave-dwelling.

      “I would beg thee to wait down here a moment, noble lord,” said the dwarf, “while I announce thee to my mother.”

      “That sounds very grand,” said the other. “However, so be it. But stay! The old woman is not to call me by my name or by my title. She is to call me ‘steward’—that no one may know. But, indeed, no one would recognize me in this dress.”

      Nemu hastened to the cave, but before he reached his mother she called out: “Do not keep my lord waiting—I know him well.”

      Nemu laid his finger to his lips.

      “You are to call him steward,” said he.

      “Good,” muttered the old woman. “The ostrich puts his head under his feathers when he does not want to be seen.”

      “Was the young prince long with Uarda yesterday?”

      “No, you fool,” laughed the witch, “the children play together. Rameri is a kid without horns, but who fancies he knows where they ought to grow. Pentaur is a more dangerous rival with the red-headed girl. Make haste, now; these stewards must not be kept waiting!”

      The old woman gave the dwarf a push, and he hurried back to Ani, while she carried the child, tied to his board, into the cave, and threw the sack over him.

      A

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