glance at the double row of granite pillars, the colossal
statues and obelisks in the fore-court, fixed them on the starlit skies.
Even amid his grief a bitter smile hovered around his sunken lips;
to-night the gods themselves were deprived of the honors which were their
due.

For on this, the first night after the new moon in the month of
Pharmuthi, the sanctuary in bygone years was always adorned with flowers.
As soon as the darkness of this moonless night passed away, the high
festival of the spring equinox and the harvest celebration would begin.

A grand procession in honor of the great goddess Neith, of Rennut, who
bestows the blessings of the fields, and of Horus at whose sign the seeds
begin to germinate, passed, in accordance with the rules prescribed by
the Book of the Divine Birth of the Sun, through the city to the river
and harbor; but to-day the silence of death reigned throughout the
sanctuary, whose courts at this hour were usually thronged with men,
women, and children, bringing offerings to lay on the very spot where
death's finger had now touched his grandson's heart.

A flood of light streamed into the vast space, hitherto but dimly
illumined by a few lamps. Could the throng be so frenzied as to imagine
that the joyous festival might be celebrated, spite of the unspeakable
horrors of the night.

Yet, the evening before, the council of priests had resolved that, on
account of the rage of the merciless pestilence, the temple should not be
adorned nor the procession be marshalled. In the afternoon many whose
houses had been visited by the plague had remained absent, and now while
he, the astrologer, had been watching the course of the stars, the pest
had made its way into this sanctuary, else why had it been forsaken by
the watchers and the other astrologers who had entered with him at
sunset, and whose duty it was to watch through the night?

He again turned with tender solicitude to the sufferer, but instantly
started to his feet, for the gates were flung wide open and the light of
torches and lanterns streamed into the court. A swift glance at the sky
told him that it was a little after midnight, yet his fears seemed to
have been true--the priests were crowding into the temples to prepare for
the harvest festival to-morrow.

But he was wrong. When had they ever entered the sanctuary for this
purpose in orderly procession, solemnly chanting hymns? Nor was the train
composed only of servants of