, and the gigantic warder was forced to stoop low to
keep the rigid form in a horizontal position and not let it slip toward
the woman. Three children, preceded by a little girl carrying a lantern,
closed the mournful procession.

Perhaps no one would have noticed the group, had not the gate-keeper's
little wife shrieked so wildly and piteously that no one could help
hearing her lamentations. The second prophet of Amon, and then his
companions, turned toward them. The procession halted, and as some of the
priests approached the corpse the gate-keeper shouted loudly: "Away, away
from the plague! It has stricken our first-born son."

The wife meantime had snatched the lantern from her little girl's hand
and casting its light full on the dead boy's rigid face, she screamed:

"The god hath suffered it to happen. Ay, he permitted the horror to enter
beneath his own roof. Not his will, but the curse of the stranger rules
us and our lives. Look, this was our first-born son, and the plague has
also stricken two of the temple-servants. One already lies dead in our
room, and there lies Kamus, grandson of the astrologer Rameri. We heard
the old man call, and saw what was happening; but who can prop another's
house when his own is falling? Take heed while there is time; for the
gods have opened their own sanctuaries to the horror. If the whole world
crumbles into ruin, I shall neither marvel nor grieve. My lord priests, I
am only a poor lowly woman, but am I not right when I ask: Do our gods
sleep, or has some one paralyzed them, or what are they doing that they
leave us and our children in the power of the base Hebrew brood?"

"Overthrow them! Down with the foreigners! Death to the sorcerer
Mesu,--[Mesu is the Egyptian name of Moses]--hurl him into the sea." Such
were the imprecations that followed the woman's curse, as an echo follows
a shout, and the aged astrologer's brother-in-law Hornecht, captain of
the archers, whose hot blood seethed in his veins at the sight of the
dying form of his beloved nephew, waved his short sword, crying
frantically: "Let all men who have hearts follow me. Upon them! A life
for a life! Ten Hebrews for each Egyptian whom the sorcerer has slain!"

As a flock rushes into a fire when the ram leads the way, the warrior's
summons fired the throng. Women forced themselves in front of the men,
pressing after him into the gateway, and when the servants of the temple
lingered to await the verdict of the p