neering; "lend me thy jewelled
staff for my journey. I do but borrow it; when Yakub comes from the
desert thou shalt have it again."

But the Wanderer turned on the fellow with such a glance that he fell
back.

"I have seen _thee_ before," he said, and he laughed over his shoulder
as he went; "I saw thee last night at the feast, and heard thy great
bow sing. Thou art not of the folk of Khem. They are a gentle folk, and
Yakub wins favour in their sight."

"What passes now in this haunted land of thine, old man?" said
the Wanderer, "for of all the sights that I have seen, this is the
strangest. None lifts a hand to save his goods from the thief."

Rei the Priest groaned aloud.

"Evil days have come upon Khem," he said. "The Apura spoil the people of
Khem ere they fly into the Wilderness."

Even as he spoke there came a great lady weeping, for her husband was
dead, and her son and her brother, all were gone in the breath of the
pestilence. She was of the Royal House, and richly decked with gold and
jewels, and the slaves who fanned her, as she went to the Temple of Ptah
to worship, wore gold chains upon their necks. Two women of the Apura
saw her and ran to her, crying:

"Lend to us those golden ornaments thou wearest."

Then, without a word, she took her gold bracelets and chains and rings,
and let them all fall in a heap at her feet. The women of the Apura took
them all and mocked her, crying:

"Where now is thy husband and thy son and thy brother, thou who art of
Pharaoh's house? Now thou payest us for the labour of our hands and for
the bricks that we made without straw, gathering leaves and rushes in
the sun. Now thou payest for the stick in the hand of the overseers.
Where now is thy husband and thy son and thy brother?" and they went
still mocking, and left the lady weeping.

But of all sights the Wanderer held this strangest, and many such there
were to see. At first he would have taken back the spoil and given it
to those who wore it, but Rei the Priest prayed him to forbear, lest the
curse should strike them also. So they pressed on through the tumult,
ever seeing new sights of greed and death and sorrow. Here a mother wept
over her babe, here a bride over her husband--that night the groom of
her and of death. Here the fierce-faced Apura, clamouring like gulls,
tore the silver trinkets from the children of those of the baser sort,
or the sacred amulets from the mummies of those who were laid out for