d of a short tunic bound
by a sash the broad ends of which fell in front. A narrow band upholding
two ostrich-plumes fastened their thick hair. The plumes thus placed
looked like the antennae of a scarabaeus, and imparted to those who wore
them a quaint, insect-like appearance.

The drummers, clad in a mere pleated kilt and bare to the belt, struck
with sycamore sticks the wild-ass-skin stretched over their kettledrums
suspended from a leather baldric, keeping the time which the drum major
marked by clapping his hands as he frequently turned towards them. Next
to the drummers came the sistrum players, who shook their instruments
with sharp, quick movements, and at regular intervals made the metal
rings sound upon the four bronze bars. The tambourine players carried
transversely before them their oblong instrument fastened by a scarf
passed behind their neck, and struck with both fists the skin stretched
on either end.

Each band numbered not less than two hundred men, but the storm of sound
produced by the bugles, drums, sistra, and tambourines, which would have
been deafening within the palace, was in no wise too loud or too
tremendous under the vast cupola of the heavens, in the centre of that
immense space, amid buzzing multitudes, at the head of an army which
baffles enumeration and which was advancing with the roar of great
waters. Besides, were eight hundred musicians too many to precede the
Pharaoh, beloved of Ammon Ra, represented by colossi of basalt and
granite sixty cubits high, whose name was written on the cartouches of
imperishable monuments, and whose story was carved and painted upon the
walls of the hypostyle halls, on the sides of pillars, in endless
_bassi-relievi_ and innumerable frescoes? Was it too much indeed for a
king who dragged a hundred conquered nations by their hair, and from the
height of his throne ruled the nations with his whip? For the living
Sun that flamed on dazzled eyes? For one who, save that he did not
possess eternal life, was a god?

Behind the music came the captive barbarians, strange to look at, with
bestial faces, black skins, woolly hair, as much like monkeys as men,
and dressed in the costume of their country,--a skirt just above the
hips held by a single brace, embroidered with ornaments in divers
colours. An ingenious cruelty had directed the binding together of the
prisoners. Some were bound by the elbows behind the back; others by
their hands raised above their hea