n, crossed the
Nile on a light papyrus-bark and followed the vessel of the woman on
whom your hawk glance deigned to fall. She is Tahoser, the daughter of
the priest Petamounoph."

The Pharaoh smiled and said: "It is well. I give thee a chariot and its
horses, a pectoral ornament of beads of lapis-lazuli and cornelian, with
a golden circle weighing as much as the green basalt weight."

Meanwhile the sorrowing women pulled the flowers from their hair, tore
their gauze robes, and sobbed, stretched out upon the polished stone
floors which reflected, mirror-like, the image of their beautiful
bodies, saying, "One of these accursed barbaric captives must have
stolen our master's heart."

V

On the left bank of the Nile stood the villa of Poeri, the young man who
had filled Tahoser with such emotion when, proceeding to view the
triumphal return of the Pharaoh, she had passed in her ox-drawn car
under the balcony whereon leaned carelessly the handsome dreamer.

It was a vast estate, having something of the farm and something of the
house of pleasaunce, which stretched between the banks of the river and
the foothills of the Libyan chain, over an immense extent of ground,
covered during the inundation by the reddish waters laden with
fertilising mud, and which during the rest of the year was irrigated by
skilfully planned canals.

A wall, built of limestone drawn from the neighbouring mountains,
enclosed the garden, the store-houses, the cellars, and the dwelling.
The walls sloped slightly inwards and were surmounted by an acroter with
metal spikes, capable of stopping whosoever might attempt to climb over.
Three doors, the leaves of which were hung on massive pillars, each
adorned with a giant lotus-flower planted on top of the capital, were
cut in the wall on three of the sides. In place of the fourth door rose
a building which looked out into the garden from one of its facades, and
on the road from the other.

The building in no respect resembled the houses in Thebes. The architect
had not sought to reproduce either the heavy foundations, the great
monumental lines, or the rich materials of city buildings, but had
striven to attain elegant lightness, refreshing simplicity, and pastoral
gracefulness in harmony with the verdure and the peacefulness of the
country.

The lower courses of the building, which the Nile reached in times of
high flood, were of sandstone, and the rest of the building of sycamore
wood.