he could learn nothing
had been heard of Jethro.

No other subject was talked of in the city but the event of the
previous day, and the indignation of the people was equally divided
between the murderers of Ameres and the slayers of the sacred cat. The
boys were full of grief and perplexity. To Amuba Jethro had taken the
place of an elder brother. He had cheered him in the darkest moment of
his life and had been his friend and companion ever since, and the
thought that ill might have befallen him filled him with sorrow. With
this was mingled an intense anxiety as to the future. Without Jethro's
strong arm and advice how was this terrible journey to be
accomplished?

Chebron was in no state either to act or plan. A deep depression had
seized upon him; he cared not whether he escaped or not, and would
indeed have hailed detection and death as boons. Intense, therefore,
was Amuba's relief when late in the evening a footstep was heard in
the outer chamber, and Jethro entered. He sprang to his feet with a
cry of gladness.

"Oh, Jethro! thank the gods you have returned. I have suffered
terribly on your account. What has happened to you, and so long
delayed your return here?"

"There is fresh trouble," Jethro replied in a stern voice.

"Fresh trouble, Jethro? In what way?" And even Chebron, who had
scarcely sat up languidly on his couch on Jethro's entrance, looked up
with some interest for Jethro's answer.

"Mysa has been carried off," he replied grimly.

Chebron sprang to his feet. He was devoted to his sister, and for a
moment this new calamity effaced the remembrance of those which had
preceded it.

"Mysa carried off!" he exclaimed at the same moment as Amuba. "Who has
done it?--when was it done?--how did you learn it?" were questions
which broke quickly from the lads.

"On leaving here I went as arranged down into the city," Jethro
replied. "There was no difficulty in learning what there was to learn,
for all business seemed suspended and the streets were full of groups
of people talking over the events of yesterday. The whole city is
shaken by the fact that two such terrible acts of sacrilege as the
slaying of the sacred cat of Bubastes and the murder of a high priest
of Osiris should have taken place within so short a time of each
other. All prophesy that some terrible calamity will befall the land,
and that the offended gods will in some way wreak their vengeance upon
it. A royal order has been issued enj