ch it was uttered, the formulas of
lamentation associated with it, announced the tidings that the eyes of
the monarch's first-born son were closed in death.

The astrologer gazed at his grandson's wan features with increasing
anxiety, and even while the wailing for the prince rose louder and
louder a slight touch of gratification stirred his soul at the thought
of the impartial justice Death metes out alike to the sovereign on his
throne and the beggar by the roadside. He now realized what had brought
the noisy multitude to the temple!

With as much swiftness as his aged limbs would permit, he hastened
forward to meet the mourners; but ere he reached them he saw the
gate-keeper and his wife come out of their house, carrying between them
on a mat the dead body of a boy. The husband held one end, his fragile
little wife the other, 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