t he repelled the
thought and merely sunned himself in the pleasurable consciousness--the
first during this cruel hour-of holding Kasana and her royal lover in
his hand as one holds a beetle by a string. This had a favorable effect
on him and restored the confidence and courage he had lost. The
baser the things he continued to hear, the more clearly he learned to
appreciate the value of the goodness and truth which he had lost. His
uncle's words, too, came back to his memory.

"Give no man, from the loftiest to the lowliest, a right to regard you
save with respect, and you can hold your head as high as the proudest
warrior who ever wore purple robe and golden armor."

On the couch in Kasana's house, while shaking with fever, he had
constantly repeated this sentence; but in the misery of captivity, and
on his flight it had again vanished from his memory. In the courtier's
tent when, after he had bathed and perfumed himself, the old slave
held a mirror before him, he had given it a passing thought; but now
it mastered his whole soul. And strange to say, the worthless traitor
within wore a purple coat and golden mail, and looked like a military
hero, but he could not hold his head erect, for the work he sought to
accomplish could only succeed in the secrecy that shuns the light, and
was like the labor of the hideous mole which undermines the ground in
the darkness.

His tool was the repulsive cloven-footed trio, falsehood, fraud, and
faithlessness, and she whom he had chosen for his help-mate was the
woman--it shamed him to his inmost soul-for whom he had been in the act
of sacrificing all that was honorable, precious, and dear to him.

The worst infamies which he had been taught to shun were the rounds of
the ladder on which this evil man intended to mount.

The roll the youth had brought to the camp contained two letters. The
first was from the conspirators in Tanis, the second from Siptah's
mother.

The former desired his speedy return and told him that the Syrian Aarsu,
the commander of the foreign mercenaries, who guarded the palace,
as well as the women's house, was ready to do him homage. If the
high-priest of Amon, who was at once chief-judge, viceroy and keeper
of the seal, proclaimed him king, he was sovereign and could enter the
palace which stood open to him and ascend the throne without resistance.
If Pharaoh returned, the body-guards would take him prisoner and remove
him as Siptah, who liked no halfwa