her to our door for food. We had never turned any away, for beggary was
rare enough in Kem, and no sane person ever resorted to it except in the
sorest extremes of need.

Zaphnath doubtless looked with an evil eye upon the crowds that daily
thronged our door to secure food. The Pharaoh rarely left his palace,
and bothered little about affairs outside, and Zaphnath must have been
at the bottom of an edict which was shortly issued. Nothing that I
remember in Kem better illustrated the absolute power of the Pharaoh and
the unrestrained enforcement of his merest whim. The edict referred to
the scarcity of bread and the multitude of foreigners who were flocking
to the city to secure it, and provided (ostensibly for the good of the
Kemish people) that no man in the city of Kem should give bread or any
sort of food to any but the members of his own household. Moreover, no
man should sell grain or bread at a less price than that established by
the Pharaoh for the sale of his own.

The doctor and I realized that this was aimed at no one but us. They
were jealous of our charity, and wished to turn everybody's need to
their own profit. We scoffed at the tyranny of such an edict, but it was
the arbitrary sort of law to which the Kemish were accustomed. Yet if we
gave up our undertaking, and the unfortunate multitude went unfed for a
few days, bread riots were certain to break out, and they might result
in the death or overthrow of the short-sighted Pharaoh, and the seizure
of his grain. Even this would not settle the question, for the victors
might enforce a worse monopoly of it, if that were possible.

"We must continue to feed them all outside the city,--at the Gnomons,
for instance," I suggested.

"Yes, we must feed them there in a large chamber, and eat with them, so
that they may be considered members of our household," added the doctor.

Thus it happened that the paths which Hotep's mules had worn so deeply
were now thronged by a great multitude of the city's poor in their
daily pilgrimage to the Gnomons. In an enormous chamber which we fitted
up for that purpose, we served to each comer one generous meal, and
there were so many who came that this meal was going on almost all day
long. The Pharaoh fed no one but his favourites and his soldiers, and of
these last he discharged a large number, reducing his army to a hungry,
ill-fed thousand men. Those who were discharged came to eat with us, and
many of those retained woul