ostrils began to twitch ominously, he clenched his right hand over the
handle of his whip, and, while he seemed to be bowing humbly, he struck
such a heavy blow on the bare leg of a slave who was standing near
to him, an old Ethiopian, that he shuddered as if from sudden cold,
though-knowing his lord only too well--he let no cry of pain escape him.
Meanwhile the gate-keeper had opened the door, and with him a tall young
priest stepped out into the open air to ask the will of the intruders.

Paaker would have seized the opportunity of speaking, but the lady in
the chariot interposed and said:

"I am Bent-Anat, the daughter of the King, and this lady in the litter
is Nefert, the wife of the noble Mena, the charioteer of my father. We
were going in company with these gentlemen to the north-west valley of
the Necropolis to see the new works there. You know the narrow pass in
the rocks which leads up the gorge. On the way home I myself held the
reins and I had the misfortune to drive over a girl who sat by the road
with a basket full of flowers, and to hurt her--to hurt her very badly
I am afraid. The wife of Mena with her own hands bound up the child, and
then she carried her to her father's house--he is a paraschites--[One
who opened the bodies of the dead to prepare them for being
embalmed.]--Pinem is his name. I know not whether he is known to you."

"Thou hast been into his house, Princess?"

"Indeed, I was obliged, holy father," she replied, "I know of course
that I have defiled myself by crossing the threshold of these people,
but--"

"But," cried the wife of Mena, raising herself in her litter, "Bent-Anat
can in a day be purified by thee or by her house-priest, while she can
hardly--or perhaps never--restore the child whole and sound again to the
unhappy father."

"Still, the den of a paraschites is above every thing unclean," said
the chamberlain Penbesa, master of the ceremonies to the princess,
interrupting the wife of Mena, "and I did not conceal my opinion when
Bent-Anat announced her intention of visiting the accursed hole in
person. I suggested," he continued, turning to the priest, "that she
should let the girl be taken home, and send a royal present to the
father."

"And the princess?" asked the priest.

"She acted, as she always does, on her own judgment," replied the master
of the ceremonies.

"And that always hits on the right course," cried the wife of Mena.

"Would to God it were so!" said t