they would rather have their ears cut off than the
monstrous thing. I see, I see--but before I open my mouth I will go to
my mother. She knows more than twenty prophets."

CHAPTER XII.

Before the sun had risen the next morning, Nemu got himself ferried
over the Nile, with the small white ass which Mena's deceased father had
given him many years before. He availed himself of the cool hour which
precedes the rising of the sun for his ride through the Necropolis.

Well acquainted as he was with every stock and stone, he avoided the
high roads which led to the goal of his expedition, and trotted towards
the hill which divides the valley of the royal tombs from the plain of
the Nile.

Before him opened a noble amphitheatre of lofty lime-stone peaks, the
background of the stately terrace-temple which the proud ancestress of
two kings of the fallen family, the great Hatasu, had erected to their
memory, and to the Goddess Hathor.

Nemu left the sanctuary to his left, and rode up the steep hill-path
which was the nearest way from the plain to the valley of the tombs.

Below him lay a bird's eye view of the terrace-building of Hatasu, and
before him, still slumbering in cool dawn, was the Necropolis with its
houses and temples and colossal statues, the broad Nile glistening with
white sails under the morning mist; and, in the distant east, rosy with
the coming sun, stood Thebes and her gigantic temples.

But the dwarf saw nothing of the glorious panorama that lay at his feet;
absorbed in thought, and stooping over the neck of his ass, he let the
panting beast climb and rest at its pleasure.

When he had reached half the height of the hill, he perceived the sound
of footsteps coming nearer and nearer to him.

The vigorous walker had soon reached him, and bid him good morning,
which he civilly returned.

The hill-path was narrow, and when Nemu observed that the man who
followed him was a priest, he drew up his donkey on a level spot, and
said reverently:

"Pass on, holy father; for thy two feet carry thee quicker than my
four."

"A sufferer needs my help," replied the leech Nebsecht, Pentaur's
friend, whom we have already seen in the House of Seti, and by the bed
of the paraschites' daughter; and he hastened on so as to gain on the
slow pace of the rider.

Then rose the glowing disk of the sun above the eastern horizon, and
from the sanctuaries below the travellers rose up the pious many-voiced
chant of prai