ruction
was usually given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats.

The most imposing was the house of the chief prophets; it was
distinguished by its waving standards and stood about a hundred paces
behind the temple of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear
lake--the sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it while
fulfilling their office, while the splendid houses which they lived in
with their wives and children, lay on the other side of the river, in
Thebes proper.

The untimely visit to the temple could not remain unobserved by the
colony of sages. Just as ants when a hand breaks in on their dwelling,
hurry restlessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had agitated,
not the school-boys only, but the teachers and the priests. They
collected in groups near the outer walls, asking questions and hazarding
guesses. A messenger from the king had arrived--the princess Bent-Anat
had been attacked by the Kolchytes--and a wag among the school-boys who
had got out, declared that Paaker, the king's pioneer, had been brought
into the temple by force to be made to learn to write better. As the
subject of the joke had formerly been a pupil of the House of Seti, and
many delectable stories of his errors in penmanship still survived in
the memory of the later generation of scholars, this information was
received with joyful applause; and it seemed to have a glimmer of
probability, in spite of the apparent contradiction that Paaker filled
one of the highest offices near the king, when a grave young priest
declared that he had seen the pioneer in the forecourt of the temple.

The lively discussion, the laughter and shouting of the boys at such an
unwonted hour, was not unobserved by the chief priest.

This remarkable prelate, Ameni the son of Nebket, a scion of an old
and noble family, was far more than merely the independent head of
the temple-brotherhood, among whom he was prominent for his power and
wisdom; for all the priesthood in the length and breadth of the land
acknowledged his supremacy, asked his advice in difficult cases, and
never resisted the decisions in spiritual matters which emanated from
the House of Seti--that is to say, from Ameni. He was the embodiment
of the priestly idea; and if at times he made heavy--nay
extraordinary--demands on individual fraternities, they were submitted
to, for it was known by experience that the indirect roads which he
ordered them to follow all converged on one