had waited a considerable time, the gate opened, and from
ten to twenty persons showed themselves. They wore priestly garments
and their faces were covered.

"We give you," said the judges, on seeing them, "the body of our lord
and yours. Do with it what the rules of religion enjoin, and omit
nothing, so that the great deceased may not experience unquiet in that
world through your fault."

The treasurer added,

"Use gold, silver, malachite, jasper, emerald, turquoise, and the most
rare kinds of incenses for this lord, so that nothing be lacking that
he may have whatever is best. I, the treasurer, say this to you. And if
the wretch should be found who, instead of noble metals, gives
counterfeit, and instead of genuine stones, gives Phoenician glass, let
him remember that his hands will be cut off and his eyes dug out."

"It will be as ye wish," replied one of the veiled priests.

Others raised the litter and bore it to the interior of the district of
the dead.

"Thou art going in peace to Abydos! Mayst Thou go in peace to the
Theban West. To the West, to the West, to the land of the just ones!"

The gate closed, the supreme judge, the treasurer, and the officials
accompanying them returned to the palace.

The hooded priests bore the litter to an immense building where only
the remains of pharaohs were embalmed, or those of high dignitaries who
had gained the exceptional favor of a pharaoh.

The priests stopped in the antechamber, where stood the golden boat on
wheels, and took the corpse from the litter.

"Look ye!" cried one of the cowled priests, "are they not criminals?
The pharaoh died in the chapel of Osiris, so he must have been in
ceremonial costume, while here oh! instead of gold ornaments bronze;
the chain is bronze, too, and on his breast false jewels!"

"True," said another. "I am curious to know who fitted him out thus:
priests, or scribes?"

"Surely priests. Oh, would that your hands withered, ye scoundrels! And
some wretch they are all such dared command us to give the deceased
what was best."

"It was not they, but the treasurer."

"They are all rogues."

Thus discoursing, the embalmers took from the deceased his garments of
a pharaoh, put on him a gown of cloth of gold and bore the remains to
the boat.

"Thanks to the gods," said one of the cowled men, "we have a new
pharaoh. He will bring the priests to order. What they have taken with
their hands they will bring back with their mou