“When the hound lay on the ground, the foolhardy boy struck your dagger out of your hand.”

“And did this squabble lead to any disturbance?” asked Ameni earnestly.

“No,” replied the officer.  “The feast has passed off to-day with unusual quiet.  If the unlucky interruption to the procession by that crazy paraschites had not occurred, we should have nothing but praise for the populace.  Besides the fighting priest, whom we have handed over to you, only a few thieves have been apprehended, and they belong exclusively to the caste,

[According to Diodorous (I. 80) there was a cast of thieves in Thebes.  All citizens were obliged to enter their names in a register, and state where they lived, and the thieves did the same.  The names were enrolled by the “chief of the thieves,” and all stolen goods had to be given up to him.  The person robbed had to give a written description of the object he had lost, and a declaration as to when and where he had lost it.  The stolen property was then easily recovered, and restored to the owner on the payment of one fourth of its value, which was given to the thief.  A similar state of things existed at Cairo within a comparatively short time.]

so we simply take their booty from them, and let them go.  But say, Paaker, what devil of amiability took possession of you down by the river, that you let the rascal escape unpunished.”

“Did you do that?” exclaimed Gagabu.  “Revenge is usually your—­”

Ameni threw so warning a glance at the old man, that he suddenly broke off, and then asked the pioneer:  “How did the struggle begin, and who was the fellow?”

“Some insolent people,” said Paaker, “wanted to push in front of the boat that was waiting for my mother, and I asserted my rights.  The rascal fell upon me, and killed my dog and—­by my Osirian father!—­the crocodiles would long since have eaten him if a woman had not come between us, and made herself known to me as Bent-Anat, the daughter of Rameses.  It was she herself, and the rascal was the young prince Rameri, who was yesterday forbidden this temple.”

“Oho!” cried the old master of the hunt.  “Oho! my lord!  Is this the way to speak of the children of the king?”

Others of the company who were attached to Pharaoh’s family expressed their indignation; but Ameni whispered to Paaker—­“Say no more!” then he continued aloud: 

“You never were careful in weighing your words, my friend, and now, as it seems to me, you are speaking in the heat of fever.  Come here, Gagabu, and examine Paaker’s wound, which is no disgrace to him—­for it was inflicted by a prince.”

The old man loosened the bandage from the pioneer’s swollen hand.

“That was a bad blow,” he exclaimed; “three fingers are broken, and—­do you see?—­the emerald too in your signet ring.”

Paaker looked down at his aching fingers, and uttered a sigh of rehef, for it was not the oracular ring with the name of Thotmes III., but the valuable one given to his father by the reigning king that had been crushed.  Only a few solitary fragments of the splintered stone remained in the setting; the king’s name had fallen to pieces, and disappeared.  Paaker’s bloodless lips moved silently, and an inner voice cried out to him:  “The Gods point out the way!  The name is gone, the bearer of the name must follow.”