“I went into the house of the embalmer,” said the old man, after he had selected a few large flints, to which, with crafty blows, he gave the shape of knives, “and there I found three bodies in which I had to make the eight prescribed incisions with my flint-knife.  When the dead lie there undressed on the wooden bench they all look alike, and the begger lies as still as the favorite son of a king.  But I knew very well who lay before me.  The strong old body in the middle of the table was the corpse of the Superior of the temple of Hatasu, and beyond, close by each other, were laid a stone-mason of the Necropolis, and a poor girl from the strangers’ quarter, who had died of consumption—­two miserable wasted figures.  I had known the Prophet well, for I had met him a hundred times in his gilt litter, and we always called him Rui, the rich.  I did my duty by all three, I was driven away with the usual stoning, and then I arranged the inward parts of the bodies with my mates.  Those of the Prophet are to be preserved later in an alabaster canopus,

     [This vase was called canopus at a later date.  There were four of
     them for each mummy.]

those of the mason and the girl were put back in their bodies.

“Then I went up to the three bodies, and I asked myself, to which I should do such a wrong as to rob him of his heart.  I turned to the two poor ones, and I hastily went up to the sinning girl.  Then I heard the voice of the demon that cried out in my heart ’The girl was poor and despised like you while she walked on Seb,

[Seb is the earth; Plutarch calls Seb Chronos.  He is often spoken of as the “father of the gods” on the monuments.  He is the god of time, and as the Egyptians regarded matter as eternal, it is not by accident that the sign which represented the earth was also used for eternity.]

perhaps she may find compensation and peace in the other world if you do not mutilate her; and when I turned to the mason’s lean corpse, and looked at his hands, which were harder and rougher than my own, the demon whispered the same.  Then I stood before the strong, stout corpse of the prophet Rui, who died of apoplexy, and I remembered the honor and the riches that he had enjoyed on earth, and that he at least for a time had known happiness and ease.  And as soon as I was alone, I slipped my hand into the bag, and changed the sheep’s heart for his.

“Perhaps I am doubly guilty for playing such an accursed trick with the heart of a high-priest; but Rui’s body will be hung round with a hundred amulets, Scarabaei

[Imitations of the sacred beetle Scarabaeus made of various materials were frequently put into the mummies in the place of the heart.  Large specimens have often the 26th, 30th, and 64th chapters of the Book of the Dead engraved on them, as they treat of the heart.

will be placed over his heart, and holy oil and sacred sentences will preserve him from all the fiends on his road to Amenti,—­[Underworld]—­ while no one will devote helping talismans to the poor.  And then! thou hast sworn, in that world, in the hall of judgment, to take my guilt on thyself.”