“Hardly!” replied the surgeon, “for now I see it clearly.  Every man is a separate instrument, formed even before his birth, in an occult workshop, of good or bad wood, skilfully or unskilfully made, of this shape or the other; every thing in his life, no matter what we call it, plays upon him, and the instrument sounds for good or evil, as it is well or ill made.  You are an AEolian harp—­the sound is delightful, whatever breath of fate may touch it; I am a weather-cock—­I turn whichever way the wind blows, and try to point right, but at the same time I creak, so that it hurts my own ears and those of other people.  I am content if now and then a steersman may set his sails rightly by my indication; though after all, it is all the same to me.  I will turn round and round, whether others look at me or no—­What does it signify?”

When Pentaur and the princess took leave of the hunter with many gifts, the sun was sinking, and the toothed peaks of Sinai glowed like rubies, through which shone the glow of half a world on fire.

The journey to the royal camp was begun the next morning.  Abocharabos, the Amalekite chief, accompanied the caravan, to which Uarda’s father also attached himself; he had been taken prisoner in the struggle with the natives, but at Bent-Anat’s request was set at liberty.

At their first halting place he was commanded to explain how he had succeeded in having Pentaur taken to the mines, instead of to the quarries of Chennu.

“I knew,” said the soldier in his homely way, “from Uarda where this man, who had risked his life for us poor folks, was to be taken, and I said to myself—­I must save him.  But thinking is not my trade, and I never can lay a plot.  It would very likely have come to some violent act, that would have ended badly, if I had not had a hint from another person, even before Uarda told me of what threatened Pentaur.  This is how it was.

“I was to convoy the prisoners, who were condemned to work in the Mafkat mines, across the river to the place they start from.  In the harbor of Thebes, on the other side, the poor wretches were to take leave of their friends; I have seen it a hundred times, and I never can get used to it, and yet one can get hardened to most things!  Their loud cries, and wild howls are not the worst—­those that scream the most I have always found are the first to get used to their fate; but the pale ones, whose lips turn white, and whose teeth chatter as if they were freezing, and whose eyes stare out into vacancy without any tears—­those go to my heart.  There was all the usual misery, both noisy and silent.  But the man I was most sorry for was one I had known for a long time; his name was Huni, and he belonged to the temple of Amon, where he held the place of overseer of the attendants on the sacred goat.  I had often met him when I was on duty to watch the laborers who were completing the great pillared hall, and he was respected by every one, and never failed