“Am I then so bad that I must be driven out from among you all like this—­that such a blow must be inflicted on my father?”

“You refused Ameni your hand!” answered Anana.  “Go to him, offer him your hand, beg him to be less severe, and perhaps he will let you remain.”

Rameri answered only “No.”  But that “No” was so decided that all who knew him understood that it was final.

Before the sun set he had left the school.  Ameni gave him his blessing; he told him that if he himself ever had to command he would understand his severity, and allowed the other scholars to accompany him as far as the Nile.  Pentaur parted from him tenderly at the gate.

When Rameri was alone in the cabin of his gilt bark with his tutor, he felt his eyes swimming in tears.

“Your highness is surely not weeping?” asked the official.

“Why?” asked the prince sharply.

“I thought I saw tears on your highness’ cheeks.”

“Tears of joy that I am out of the trap,” cried Rameri; he sprang on shore, and in a few minutes he was with his sister in the palace.

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UARDA

By Georg Ebers

Volume 6.

CHAPTER XXIV.

This eventful day had brought much that was unexpected to our friends in Thebes, as well as to those who lived in the Necropolis.

The Lady Katuti had risen early after a sleepless night.  Nefert had come in late, had excused her delay by shortly explaining to her mother that she had been detained by Bent-Anat, and had then affectionately offered her brow for a kiss of “good-night.”

When the widow was about to withdraw to her sleeping-room, and Nemu had lighted her lamp, she remembered the secret which was to deliver Paaker into Ani’s hands.  She ordered the dwarf to impart to her what he knew, and the little man told her at last, after sincere efforts at resistance—­for he feared for his mother’s safety—­that Paaker had administered half of a love-philter to Nefert, and that the remainder was still in his hands.

A few hours since this information would have filled Katuti with indignation and disgust; now, though she blamed the Mohar, she asked eagerly whether such a drink could be proved to have any actual effect.

“Not a doubt of it,” said the dwarf, “if the whole were taken, but Nefert only had half of it.”

At a late hour Katuti was still pacing her bedroom, thinking of Paaker’s insane devotion, of Mena’s faithlessness, and of Nefert’s altered demeanor; and when she went to bed, a thousand conjectures, fears, and anxieties tormented her, while she was distressed at the change which had come over Nefert’s love to her mother, a sentiment which of all others should be the most sacred, and the most secure against all shock.