“That is strange,” said Bent-Anat, “for I also got better in the desert.”

“Repeat the verses on the Beytharan plant,” said Nebsecht.

“Do you know the plant?” asked the poet.  “It grows here in many places; here it is.  Only smell how sweet it is if you bruise the fleshy stem and leaves.  My little verse is simple enough; it occurred to me like many other songs of which you know all the best.”

“They all praise the same Goddess,” said Nebsecht laughing.

“But let us have the verses,” said Bent-Anat.  The poet repeated in a low voice: 

        “How often in the desert I have seen
        The small herb, Beytharan, in modest green! 
        In every tiny leaf and gland and hair
        Sweet perfume is distilled, and scents the air. 
        How is it that in barren sandy ground
        This little plant so sweet a gift has found? 
        And that in me, in this vast desert plain,
        The sleeping gift of song awakes again?”

“Do you not ascribe to the desert what is due to love?” said Nefert.

“I owe it to both; but I must acknowledge that the desert is a wonderful physician for a sick soul.  We take refuge from the monotony that surrounds us in our own reflections; the senses are at rest; and here, undisturbed and uninfluenced from without, it is given to the mind to think out every train of thought to the end, to examine and exhaust every feeling to its finest shades.  In the city, one is always a mere particle in a great whole, on which one is dependent, to which one must contribute, and from which one must accept something.  The solitary wanderer in the desert stands quite alone; he is in a manner freed from the ties which bind him to any great human community; he must fill up the void by his own identity, and seek in it that which may give his existence significance and consistency.  Here, where the present retires into the background, the thoughtful spirit finds no limits however remote.”

“Yes; one can think well in the desert,” said Nebsecht.  “Much has become clear to me here that in Egypt I only guessed at.”

“What may that be?” asked Pentaur.

“In the first place,” replied Nebsecht, “that we none of us really know anything rightly; secondly that the ass may love the rose, but the rose will not love the ass; and the third thing I will keep to myself, because it is my secret, and though it concerns all the world no one would trouble himself about it.  My lord chamberlain, how is this?  You know exactly how low people must bow before the princess in proportion to their rank, and have no idea how a back-bone is made.”

“Why should I?” asked the chamberlain.  “I have to attend to outward things, while you are contemplating inward things; else your hair might be smoother, and your dress less stained.”

The travellers reached the old Cheta city of Hebron without accident; there they took leave of Abocharabos, and under the safe escort of Egyptian troops started again for the north.  At Hebron Pentaur parted from the princess, and Bent-Anat bid him farewell without complaining.