As soon as the black slave had satisfied himself that Pentaur was the priest whom he had seen fighting in front of the paraschites’ hovel, and not the ghost of his dead master, he endeavored to slip past Paaker’s brother, but Horus observed the manoeuvre, and seized him by his woolly hair.  The slave cried out loudly, and whimpered out: 

“If thou dost escape, Paaker will kill me; he swore he would.”

“Wait!” said the youth.  He dragged the slave back, flung him into the cave, and blocked up the door with a huge log which lay near it for that purpose.

When the three men had crept back through the low passage in the rocks, and found themselves once more in the open air, they found a high wind was blowing.

“The storm will soon be over,” said Horus.  “See how the clouds are driving!  Let us have horses, Pentaur, for there is not a minute to be lost.”

The poet ordered Kaschta to summon the people to start but the soldier advised differently.

“Men and horses are exhausted,” he said, “and we shall get on very slowly in the dark.  Let the beasts feed for an hour, and the men get rested and warm; by that time the moon will be up, and we shall make up for the delay by having fresh horses, and light enough to see the road.”

“The man is right,” said Horus; and he led Kaschta to a cave in the rocks, where barley and dates for the horses, and a few jars of wine, had been preserved.  They soon had lighted a fire, and while some of the men took care of the horses, and others cooked a warm mess of victuals, Horus and Pentaur walked up and down impatiently.

“Had you been long bound in those thongs when we came?” asked Pentaur.

“Yesterday my brother fell upon me,” replied Horus.  “He is by this time a long way ahead of us, and if he joins the Cheta, and we do not reach the Egyptian camp before daybreak, all is lost.”

“Paaker, then, is plotting treason?”

“Treason, the foulest, blackest treason!” exclaimed the young man.  “Oh, my lost father!—­”

“Confide in me,” said Pentaur going up to the unhappy youth who had hidden his face in his hands.  “What is Paaker plotting?  How is it that your brother is your enemy?”

“He is the elder of us two,” said Horus with a trembling voice.  “When my father died I had only a short time before left the school of Seti, and with his last words my father enjoined me to respect Paaker as the head of our family.  He is domineering and violent, and will allow no one’s will to cross his; but I bore everything, and always obeyed him, often against my better judgment.  I remained with him two years, then I went to Thebes, and there I married, and my wife and child are now living there with my mother.  About sixteen months afterwards I came back to Syria, and we travelled through the country together; but by this time I did not choose to be the mere tool of my brother’s will, for I had grown prouder, and it seemed to me