The courtiers, cooled and shaded by waving fans, and hardly perceiving the noontide heat, conversed at their ease about indifferent matters, and the princess pitied the poor horses, who were tormented as they ran, by annoying gadflies; while the runners and soldiers, the litter-bearers and fan-bearers, the girls with their jars and the panting slaves, were compelled to exert themselves under the rays of the mid-day sun in the service of their masters, till their sinews threatened to crack and their lungs to burst their bodies.

At a spot where the road widened, and where, to the right, lay the steep cross-valley where the last kings of the dethroned race were interred, the procession stopped at a sign from Paaker, who preceded the princess, and who drove his fiery black Syrian horses with so heavy a hand that the bloody foam fell from their bits.

When the Mohar had given the reins into the hand of a servant, he sprang from his chariot, and after the usual form of obeisance said to the princess: 

“In this valley lies the loathsome den of the people, to whom thou, O princess, dost deign to do such high honor.  Permit me to go forward as guide to thy party.”

“We will go on foot,” said the princess, “and leave our followers behind here.”

Paaker bowed, Bent-Anat threw the reins to her charioteer and sprang to the ground, the wife of Mena and the courtiers left their litters, and the fan-bearers and chamberlains were about to accompany their mistress on foot into the little valley, when she turned round and ordered, “Remain behind, all of you.  Only Paaker and Nefert need go with me.”

The princess hastened forward into the gorge, which was oppressive with the noon-tide heat; but she moderated her steps as soon as she observed that the frailer Nefert found it difficult to follow her.

At a bend in the road Paaker stood still, and with him Bent-Anat and Nefert.  Neither of them had spoken a word during their walk.  The valley was perfectly still and deserted; on the highest pinnacles of the cliff, which rose perpendicularly to the right, sat a long row of vultures, as motionless as if the mid-day heat had taken all strength out of their wings.

Paaker bowed before them as being the sacred animals of the Great Goddess of Thebes,

   [She formed a triad with Anion and Chunsu under the name of Muth. 
   The great “Sanctuary of the kingdom”—­the temple of Karnak—­was
   dedicated to them.]

and the two women silently followed his example.

“There,” said the Mohar, pointing to two huts close to the left cliff of the valley, built of bricks made of dried Nile-mud, “there, the neatest, next the cave in the rock.”

Bent-Anat went towards the solitary hovel with a beating heart; Paaker let the ladies go first.  A few steps brought them to an ill-constructed fence of canestalks, palm-branches, briars and straw, roughly thrown together.  A heart-rending cry of pain from within the hut trembled in the air and arrested the steps of the two women.  Nefert staggered and clung to her stronger companion, whose beating heart she seemed to hear.  Both stood a few minutes as if spellbound, then the princess called Paaker, and said: