“I did that which seemed to me to be right and true,” answered Pentaur deeply moved.

“Right is the same for you as for us—­what the law prescribes; and what is truth?”

“None has lifted her veil,” said Pentaur, “but my soul is the offspring of the soul-filled body of the All; a portion of the infallible spirit of the Divinity stirs in my breast, and if it shows itself potent in me—­”

“How easily we may mistake the flattering voice of self-love for that of the Divinity!”

“Cannot the Divinity which works and speaks in me—­as in thee—­as in each of us—­recognize himself and his own voice?”

“If the crowd were to hear you,” Ameni interrupted him, “each would set himself on his little throne, would proclaim the voice of the god within him as his guide, tear the law to shreds, and let the fragments fly to the desert on the east wind.”

“I am one of the elect whom thou thyself hast taught to seek and to find the One.  The light which I gaze on and am blest, would strike the crowd—­I do not deny it—­with blindness—­”

“And nevertheless you blind our disciples with the dangerous glare-”

“I am educating them for future sages.”

“And that with the hot overflow of a heart intoxicated with love!”

“Ameni!”

“I stand before you, uninvited, as your teacher, who reproves you out of the law, which always and everywhere is wiser than the individual, whose defender the king—­among his highest titles—­boasts of being, and to which the sage bows as much as the common man whom we bring up to blind belief—­I stand before you as your father, who has loved you from a child, and expected from none of his disciples more than from you; and who will therefore neither lose you nor abandon the hope he has set upon you—­

“Make ready to leave our quiet house early tomorrow morning.  You have forfeited your office of teacher.  You shall now go into the school of life, and make yourself fit for the honored rank of the initiated which, by my error, was bestowed on you too soon.  You must leave your scholars without any leave-taking, however hard it may appear to you.  After the star of Sothis

[The holy star of Isis, Sirius or the dog star, whose course in the time of the Pharaohs coincided with the exact Solar year, and served at a very early date as a foundation for the reckoning of time among the Egyptians.]

has risen come for your instructions.  You must in these next months try to lead the priesthood in the temple of Hatasu, and in that post to win back my confidence which you have thrown away.  No remonstrance; to-night you will receive my blessing, and our authority—­you must greet the rising sun from the terrace of the new scene of your labors.  May the Unnameable stamp the law upon your soul!”

Ameni returned to his room.

He walked restlessly to and fro.

On a little table lay a mirror; he looked into the clear metal pane, and laid it back in its place again, as if he had seen some strange and displeasing countenance.