Thinking thus Ameni stood still.

Then he called to one of the so-called “holy fathers,” his private secretary, and said: 

“Draw up at once a document, to be sent to all the priests’-colleges in the land.  Inform them that the daughter of Rameses has lapsed seriously from the law, and defiled herself, and direct that public—­you hear me public—­prayers shall be put up for her purification in every temple.  Lay the letter before me to be signed within in hour.  But no!  Give me your reed and palette; I will myself draw up the instructions.”

The “holy father” gave him writing materials, and retired into the background.  Ameni muttered:  “The King will do us some unheard-of violence!  Well, this writing may be the first arrow in opposition to his lance.”

CHAPTER VIII.

The moon was risen over the city of the living that lay opposite the Necropolis of Thebes.

The evening song had died away in the temples, that stood about a mile from the Nile, connected with each other by avenues of sphinxes and pylons; but in the streets of the city life seemed only just really awake.

The coolness, which had succeeded the heat of the summer day, tempted the citizens out into the air, in front of their doors or on the roofs and turrets of their houses; or at the tavern-tables, where they listened to the tales of the story-tellers while they refreshed them selves with beer, wine, and the sweet juice of fruits.  Many simple folks squatted in circular groups on the ground, and joined in the burden of songs which were led by an appointed singer, to the sound of a tabor and flute.

To the south of the temple of Amon stood the king’s palace, and near it, in more or less extensive gardens, rose the houses of the magnates of the kingdom, among which, one was distinguished by it splendor and extent.

Paaker, the king’s pioneer, had caused it to be erected after the death of his father, in the place of the more homely dwelling of his ancestors, when he hoped to bring home his cousin, and install her as its mistress.  A few yards further to the east was another stately though older and less splendid house, which Mena, the king’s charioteer, had inherited from his father, and which was inhabited by his wife Nefert and her mother Isatuti, while he himself, in the distant Syrian land, shared the tent of the king, as being his body-guard.  Before the door of each house stood servants bearing torches, and awaiting the long deferred return home of their masters.

The gate, which gave admission to Paaker’s plot of ground through the wall which surrounded it, was disproportionately, almost ostentatiously, high and decorated with various paintings.  On the right hand and on the left, two cedar-trunks were erected as masts to carry standards; he had had them felled for the purpose on Lebanon, and forwarded by ship to Pelusium on the north-east coast of Egypt.  Thence they were conveyed by the Nile to Thebes.