Atossa slipped back to her mother.  Not a sound broke the sultry air of the sick-room, and Nebenchiari’s thoughts reverted to his dream.  He told himself that he was on the point of becoming a traitor and a criminal, the visions he had just beheld passed before him again, but this time it was another, and a different one which gained the foremost place.  The forms of Amasis, who had laughed at and exiled him,—­of Psamtik and the priests,—­who had burnt his works,—­stood near him; they were heavily fettered and besought mercy at his hands.  His lips moved, but this was not the place in which to utter the cruel words which rose to them.  And then the stern man wiped away a tear as he remembered the long nights, in which he had sat with the reed in his hand, by the dull light of the lamp, carefully painting every sign of the fine hieratic character in which he committed his ideas and experience to writing.  He had discovered remedies for many diseases of the eye, spoken of in the sacred books of Thoth and the writings of a famous old physician of Byblos as incurable, but, knowing that he should be accused of sacrilege by his colleagues, if he ventured on a correction or improvement of the sacred writings, he had entitled his work, “Additional writings on the treatment of diseases of the eye, by the great god Thoth, newly discovered by the oculist Nebenchari.”

He had resolved on bequeathing his works to the library at Thebes, that his experience might be useful to his successors and bring forth fruit for the whole body of sufferers.  This was to be his reward for the long nights which he had sacrificed to science—­recognition after death, and fame for the caste to which he belonged.  And there stood his old rival Petammon, by the side of the crown-prince in the grove of Neith, and stirred the consuming fire, after having stolen his discovery of the operation of couching.  Their malicious faces were tinged by the red glow of the flames, which rose with their spiteful laughter towards heaven, as if demanding vengeance.  A little further off he saw in his dream Amasis receiving his father’s letters from the hands of the high-priest.  Scornful and mocking words were being uttered by the king; Neithotep looked exultant.—­In these visions Nebenchari was so lost, that one of the Persian doctors was obliged to point out to him that his patient was awake.  He nodded in reply, pointing to his own weary eyes with a smile, felt the sick girl’s pulse, and asked her in Egyptian how she had slept.

“I do not know,” she answered, in a voice that was hardly audible.  “It seemed to me that I was asleep, and yet I saw and heard everything that had happened in the room.  I felt so weak that I hardly knew whether I was awake or asleep.  Has not Atossa been here several times?”

“Yes.”

“And Cambyses stayed with Kassandane until sunrise; then he went out, mounted his horse Reksch, and rode into the game-park.”