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:

"You go first into the house."

Paaker bowed to the ground.

"I will call the man out," he said, "but how dare we step over his
threshold. Thou knowest such a proceeding will defile us."

Nefert looked pleadingly at Bent-Anat, but the princess repeated her
command.

"Go before me; I have no fear of defilement." The Mohar still hesitated.

"Wilt thou provoke the Gods?--and defile thyself?" But the princess let
him say no more; she signed to Nefert, who raised her hands in horror and
aversion; so, with a shrug of her shoulders, she left her companion
behind with the Mohar, and stepped through an opening in the hedge into a
little court, where lay two brown goats; a donkey with his forelegs tied
together stood by, and a few hens were scattering the dust about in a
vain search for food.