where you got the heart."

"I went into the house of the embalmer," said the old man, after he had
selected a few large flints, to which, with crafty blows, he gave the
shape of knives, "and there I found three bodies in which I had to make
the eight prescribed incisions with my flint-knife. When the dead lie
there undressed on the wooden bench they all look alike, and the begger
lies as still as the favorite son of a king. But I knew very well who
lay before me. The strong old body in the middle of the table was the
corpse of the Superior of the temple of Hatasu, and beyond, close by each
other, were laid a stone-mason of the Necropolis, and a poor girl from
the strangers' quarter, who had died of consumption--two miserable wasted
figures. I had known the Prophet well, for I had met him a hundred times
in his gilt litter, and we always called him Rui, the rich. I did my
duty by all three, I was driven away with the usual stoning, and then I
arranged the inward parts of the bodies with my mates. Those of the
Prophet are to be preserved later in an alabaster canopus,

[This vase was called canopus at a later date. There were four of
them for each mummy.]

those of the mason and the girl were put back in their bodies.

"Then I went up to the three bodies, and I asked myself, to which I
should do such a wrong as to rob him of his heart. I turned to the two
poor ones, and I hastily went up to the sinning girl. Then I heard the
voice of the demon that cried out in my heart 'The girl was poor and
despised like you while she walked on Seb,

[Seb is the earth; Plutarch calls Seb Chronos. He is often spoken