as light when I think, as mercy when I act, and when I speak, as truth--
always as truth!"

The poet spoke these words with absorbed fervor, and Nebsecht heard them
as if they were speech from some distant and beautiful world. He went
affectionately up to his friend, and eagerly held out his hand. Pentaur
grasped it, pressed it warmly, and said:

"That was a fearful moment! You do not know what Ameni has been to me,
and now, now!"

He hardly had ceased speaking when steps were heard approaching the
physician's room, and a young priest requested the friends to appear at
once in the meeting-room of the Initiated. In a few moments they both
entered the great hall, which was brilliantly lighted.

Not one of the chiefs of the House of Seti was absent.

Ameni sat on a raised seat at a long table; on his right hand was old
Gagabu, on his left the third Prophet of the temple. The principals of
the different orders of priests had also found places at the table, and
among them the chief of the haruspices, while the rest of the priests,
all in snow-white linen robes, sat, with much dignity, in a large
semicircle, two rows deep. In the midst stood a statue of the Goddess
of truth and justice.

Behind Ameni's throne was the many-colored image of the ibis-headed Toth,
who presided over the measure and method of things, who counselled the
Gods as well as men, and presided over learning and the arts. In a niche
at the farther end of the hall were painted the divine Triad of Thebes,