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Uarda : a Romance of Ancient Egypt — Volume 06 by Georg Ebers
page 49 of 79 (62%)
The priests had begun their chant within the walls, which debarred the
outer world from any glimpse into the bright precincts of the temple; the
Regent with his brilliant train had entered the sanctuary; the gates were
thrown open; the youths in their short-aprons, who threw flowers in the
path of the God, had come out; clouds of incense announced the approach
of Anion--and still the daughter of Rameses appeared not.

Many rumors were afloat, most of them contradictory; but one was
accurate, and confirmed by the temple servants, to the great regret of
the crowd--Bent-Anat was excluded from the Feast of the Valley.

She stood on her balcony with her brother Rameri and her friend Nefert,
and looked down on the river, and on the approaching God.

Early in the previous morning Bek-en-Chunsu, the old high-priest of the
temple of Anion had pronounced her clean, but in the evening he had come
to communicate to her the intelligence that Ameni prohibited her entering
the Necropolis before she had obtained the forgiveness of the Gods of the
West for her offence.

While still under the ban of uncleanness she had visited the temple of
Hathor, and had defiled it by her presence; and the stern Superior of the
City of the Dead was in the right--that Bek-en-Chunsu himself admitted--
in closing the western shore against her. Bent-Anat then had recourse to
Ani; but, though he promised to mediate for her, he came late in the
evening to tell her that Ameni was inexorable. The Regent at the same
time, with every appearance of regret, advised her to avoid an open
quarrel, and not to defy Ameni's lofty severity, but to remain absent
from the festival.

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