Then came some priests, who carried a box with the sacred evergreen tree
of Amon; and when a fresh outburst of music fell on her ear, and a cloud
of incense was wafted up to her, Bent-Anat said: "Now my father should be
coming."

"And you," cried Rameri, "and close behind, Nefert's husband, Mena, with
the guards. Uncle Ani comes on foot. How strangely he has dressed
himself like a sphinx hind-part before!"

"How so?" asked Nefert.

"A sphinx," said Rameri laughing, it has the body of a lion, and the head
of a man,

[There were no female sphinxes in Egypt. The sphinx was called Neb,
i. e., the lord. The lion-couchant had either a man's or a rams
head.]

and my uncle has a peaceful priest's robe, and on his head the helmet of
a warrior."

"If the king were here, the distributor of life," said Nefert, "you would
not be missing from among his supporters."

"No indeed!" replied the prince, "and the whole thing is altogether
different when my father is here. His heroic form is splendid on his
golden throne; the statues of Truth and justice spread their wings behind
him as if to protect him; his mighty representative in fight, the lion,
lies peacefully before him, and over him spreads the canopy with the
Urmus snake at the top. There is hardly any end to the haruspices, the