Two girls were speaking together, and one said to the other:

"The speaker is the handsomest man I ever saw, and his voice sounds like
soft music."

"And how his eyes shone when he spoke of truth as the highest of all
virtues!" replied the other. "All the Gods, I believe, must dwell in
him."

Bent-Anat colored as these words fell on her ear. It was growing dark,
and she wished to return home but Rameri wished to follow the procession
as it marched through the western valley by torch-light, so that the
grave of his grandfather Seti should also be visited. The princess
unwillingly yielded, but it would in any case have been difficult to
reach the river while every one was rushing in the opposite direction; so
the two ladies, and Rameri, let themselves be carried along by the crowd,
and by the time the daylight was gone, they found themselves in the
western valley, where to-night no beasts of prey dared show themselves;
jackals and hyenas had fled before the glare of the torches, and the
lanterns made of colored papyrus.

The smoke of the torches mingled with the dust stirred by a thousand
feet, and the procession moved along, as it were, in a cloud, which also
shrouded the multitude that followed.

The three companions had labored on as far as the hovel of the
paraschites Pinem, but here they were forced to pause, for guards drove
back the crowd to the right and left with long staves, to clear a passage
for the procession as it approached.