While the company were filling and refilling the beakers, which raised
their spirits to so wild a pitch, the prisoner Pentaur had been examined
in the presence of the Regent. Ameni's messenger had found the poet on
his knees, so absorbed in meditation that he did not perceive his
approach. All his peace of mind had deserted him, his soul was in a
tumult, and he could not succeed in obtaining any calm and clear control
over the new life-pulses which were throbbing in his heart.

He had hitherto never gone to rest at night without requiring of himself
an account of the past day, and he had always been able to detect the
most subtle line that divided right from wrong in his actions. But
to-night he looked back on a perplexing confusion of ideas and events,
and when he endeavored to sort them and arrange them, he could see
nothing clearly but the image of Bent-Anat, which enthralled his heart
and intellect.

He had raised his hand against his fellow-men, and dipped it in blood,
he desired to convince himself of his sin, and to repent but he could
not; for each time he recalled it, to blame and condemn himself, he saw
the soldier's hand twisted in Uarda's hair, and the princess's eyes
beaming with approbation, nay with admiration, and he said to himself
that he had acted rightly, and in the same position would do the same
again to-morrow. Still he felt that he had broken through all the
conditions with which fate had surrounded his existence, and it seemed
to him that he could never succeed in recovering the still, narrow, but
peaceful life of the past.

His soul went up in prayer to the Almighty One, and to the spirit of the
sweet humble woman whom he had called his mother, imploring for peace of
mind and modest content; but in vain--for the longer he remained