That Uarda's father had effected this change was beyond a doubt, and the
poet trusted the rough but honest soldier who still kept near him, and
gave him credit for the best intentions, although he had only spoken to
him once since their departure from Thebes.

That was the first night, when he had come up to Pentaur, and whispered:
"I am looking after you. You will find the physician Nebsecht here; but
treat each other as enemies rather than as friends, if you do not wish to
be parted."

Pentaur had communicated the soldier's advice to Nebsecht, and he had
followed it in his own way.

It afforded him a secret pleasure to see how Pentaur's life contradicted
the belief in a just and beneficent ordering of the destinies of men; and
the more he and the poet were oppressed, the more bitter was the irony,
often amounting to extravagance, with which the mocking sceptic attacked
him.

He loved Pentaur, for the poet had in his keeping the key which alone
could give admission to the beautiful world which lay locked up in his
own soul; but yet it was easy to him, if he thought they were observed,
to play his part, and to overwhelm Pentaur with words which, to the
drivers, were devoid of meaning, and which made them laugh by the strange
blundering fashion in which he stammered them out.

"A belabored husk of the divine self-consciousness." "An advocate of
righteousness hit on the mouth." "A juggler who makes as much of this
worst of all possible worlds as if it were the best." "An admirer of the