sacks, men! Here there is fresh water, and perhaps a few dates and sweet
Manna for you to eat with it.

["Man" is the name still given by the Bedouins of Sinai to the sweet
gum which exudes from the Tamarix mannifera. It is the result of
the puncture of an insect, and occurs chiefly in May. By many it is
supposed to be the Manna of the Bible.]

But keep the peace, you two quarrelsome fellows--Huni and Nebsecht."

Bent-Anat's journey to the Emerald-Hathor was long since ended. As far
as Keft she had sailed down the Nile with her escort, from thence she had
crossed the desert by easy marches, and she had been obliged to wait a
full week in the port on the Red Sea, which was chiefly inhabited by
Phoenicians, for a ship which had finally brought her to the little
seaport of Pharan. From Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the
oasis, where the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side.

The old priests, who conducted the service of the Goddess, had received
the daughter of Rameses with respect, and undertook to restore her to
cleanness by degrees with the help of the water from the mountain-stream
which watered the palm-grove of the Amalekites, of incense-burning, of
pious sentences, and of a hundred other ceremonies. At last the Goddess
declared herself satisfied, and Bent-Anat wished to start for the north
and join her father, but the commander of the escort, a grey-headed
Ethiopian field officer--who had been promoted to a high grade by Ani--
explained to the Chamberlain that he had orders to detain the princess in
the oasis until her departure was authorized by the Regent himself.

Bent-Anat now hoped for the support of her father, for her brother