father, come back and tell me. I will watch for you here at the door of
the tent. I am poor, alas! and cannot reward you, but the princess will
thank your father as a princess should. Be watchful, Salich!"

The girl vanished, and went to the drivers of the gang of prisoners,
wished them a merry and pleasant evening, and then hastened back to Bent-
Anat, who anxiously stroked her abundant hair, and asked her why she was
so pale.

"Lie down," said the princess kindly, "you are feverish. Only look,
Nefert, I can see the blood coursing through the blue veins in her
forehead."

Meanwhile the drivers drank, praised the royal wine, and the lucky day on
which they drank it; and when Uarda's father suggested that the prisoners
too should have a mouthful one of his fellow soldiers cried: "Aye, let
the poor beasts be jolly too for once."

The red-beard filled a large beaker, and offered it first to a forger and
his fettered companion, then he approached Pentaur, and whispered:

"Do not drink any-keep awake!"

As he was going to warn the physician too, one of his companions came
between them, and offering his tankard to Nebsecht said:

"Here mumbler, drink; see him pull! His stuttering mouth is spry enough
for drinking!"