sleeping leech on a mat, prepared a couch for Pentaur of leaves and
skins, called his daughter to wash his feet, and offered him his own
holiday garment in the place of the rags that covered his body.

Pentaur stretched himself out on the humble couch, which to him seemed
softer than the silken bed of a queen, but on which nevertheless he could
not sleep, for the thoughts and fancies that filled his heart were too
overpowering and bewildering.

The stars still sparkled in the heavens when he sprang from his bed of
skins, lifted Nebsecht on to it, and rushed out into the open air. A
fresh mountain spring flowed close to the hunter's hut. He went to it,
and bathed his face in the ice-cold water, and let it flow over his body
and limbs. He felt as if he must cleanse himself to his very soul, not
only from the dust of many weeks, but from the rebellion and despondency,
the ignominy and bitterness, and the contact with vice and degradation.
When at last he left the spring, and returned to the little house, he
felt clean and fresh as on the morning of a feast-day at the temple of
Seti, when he had bathed and dressed himself in robes of snow-white
linen. He took the hunter's holiday dress, put it on, and went out of
doors again.

The enormous masses of rock lay dimly before him, like storm-clouds, and
over his head spread the blue heavens with their thousand stars.

The soothing sense of freedom and purity raised his soul, and the air
that he breathed was so fresh and light, that he sprang up the path to
the summit of the peak as if he were borne on wings or carried by
invisible hands.