wretches? Come--smooth your brow; think of the approaching victory, of
our return home, and remember that you have less to forgive Paaker than
he to forgive you. Now, pray go and see to the horses, and to-morrow
morning let me see you on my chariot full of cheerful courage--as I love
to see you."

Mena left the tent, and went to the stables; there he met Rameri, who was
waiting to speak to him. The eager boy said that he had always looked up
to him and loved him as a brilliant example, but that lately he had been
perplexed as to his virtuous fidelity, for he had been informed that Mena
had taken a strange woman into his tent--he who was married to the
fairest and sweetest woman in Thebes.

"I have known her," he concluded, "as well as if I were her brother; and
I know that she would die if she heard that you had insulted and
disgraced her. Yes, insulted her; for such a public breach of faith is
an insult to the wife of an Egyptian. Forgive my freedom of speech, but
who knows what to-morrow may bring forth--and I would not for worlds go
out to battle, thinking evil of you."

Mena let Rameri speak without interruption, and then answered:

"You are as frank as your father, and have learned from him to hear the
defendant before you condemn him. A strange maiden, the daughter of the
king of the Danaids,

[A people of the Greeks at the time of the Trojan war. They are
mentioned among the nations of the Mediterranean allied against
Rameses III. The Dardaneans were inhabitants of the Trojan
provinces of Dardanin, and whose name was used for the Trojans