from whom my mother was carried off; and now I have lost the jewel, and
with it my identity and my hopes and happiness."

Uarda wept aloud; Nefert put her arm around her affectionately.

"Poor child!" she said, "was your treasure destroyed in the flames?"

"No, no," cried Uarda eagerly. "I snatched it out of my chest and held
it in my hand when Nebsecht took me in his arms, and I still had it in my
hand when I was lying safe on the ground outside the burning house, and
Bent-Anat was close to me, and Rameri came up. I remember seeing him as
if I were in a dream, and I revived a little, and I felt the jewel in my
fingers then."

"Then it was dropped on the way to the tent?" said Nefert.

Uarda nodded; little Scherau, who had been crouching on the floor beside
her, gave Uarda a loving glance, dimmed with tears, and quietly slipped
out of the tent.

Time went by in silence; Uarda sat looking at the ground, Nefert and Mena
held each other's hands, but the thoughts of all three were with the
dead. A perfect stillness reigned, and the happiness of the reunited
couple was darkly overshadowed by their sorrow. From time to time the
silence was broken by a trumpet-blast from the royal tent; first when the
Asiatic princes were introduced into the Council-tent, then when the
Danaid king departed, and lastly when the Pharaoh preceded the conquered
princes to the banquet.

The charioteer remembered how his master had restored him to dignity and