three days and three nights in her arms. What woman could retain her
senses after these hours of torture?--[Diodorus I. 77.]

The greater number of the Egyptian penal laws not only secured the
punishment of the criminal, but rendered a repetition of the offence
impossible.

The Persian party now met with a hindrance, a large crowd having
assembled before one of the handsomest houses in the street leading to
the temple of Neith. The few windows of this house that could be seen
(the greater number opening on the garden and court) were closed with
shutters, and at the door stood an old man, dressed in the plain white
robe of a priest's servant. He was endeavoring, with loud cries, to
prevent a number of men of his own class from carrying a large chest out
of the house.

"What right have you to rob my master?" he shrieked indignantly.
"I am the guardian of this house, and when my master left for Persia (may
the gods destroy that land!) he bade me take especial care of this chest
in which his manuscripts lay."

"Compose yourself, old Hib!" shouted one of these inferior priests, the
same whose acquaintance we made on the arrival of the Asiatic Embassy.
"We are here in the name of the high-priest of the great Neith, your
master's master. There must be queer papers in this box, or Neithotep
would not have honored us with his commands to fetch them."

"But I will not allow my master's papers to be stolen," shrieked the old
man. "My master is the great physician Nebenchari, and I will secure his
rights, even if I must appeal to the king himself."