But the old man to whom the entreaty was addressed shook his shaven head.

"Yet you can get no rest here......

"And the stars? And the tumult below? Who can think of rest in hours
like these? Throw my cloak around me! Rest--on such a night of horror!"

"You are shivering. And how your hand and the instrument are shaking."

"Then support my arm."

The youth dutifully obeyed the request; but in a short time he exclaimed:
"Vain, all is vain; star after star is shrouded by the murky clouds.
Alas, hear the wailing from the city. Ah, it rises from our own house
too. I am so anxious, grandfather, feel how my head burns! Come down,
perhaps they need help."

"Their fate is in the hands of the gods--my place is here.

"But there--there! Look northward across the lake. No, farther to the
west. They are coming from the city of the dead."

"Oh, grandfather! Father--there!" cried the youth, a grandson of the
astrologer of Amon-Ra, to whom he was lending his aid. They were
standing in the observatory of the temple of this god in Tanis, the
Pharaoh's capital in the north of the land of Goshen. He moved away,
depriving the old man of the support of his shoulder, as he continued:
"There, there! Is the sea sweeping over the land? Have the clouds
dropped on the earth to heave to and fro? Oh, grandfather, look yonder!