awaiting some order. Sentries paced to and fro with lowered weapons,
lost in melancholy thoughts. Now and then a few young priests in
mourning robes glided through the infected rooms, silently swinging
silver censers which diffused a pungent scent of resin and juniper.

A nightmare seemed to weigh upon the palace and its occupants; for in
addition to grief for their beloved prince, which saddened many a heart,
the dread of death and the desert wind paralyzed alike the energy of mind
and body.

Here in the immediate vicinity of the throne where, in former days, all
eyes had sparkled with hope, ambition, gratitude, fear, loyalty, or hate,
Hosea now encountered only drooping heads and downcast looks.

Bai, the second prophet of Amon, alone seemed untouched alike by sorrow,
anxiety, or the enervating atmosphere of the day; he greeted the warrior
in the ante-room as vigorously and cheerily as ever, and assured him--
though in the lowest whisper--that no one thought of holding him
responsible for the misdeeds of his people. But when Hosea volunteered
the acknowledgment that, at the moment of his summons to the king, he had
been in the act of going to the commander-in-chief to beg a release from
military service, the priest interrupted him to remind him of the debt of
gratitude he, Bai, owed to him as the preserver of his life. Then he
added that he would make every effort in his power to keep him in the
army and show that the Egyptians--even against Pharaoh's will, or which
he would speak farther with him privately--knew how to honor genuine
merit without distinction of person or birth.

The Hebrew had little time to repeat his resolve; the head chamberlain
interrupted them to lead Hosea into the presence of the "good god."