feigned great astonishment, and agreed with the high-priest that Paaker
should not for the present be informed of his true origin.

"He is a strangely constituted man," said Ameni, "and he is not incapable
of playing us some unforeseen trick before he has done his part, if he is
told who he is."


The storm had exhausted itself, and the sky, though covered still with
torn and flying clouds, cleared by degrees, as the morning went on; a
sharp coolness succeeded the hot blast, but the sun as it mounted higher
and higher soon heated the air. On the roads and in the gardens lay
uprooted trees and many slightly-built houses which had been blown down,
while the tents in the strangers' quarter, and hundreds of light palm-
thatched roofs, had been swept away.

The Regent was returning to Thebes, and with him went Ameni, who desired
to ascertain by his own eyes what mischief the whirlwind had done to his
garden in the city. On the Nile they met Paaker's boat, and Ani caused
it and his own to be stopped, while he requested Paaker to visit him
shortly at the palace.

The high-priest's garden was in no respect inferior in beauty and extent
to that of the Mohar. The ground had belonged to his family from the
remotest generations, and his house was large and magnificent. He seated
himself in a shady arbor, to take a repast with his still handsome wife
and his young and pretty daughters.

He consoled his wife for the various damage done by the hurricane,
promised the girls to build a new and handsomer clove-cot in the place of