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8
 Page vii

CONTENTS
Preface xi

Chapter 1
Sampling and Descriptive Statistics 1
Introduction 1
1.1 Sampling 3
1.2 Summary Statistics 13
1.3 Graphical Summaries 25

Chapter 2
Probability 48
Introduction 48
2.1 Basic Ideas 48
2.2 Counting Methods 62
2.3 Conditional Probability and Independence 69
2.4 Random Variables 90
2.5 Linear Functions of Random Variables 116
2.6 Jointly Distributed Random Variables 127

Chapter 3
Propagation of Error 164
Introduction 164

9
3.1 Measurement Error 164
3.2 Linear Combinations of Measurements 170
3.3 Uncertainties for Functions of One Measurement 180
3.4 Uncertainties for Functions of Several Measurements 186

Chapter 4
Commonly Used Distributions 200
Introduction 200
4.1 The Bernoulli Distribution 200
4.2 The Binomial Distribution 203
4.3 The Poisson Distribution 215
4.4 Some Other Discrete Distributions 230
4.5 The Normal Distribution 241
4.6 The Lognormal Distribution 256
4.7 The Exponential Distribution 262
4.8 Some Other Continuous Distributions 272
4.9 Some Principles of Point Estimation 280
4.10 Probability Plots 285
4.11 The Central Limit Theorem 290
4.12 Simulation 303

Chapter 5
Confidence Intervals 323
Introduction 323
5.1 Large-Sample Confidence Intervals for a Population Mean 324
5.2 Confidence Intervals for Proportions 339
5.3 Small-Sample Confidence Intervals for a Population Mean 345

10
5.4 Confidence Intervals for the Difference Between Two Means 355
5.5 Confidence Intervals for the Difference Between Two Proportions
359 Page viii
5.6 Small-Sample Confidence Intervals for the Difference
Between Two Means 364
5.7 Confidence Intervals with Paired Data 371
5.8 Confidence Intervals for the Variance and Standard Deviation of a
Normal Population 376
5.9 Prediction Intervals and Tolerance Intervals 381
5.10 Using Simulation to Construct Confidence Intervals 385

Chapter 6
Hypothesis Testing 402
Introduction 402
6.1 Large-Sample Tests for a Population Mean 402
6.2 Drawing Conclusions from the Results of Hypothesis Tests 412
6.3 Tests for a Population Proportion 420
6.4 Small-Sample Tests for a Population Mean 425
6.5 Large-Sample Tests for the Difference Between Two Means 431
6.6 Tests for the Difference Between Two Proportions 437
6.7 Small-Sample Tests for the Difference Between Two Means 443
6.8 Tests with Paired Data 452
6.9 Distribution-Free Tests 458
6.10 Tests with Categorical Data 467
6.11 Tests for Variances of Normal Populations 477
6.12 Fixed-Level Testing 483
6.13 Power 488

11
6.14 Multiple Tests 497
6.15 Using Simulation to Perform Hypothesis Tests 501

Chapter 7
Correlation and Simple Linear Regression 514
Introduction 514
7.1 Correlation 514
7.2 The Least-Squares Line 532
7.3 Uncertainties in the Least-Squares Coefficients 549
7.4 Checking Assumptions and Transforming Data 570

Chapter 8
Multiple Regression 603
Introduction 603
8.1 The Multiple Regression Model 603
8.2 Confounding and Collinearity 621
8.3 Model Selection 630

Chapter 9
Factorial Experiments 669
Introduction 669
9.1 One-Factor Experiments 669
9.2 Pairwise Comparisons in One-Factor Experiments 694
9.3 Two-Factor Experiments 707
9.4 Randomized Complete Block Designs 732
9.5 2P Factorial Experiments 742
Page ix
Chapter 10

12
Statistical Quality Control 772
Introduction 772
10.1 Basic Ideas 772
10.2 Control Charts for Variables 775
10.3 Control Charts for Attributes 795
10.4 The CUSUM Chart 800
10.5 Process Capability 804

Appendix A: Tables 811

Appendix B: Partial Derivatives 836

Appendix C: Bibliography 838

Answers to Odd-Numbered Exercises 841

Index 912

13
 Page xi

PREFACE
MOTIVATION
The idea for this book grew out of discussions between the statistics
faculty and the engineering faculty at the Colorado School of Mines
regarding our introductory statistics course for engineers. Our engineering
faculty felt that the students needed substantial coverage of propagation of
error, as well as more emphasis on model-fitting skills. The statistics
faculty believed that students needed to become more aware of some
important practical statistical issues such as the checking of model
assumptions and the use of simulation.
My view is that an introductory statistics text for students in
engineering and science should offer all these topics in some depth. In
addition, it should be flexible enough to allow for a variety of choices to
be made regarding coverage, because there are many different ways to
design a successful introductory statistics course. Finally, it should provide
examples that present important ideas in realistic settings. Accordingly, the
book has the following features:
• The book is flexible in its presentation of probability, allowing
instructors wide latitude in choosing the depth and extent of their
coverage of this topic.
• The book contains many examples that feature real, contemporary
data sets, both to motivate students and to show connections to
industry and scientific research.
• The book contains many examples of computer output and exercises

14
 suitable for solving with computer software.
• The book provides extensive coverage of propagation of error.
• The book presents a solid introduction to simulation methods and the
bootstrap, including applications to verifying normality assumptions,
computing probabilities, estimating bias, computing confidence
intervals, and testing hypotheses.
• The book provides more extensive coverage of linear model
diagnostic procedures than is found in most introductory texts. This
includes material on examination of residual plots, transformations of
variables, and principles of variable selection in multivariate models.
• The book covers the standard introductory topics, including
descriptive statistics, probability, confidence intervals, hypothesis
tests, linear regression, factorial experiments, and statistical quality
control.

MATHEMATICAL LEVEL
Most of the book will be mathematically accessible to those whose
background includes one semester of calculus. The exceptions are
multivariate propagation of error, which requires partial derivatives, and
joint probability distributions, which require multiple integration. These
topics may be skipped on first reading, if desired. Page xii

COMPUTER USE
Over the past 40 years, the development of fast and cheap computing has
revolutionized statistical practice; indeed, this is one of the main reasons
that statistical methods have been penetrating ever more deeply into
scientific work. Scientists and engineers today must not only be adept with
computer software packages, they must also have the skill to draw
conclusions from computer output and to state those conclusions in words.
Accordingly, the book contains exercises and examples that involve

15
interpreting, as well as generating, computer output, especially in the
chapters on linear models and factorial experiments. Many statistical
software packages are available for instructors who wish to integrate their
use into their courses, and this book can be used effectively with any of
these packages.
The modern availability of computers and statistical software has
produced an important educational benefit as well, by making simulation
methods accessible to introductory students. Simulation makes the
fundamental principles of statistics come alive. The material on simulation
presented here is designed to reinforce some basic statistical ideas, and to
introduce students to some of the uses of this powerful tool.

CONTENT
Chapter 1 covers sampling and descriptive statistics. The reason that
statistical methods work is that samples, when properly drawn, are likely
to resemble their populations. Therefore Chapter 1 begins by describing
some ways to draw valid samples. The second part of the chapter discusses
descriptive statistics.
Chapter 2 is about probability. There is a wide divergence in
preferences of instructors regarding how much and how deeply to cover
this subject. Accordingly, I have tried to make this chapter as flexible as
possible. The major results are derived from axioms, with proofs given for
most of them. This should enable instructors to take a mathematically
rigorous approach. On the other hand, I have attempted to illustrate each
result with an example or two, in a scientific context where possible, that
is designed to present the intuition behind the result. Instructors who prefer
a more informal approach may therefore focus on the examples rather than
the proofs.
Chapter 3 covers propagation of error, which is sometimes called
“error analysis” or, by statisticians, “the delta method.” The coverage is

16
more extensive than in most texts, but because the topic is so important to
many engineers I thought it was worthwhile. The presentation is designed
to enable instructors to adjust the amount of coverage to fit the needs of of
the course. In particular, Sections 3.2 through 3.4 can be omitted without
loss of continuity.
Chapter 4 presents many of the probability distribution functions
commonly used in practice. Point estimation, probability plots and the
Central Limit Theorem are also covered. The final section introduces
simulation methods to assess normality assumptions, compute
probabilities, and estimate bias. Page xiii
Chapters 5 and 6 cover confidence intervals and hypothesis
testing, respectively. The P-value approach to hypothesis testing is
emphasized, but fixed-level testing and power calculations are also
covered. The multiple testing problem is covered in some depth.
Simulation methods to compute confidence intervals and to test
hypotheses are introduced as well.
Chapter 7 covers correlation and simple linear regression. I have
worked hard to emphasize that linear models are appropriate only when
the relationship between the variables is linear. This point is all the more
important since it is often overlooked in practice by engineers and
scientists (not to mention statisticians). It is not hard to find in the
scientific literature straight-line fits and correlation coefficient summaries
for plots that show obvious curvature or for which the slope of the line is
determined by a few influential points. Therefore this chapter includes a
lengthy section on checking model assumptions and transforming
variables.
Chapter 8 covers multiple regression. Model selection methods are
given particular emphasis, because choosing the variables to include in a
model is an essential step in many real-life analyses. The topic of
confounding is given careful treatment as well.
Chapter 9 discusses some commonly used experimental designs and

17
the methods by which their data are analyzed. One-way and two-way
analysis of variance methods, along with randomized complete block
designs and 2p factorial designs, are covered fairly extensively.
Chapter 10 presents the topic of statistical quality control, discussing
control charts, CUSUM charts, and process capability; and concluding
with a brief discussion of sixsigma quality.

NEW FOR THIS EDITION

The fifth edition of this book is intended to extend the strengths of the
fourth. Some of the changes are:
• A large number of new exercises have been included, many of which
involve real data from recently published sources.
• Many examples have been updated.
• Material on resistance to outliers has been added to Chapter 1.
• Chapter 7 now contains material on interpreting the slope of the least-
squares line.
• The exposition has been improved in a number of places.

RECOMMENDED COVERAGE
The book contains enough material for a year-long course. For a one-
semester course, there are a number of options. In our three-hour course at
the Colorado School of Mines, we cover all of the first four chapters,
except for joint distributions, the more theoretical aspects of point
estimation, and the exponential, gamma, and Weibull distributions. We
then cover the material on confidence intervals and hypothesis testing in
Chapters 5 and 6, going quickly over the two-sample methods Page xiv
and power calculations and omitting distribution-free methods
and the chi-square and F tests. We finish by covering as much of the
material on correlation and simple linear regression in Chapter 7 as time
permits.

18
 A course with a somewhat different emphasis can be fashioned by
including more material on probability, spending more time on two-sample
methods and power, and reducing coverage of propagation of error,
simulation, or regression. Many other options are available; for example,
one may choose to include material on factorial experiments in place of
some of the preceding topics.

INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES
The following resources are available on the book website
www.mhhe.com/navidi.
• Solutions Manual
• PowerPoint Lecture Notes
• Suggested Syllabi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to many people for contributions at every stage of
development. I received valuable suggestions from my colleagues Barbara
Moskal, Gus Greivel, Ashlyn Munson, and Melissa Laeser at the Colorado
School of Mines. Mike Colagrosso developed some excellent applets, and
Lesley Strawderman developed PowerPoint slides to supplement the text. I
am particularly grateful to Jack Miller of the University of Michigan, who
has corrected many errors and made many valuable suggestions for
improvement.
The staff at McGraw-Hill has been extremely capable and supportive.
In particular, I would like to express my thanks to Product Developer Tina
Bower, Content Project Manager Jeni McAtee, and Senior Portfolio
Manager Thomas Scaife for their patience and guidance in the preparation
of this edition.

William Navidi

19
 Key Features

Content Overview Page xv

This book allows flexible coverage because there are many
ways to design a successful introductory statistics course.

• Flexible coverage of probability addresses the needs of

different courses. Allowing for a mathematically rigorous
approach, the major results are derived from axioms, with proofs
given for most of them. On the other hand, each result is
illustrated with an example or two to promote intuitive
understanding. Instructors who prefer a more informal approach
may therefore focus on the examples rather than the proofs and
skip the optional sections.

• Extensive coverage of propagation of error , sometimes

called “error analysis” or “the delta method,” is provided in a
separate chapter. The coverage is more thorough than in most
texts. The format is flexible so that the amount of coverage can
be tailored to the needs of the course.

• A solid introduction to simulation methods and the

bootstrap is presented in the final sections of Chapters 4, 5, and

20
 6.

• Extensive coverage of linear model diagnostic procedures in

Chapter 7 includes a lengthy section on checking model
assumptions and transforming variables. The chapter emphasizes
that linear models are appropriate only when the relationship
between the variables is linear. This point is all the more
important since it is often overlooked in practice by engineers
and scientists (not to mention statisticians).

Real-World Data Sets

With a fresh approach to the subject, the author uses contemporary
real-world data sets to motivate students and show a direct connection
to industry and research.

Computer Output
The book contains exercises and examples that involve interpreting,
as well as generating, computer output.

21
 Students—
study more
efficiently,
retain more and
achieve better
outcomes.
Instructors—
focus on what
you love—
teaching.
Page xvi

SUCCESSFUL SEMESTERS
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FOR INSTRUCTORS

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Adaptive study resources like SmartBook® help your students be better
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Connect at www.mheducation.com/highered/connect

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23
©Hill Street Studios/Tobin Rogers/Blend Images LLC

Solutions for your challenges.

A product isn’t a solution. Real solutions are affordable, reliable, and come
with training and ongoing support when you need it and how you want it.
Our Customer Experience Group can also help you troubleshoot tech
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FOR STUDENTS

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©Shutterstock/wavebreakmedia

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Random documents with unrelated
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 He went on speaking at great length of the secret wisdom of the chosen
and the folly of the mob, of the greatness of King Akhnaton and of his
loneliness—"he, too, does not come down to earth from the Mountain"—of
their future triple alliance and of how he, Tuta, will help them both "to
come down."

Dio listened and the same spell came over her—she could not awake or
cry out.

"No, he is not stupid," she thought. "Or he is both stupid and clever,
crude and subtle. Very strong—not he, though, but the one who is behind
him. 'He is only a knife in the hand and the hand is strong.' He talks to me
as to a child, and I expect he talks to the king in the same way; and perhaps
he is right: we are children and he is grown up; we are 'not quite human' and
he—quite. He is all for the world and all the world is for him. A man like
that is certain to reign. You will be king over the mice, you cat! Akhnaton
will disappear, Tutankhaton will remain. He will go through the ages in his
Amon's sandals, trampling on the Great Spirit. And the kingdom of this
world will be Tuta's kingdom!"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Tuta said.

The centurion of the palace guards came in and, kneeling down, handed
Tuta a letter. He opened it and, after reading it, said:

"A chariot!"

When the centurion went out, he got up, walked across the room in
silence, then sat down in his chair, and resting his head on his hand, heaved
a deep sigh.

"Ah, the fools, the fools! I knew there was bound to be bloodshed...."

"Rebellion?" Dio asked.

 "Yes, there's a rising on the other side of the river. It seems the Lybian
mercenaries have joined the rebels." His face was sad, but joy was shining
through the sadness.

Dio understood: the rising was the beginning and the end was the
throne.

He got up and turning to the couch took up his staff, untied the sandals
from it, put them on and said:

"Well, there is nothing for it, let us go and put down the rising!"

VI

here will be a great rebellion and the earth will be turned

upside down like the potter's wheel." Recalling these
words of the ancient prophet Ipuver, Yubra eagerly awaited
the fulfilment of the prophecy. "What if it begins without
me!" he thought, sitting in the pit. And when Khnum
turned him out of the house he took a staff, slung a wallet
behind his back and set off at random, looking as though he had been a
homeless wanderer all his life.

He remembered his old friend Nebra, the boatman, and decided to go

and see him at the Risit Harbour. But at the harbour he was told that Nebra
had finished work and was having supper in a tavern next door, in the
Hittite Square.

Yubra was tired; his legs ached with the stocks that he had been
wearing. He sat down to rest on a heap of stones on the quay.

The sun was setting behind the bare yellow rocks of the Lybian
Mountains, honeycombed with tombs. The low-lying meadows beyond the
river and the City of the Dead, where the embalmers' cauldrons were
perpetually boiling and black clouds of asphalt smoke rose in the air, were
already in shadow; only by the funeral temple of Amenhotep, at the end of
the sacred Road of the Jackals, the golden points of two obelisks shone with
a dull glow like smouldering candles.

The left bank was in shadow, but the right still lay in the evening sun,
which threw a coppery red glow on the dark-skinned, naked bargemen who
carried from the boats down the planks earthenware pots and sacks of
styrax and balm from Gilead, Arabian sandal and myrrh, fragrant incense
from Punt, and cloves—burnt offerings to the gods and ointments for the
dead. The quay was saturated with the fragrant odours, but through the
fragrance came the smell of a carcass thrown up by the river and lying on
the bank. An emaciated dog, with ribs that stood out under the skin, was
devouring it.

Suddenly two white eagles pounced on the carcass with loud flapping of
wings and greedy cries. The dog, frightened, jumped away with a squeal,
and watched them from a distance, its tail between its legs, its teeth bared in
an angry growl, its body shaking with hungry envy.

But a still greater envy glittered in the eyes of a starving beggar woman,
who had come in search of food from the province of the Black Heifer,
where men were devouring each other in their hunger.

She put her wrinkled, black, charred-looking breast to the lips of the
baby perched in a wicker basket behind her. It was biting and chewing it
furiously with its toothless gums but could not suck out a single drop of
milk, and, no longer able to cry, it only moaned.

"Bread, please, sir; I have had no food for three days!" the beggar
woman moaned in a voice as small as her baby's, stretching out her hand to
Yubra.

"I have none, my poor woman, forgive me," he said, and he thought
'soon the hungry will be filled.'
 He got up and walked on. The woman followed him at a distance as a
stray dog follows a passer-by with a kind face.

Alongside of them on the smooth road, specially made for carrying

heavy weights from the harbour to the town, some fifteen hundred convicts
and prisoners of war were dragging, by four thick cables, something like an
enormous sledge with a huge granite statue of King Akhnaton that had just
been brought down the river. The superintendent of works, an old man with
a stern and intelligent face, looked like a dwarf as he stood on the knees of
the giant statue seated on its throne; he clapped his hands, beating the
measure of the song the men were singing and sometimes he shouted at
them and waved his stick, driving all this mass of men as a ploughman
drives a pair of oxen. In front of them a man was watering the road with a
watering can so that the runners should not be set on fire by the friction.

The cable, taut like a string, cut into men's shoulders even through the
felt pads; perspiration dropped from their faces bent low over the ground;
their muscles were strained; the veins on their foreheads were ready to
burst; their bones seemed to crack with the incredible effort. And the giant,
at rest for ever with a gentle smile on the flat lips, was only slightly moved
from time to time. A doleful song, accompanied by laboured breathing,
broke out like a moan from a thousand breasts:
Heigh-ho, pull and drag, pull and drag!
Heigh-ho, step along, step along!
When we've pulled an inch or two
We'll have earned a drink of beer,
We'll have earned a loaf of bread.
On and on with steady tread!
Make the heavy burden fly.
Now, brothers, here we go!
Have another try—
Oho!

"These, too, will not have long to suffer: the slaves shall be set free,"
Yubra thought.
 From the road he turned into Teshub Street. This part of Thebes, by the
Apet Risit harbour, was populated by the worshippers of the god Teshub—
boatmen, carpenters, rope-makers and other working people, as well as by
tradesmen and inn-keepers.

The dark grey huts, looking like wasps' nests, made of the river mud and
reeds, were so flimsy that they came to pieces after a good rain. But it only
rained once in two or three years and, besides, it cost next to nothing to
build such a hut afresh. Not only the poor, but people of moderate means,
lived in them, in accordance with the Egyptian wisdom: our temporal home
is a hut, our eternal home is the tomb.

The walls giving on to the street had no windows, except a little one
with a movable shutter in the front door for the porter; the name of the
owner was written over it in coloured hieroglyphics. All the other windows
were at the back. On the flat roofs could be seen the conical clay granaries
and the wooden frames over the skylights, facing north, "wind-catchers" for
catching the north wind—"the sweetest breath of the north."

The inn of Itacama the Hittite, where Nebra was having his supper,
stood at the very end of Teshub street, not far from the Hittite Square.

Instead of a signpost there was over the door a clay bas-relief

representing a Canaan labourer sucking beer through a reed from a jug, and
an Egyptian woman, probably a harlot or a tavern keeper, sitting opposite
him; the hieroglyphic inscription said: "He comforts his heart with the beer
Haket, Heart's seduction."

As he was going into the tavern Yubra turned round to the beggar
woman and called to her:

"Wait a minute, my dear; I will bring you some bread!"

But she did not hear: his voice was drowned by the song of two tipsy
scholars. Thinking that he was driving her away she walked off. And the
two scholars—one long and thin, nicknamed the Decanter, and another
short and fat, the Beer-Pot, tumbled into the tavern nearly knocking Yubra
down. Both were bawling with all their might:
 "Little geese are fond of water
But to us wine is better.
We are a merry crew
Drunken scholars bold and true.
Sages may grow old with study
Our wisdom is to drink.
Give us beer, pale or ruddy
Then we have no need to think."

Yubra walked into the dark, low-pitched room full of smoke and the
smell of cooking: Itacama was roasting a goose on a spit. All sorts of men
of different races sat on the matting on the floor listening to two girls
playing the kinnar and the flute; some were throwing dice, playing chess
and 'fingers'—guessing the number of fingers opened and closed very
rapidly; others were eating out of earthenware pots with their fingers—each
had a washing bowl by him—and sucking wine and beer through reeds.

When Nebra saw his friend Yubra, he came forward to embrace him—
the old men were very fond of each other—and ordered a luxurious supper
for him: lentil broth with garlic, fried fish, sheep's cheese, a pot of beer and
a cup of pomegranate wine—shedu. As often happens in times of famine
even poor people—as though to give themselves courage—liked being
extravagant with their last farthings.

Before sitting down to supper Yubra thought of the beggar woman; he

broke off part of a loaf and went outside. But she was no longer there and
he returned to Nebra disappointed.

The beggar had walked down the street and turned the corner; she
stopped there smelling newly baked bread. A middle-aged woman with a
wrinkled, sickly and cruel face was squatting on the ground baking barley
cakes: she did it by sticking thinly rolled-out paste on the outside of an
earthenware pot filled with charcoal embers.

"Give me some bread, dear, I have had no food for three days!" the
beggar moaned.
 The woman raised her hard eyes to her:

"Go along! There is no end of you beggars tramping about; one can't
feed you all."

But the beggar stood still, looking at the bread greedily. "Give me some,
please, please!" she repeated, with frenzied, almost menacing entreaty, and
when the woman turned away to take some dough from another pot, she
suddenly bent down and stretched out her hand.

"Ah, you plague of Canaan, you scorpion's sting, you snake, thief,
robber, may you have no coffin for your body!" yelled the woman, striking
her on the hand.

The beggar answered back, showing her teeth as the dog had done and
retreating slowly, her eyes still fixed greedily on the bread.

The woman picked up a stone and threw it at her. The stone hit the
beggar on the shoulder. She gave a dreadful dog-like howl and ran. The
baby in the basket began to cry, but stopped at once as though realising that
tears were of no avail now.

Running to Hittite Square, where there was the god Teshub's old timber
chapel that looked like a log hut, she fell exhausted by a heap of sun-dried
manure bricks for fuel. She leaned against them sideways uncomfortably:
the basket was in the way but she had not the strength to take it off. The
baby was so quiet that it did not seem to breathe; she had not the courage to
see whether it was asleep or dead.

She suddenly remembered her neighbour in the province of the Black

Heifer, a twelve-year-old child-mother who had stolen somebody else's
baby, calmly cut its throat as though it had been a lamb, fed her own child
with it and had some herself. "That's what I ought to have done," thought
the beggar woman.

The pain in her stomach was gnawing her like a wild beast. She
suddenly felt weak all over, melting with weakness as it were. "I shall soon
die," she thought, and remembered: "may you have no coffin for your
body." She smiled: "no coffin—no resurrection.... Well, so be it! Eternal
death—eternal rest..."

She, too, though in a different way than Yubra, felt that the world had
turned upside down.

And in the tavern Yubra was whispering with his friend:

"Has it begun?"

"Yes. The other side of the River people are assembling already and
walking about with the holy tabernacle, singing glory to Amon. And I
expect it won't be long before they start here," Nebra answered, and added,
after a pause: "But what is it to us? The rebellion is about their god—not
ours."

"Never mind," Yubra said. "Whichever way it begins, the end will be
the same: the earth will turn upside down—and glory be to Aton!"

"Don't talk so loud, brother—if they heard you they would give you a
beating."

"No danger of that!" a stupid looking youth said, with a grin, lisping as
though his tongue were too big for his mouth; he was Zia, the Carpenter,
nicknamed the Flea. "It is all one to us—Amon or Aton. So long as bread is
cheaper than fish let the rest go hang!"

"You are a stupid man, Flea!" said the cauldron maker, Min, a sullen
and pompous old man, with colorless eyes that looked very light in his face
black with soot. "Who is Amon's son, Khonsu? Why, Osiris-Bata—the
Spirit of Bread. If the Spirit leaves the earth, there will be no more bread
and we will all perish like midges!"

"And is it true, mates," the Flea lisped, "that our dear golden Khonsu is
to be melted into money to buy bread for the poor?"
 "What is heavier than lead and what name has it, other than
foolishness?" said Decanter, the scholar, looking at him with the self
importance of a learned man.

"And are you going to eat that bread?" Min asked, also looking at Flea
with contempt.

"I? It's all one to me! I will do what everybody else does," he answered,
smiling cautiously and shrugging his shoulders.

"Everybody will eat it, everybody!" the consumptive little cobbler Mar
said hurriedly, waving his hands and coughing. "The pig gulps down a baby
and doesn't care—it goes on grunting just the same; and so the people will
eat the god and say 'that's not enough, give us some more'!"

"Well, we shall indeed be scoundrels if we give away the holy image of

god to be defiled!" cried a giant with the face of a child—Hafra, the
blacksmith, striking his right fist on his left palm.

"There is one thing I can't make out," Min, the cauldron-maker said,
sighing heavily. "We are told that the king is a god. How can one god rise
against another?"

"It's not the king, but the high and mighty gentry, greedy bloodsuckers!"
the cobbler again put in hurriedly, going off into a fit of coughing. He
brought up some blood and went on:

"They ought to be hanged, the lot of them, like salt fish, on one string.
And the chief mischief maker is Tuta, the purring cat—he ought to be the
first to be hanged!"

"Mice burying the cat," said Min, smiling bitterly. "No, my man, there's
no way of doing it. The gentry talk and the people are mute; he who has the
sword has the word."

"A knife may be as good, but the trouble is that the hare has the knife in
its paw but cannot move for awe! That's why the fat-bellied ride rough-shod
over us. And if we weren't a set of fools we might do great things at a time
like this!" said a short, thick-set, broad-shouldered man of forty, with a
terribly disfigured but calm and intelligent face, who had been playing dice
without taking part in the conversation. He was Kiki the Noseless, the thief
who had lately plundered the tomb of the ancient King Saakerra and
obtained thousands of pounds worth of leaf gold and precious stones off the
king's mummy. He had been seized and brought to trial, but acquitted for a
large bribe.

Kiki was an assumed name and no one knew what his real name was. It
was rumored that in his youth he had committed an awful crime; he was
punished by being buried up to his neck in the ground, but by a miracle he
escaped and ran away; then he became the chief of a robber band in the
marshes of the Delta, was caught, had his nose cut off by the hangman and
was deported to the gold mines in Nubia; he escaped and became a brigand
once more; was seized again and sent to the copper mines of Sinai, escaped
again and, after hiding for some time, appeared in Thebes just before the
mutiny under the name of Noseless Kiki.

As soon as he spoke everyone was silent and turned to him. But he went
on playing dice, looking as though all that was being said here were empty
babble.

The musicians who had stopped for a moment began strumming the
kinnar and playing the pipe again. The scholars struck up a drunken song. It
had grown dark. They lighted a copper lamp suspended from the ceiling and
filled with evil smelling vegetable oil, and on the floor earthenware lamps
with mutton fat.

"Zen is speaking, Zen is speaking! Listen!" voices were heard suddenly.

Zen—or Zennofer—a man of thirty with a sad, gentle and sickly face
and dreadful cataract on his blind eyes, was a junior priest 'uab' in the
sanctuary of the god Khonsu-Osiris. He was reputed to be a seer because he
knew by heart the writings of the ancient prophets and himself had visions
and heard voices.

The musicians were told to stop, the drunken scholars were pushed out
into the street and in the stillness that followed the gentle voice of the
prophet sounded as though coming from a distance.

"To whom shall I tell of my sorrow? Whom shall I call to weep?" he

spoke as though crying in his sleep. "They do not hear, they do not see, they
walk in darkness; the foundations of the earth are shaking and there is no
wise man to understand and no foolish man to bewail it!"

Suddenly he stretched out his arms and cried in a loud voice: "So it has
been and so it shall be, so it has been and so it shall be! There shall be
endless evil. The gods will grow weary of men; the gods will forsake the
earth and go to heaven. The sun will be darkened, the earth will be waste.
The flowers of the fields will set up a moan, the heart of the beasts will
weep for men; but men will not weep—they will laugh with sorrow. An old
man will say 'I would I were dead,' and the child 'That I had not been born!'
There will be a great mutiny throughout the earth. The towns will say 'let us
drive out the rulers!' The mob will rush into the courts of judgment; the
scrolls of the law will be torn, records of estates scattered, the boundaries
between fields wiped out, the frontier posts knocked down. Men will say
'nothing is private, all things are in common; other people's things are mine;
I take what I like!' The poor will say to the rich, 'Thief, give me back what
you have stolen from me.' The small will say to the great 'all are equal!'
Those who have not built the houses will live in them; those who have not
tilled the land will fill the granaries; those who have not woven will be
clothed in fine raiment, and she who looked at her own reflection in water
will now gaze at herself in a mirror. Slaves will wear gold, pearls and lapis-
lazuli, and the mistress will go in rags, begging for bread. The beggars will
be as gods and the earth will turn upside down as does a potter's wheel!"

Suddenly he stood up and fell on his knees, raising his blind eyes to the
sky as though he already saw the things of which he was speaking.

"So it has been and so it shall be—there shall be a new heaven and a
new earth. There the lion shall lie down with the lamb and the sucking child
shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child put his hand on the
cockatrice's den. Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! He will
come down like rain on a freshly mown meadow, like dew upon the
parched fields. Lo, He cometh!"
 He stopped and all were silent. "That's all nonsense," the Noseless
Kiki's voice was suddenly heard in the stillness. "Why do you listen to a
fool's talk?"

"And why do you revile God's prophet, you dog?" said Hafra the
blacksmith, laying his hand on Kiki's shoulder so heavily that Kiki
staggered. Freeing himself with an agile movement, he seized the knife that
hung at his waist; but glancing at the giant's childish face he evidently
changed his mind and said calmly, with a twinkle in his eye,

"Very well, if he is a prophet, let him tell us when this is to be?"

"For such as you—never; but for the saints—soon!" Zen answered.

"Soon? You are wrong there. No, brother, it will take a good long time
for fools to grow wise."

"But do you know when it shall be?" Hafra asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Tell us then, don't beat about the bush!"

"Do you remember the inscription on King Una's tomb?" asked Kiki,
the same mocking smile in his eyes.

Zen said nothing, as though he had not heard the question, but his face
quivered like the face of a child in a fit of terror.

Yubra, too, was trembling: he felt that the fate of the world were being
decided by this argument between the saint and the criminal. The
blacksmith scowled more and more menacingly.

"You have forgotten? Well, I'll remind you," Kiki went on. "Once upon
a time, very long ago, there lived a king called Una. He was a clever man,
cleverer than anybody in the world, but he was a brigand, a thief, a
scoundrel, no better than we are. He died and was buried and they put over
his tomb the inscription he told them to write: The bones of the earth are
cracking, the sky is shaking, the stars are falling, the gods are trembling:
King Una, the devourer of gods comes forth from his tomb and goes
hunting; he sets traps and catches the gods; he kills them; stews them, roasts
them, and eats them; big ones for breakfast, middle-sized for dinner, little
ones for supper, and old gods and goddesses he uses to make fragrant
incense. He devoured them all and became the god of gods.'"

"What rubbish is this, you fool? Speak straight, don't wriggle!" cried
Hafra, clenching his fists in a fury.

"Have it straight, then: it won't be soon, but the hour will come when
the poor and wretched will say 'we are no worse than King Una, the
devourer of the gods.' Scoundrels, pickpockets, brigands, dirty Jews, men
with torn nostrils, the flogged, the branded, the cursed will say 'we are
nothing—let us be everything! Then the earth will turn upside down and he
will come..."

"Who is he?" Hafra asked.

"God and devil, the Blacky-whity, two gods in one!"

"Stop or I'll kill you!" the blacksmith shouted, raising his fist.

Kiki jumped back and pulled out his knife. There would have been a
fight but shouts came from the street:

"They are coming! They are coming! They are coming!"

"Rebellion!" the cobbler was the first to guess what had happened and
rushed to the door. All the others followed him.

There was a crush. The Flea was pressed to the wall and nearly
suffocated. Min was knocked down. Hafra stumbled against him and fell
down, too. Kiki jumped over both and, whistling like a brigand, shouted:
"Have you got any knives?"

"Yes," someone in the street shouted back. Everyone was running in one
direction—from the Risit Harbour to the Hittite Square.
 It was dark; the moon had not yet risen; the stars twinkled in the sky and
there was the red glow of a fire on the horizon.

VII

eople were crowded in the Square. In the vague hubbub

of voices one could distinguish at times the phrases:

"Glory be to Amon on High! Glory be to Khonsu,

Amon's Son!" Suddenly there came the sound of
melodious singing, far off at first and then nearer and
nearer. The Square was lit up with the red glow of the torches and a solemn
procession appeared.

The Lybian mercenaries walked in front followed by fan-bearers and

censer-bearers; then came the horemhebs—officiating priests, and finally
twenty-four senior priests—neteratephs, with shaven heads, leopard skins
across the shoulder and wide, stiffly starched white skirts. Walking twelve
in a row they carried on two poles the holy tabernacle—Userhet—a boat of
acacia wood with linen curtains like sails, that hid a figure of Amon a foot
high. Its shadow could be seen through the fine material in the flickering
light of the torches: but people did not dare to look even at the shadow of
the god: to see him was to die.

A crowd followed the tabernacle, singing in a chorus:

"Glory be to Amon on High
Glory to Khonsu, Amon's son!
Exalt ye them above the heavens,
Exalt ye them above the earth.
Proclaim to all their glory!
Tell men to fear the Lord
Throughout all generations,
Tell it to the great and small,
 To every creature that draws breath.
To fishes and fowls of the air;
Tell those who know not and who know:
'Fear ye the Lord!'"

Yubra sang, too, saying 'Aton' instead of 'Amon'; no one heard him in
the general chorus. And sometimes he made a mistake, glorifying the god of
his enemies and rejoiced: he knew that where they were going there would
be no more enemies; the lion and the lamb would lie down together and the
child would play on the hole of the asp.

The beggar woman from the province of the Black Heifer walked by
Yubra's side. He had found her half-dead with hunger by the heap of
manure-bricks in the Square, restored her to life and given her some food:
Nebra procured bread for her and milk for the baby from a boatman friend
of his. When she had eaten and seen that the baby was alive and sucking a
comforter that Yubra cleverly made for it, she revived and followed him as
a dog follows the man who has given it food. She followed him in the
procession, too.

He was holding her firmly and kindly by the hand, as though he were
leading this sorrowful and perishing daughter of the earth to the new earth,
to the Comforter. She understood but vaguely what was going on, and not
daring to look at the shadow of the god behind the veil, simply repeated
with the rest of the crowd:
"Glory be to thee, god of mercy,
The Lord of the silent,
The help of the humble,
The saviour of those in hell!
When they call unto thee
Thou comest to them from afar
Thou sayest to them 'I am here.'"
 She, too, was in hell; perhaps He would come to her, too, and say 'I am
here,' she thought joyfully, as though knowing that in the place where they
were going there would be no famine and the mothers would not have to
steal other people's children and kill them like lambs in order to feed their
own.

Pentaur was walking on the left in the first row of the twelve priests,
neteratephs, who carried the tabernacle. Yubra saw him and they looked at
one another. "How did you come here, servant of Aton? Are you a spy?"
Yubra read the question in Pentaur's eyes. "Come, there can be no spies
now! We are all brothers," was the answer in Yubra's eyes, and Pentaur
seemed to understand—he smiled at him like a brother.

Zen, the prophet, was also with the crowd; a little boy was leading him
by the hand. His face was sorrowful unto death: maybe he knew that Kiki
was right and that the earth would turn upside down only in order that the
worst might come.

After passing Coppersmiths' Street they came into the sacred Road of
the Rams. At the very end of it the dull red disc of the moon, cut across by
the black needle of the obelisk, like a cat's eye by the narrowed pupil, was
slowly rising behind the sanctuary of Mut.

Suddenly the procession stopped. The blast of trumpets and the rattle of
drums was heard in front; arrows and stones from slings flew about with a
hissing sound: it was an ambush of the Nubian soldiers sent against the
rebels.

One arrow struck the foot of the tabernacle. The priests lowered it to the
ground; men crowded round it, defending the body of the god with their
own bodies.

The attack of the Nubians was so violent that the Lybian mercenaries
flinched and would have run away had not help arrived just in time.

Kiki, with a few desperadoes like himself, had gone from the Hittite
Square to the raised road where the workmen, who had been dragging the
giant statue of King Akhnaton during the day, had gone to sleep, some on
straw and others on the bare earth. Kiki could not wake many of them: they
slept so heavily that if the very earth under them had caught fire they would
hardly have wakened. But he did rouse some three hundred by the mere cry
of 'Plunder!'; leading them against the Nubians' ambush he attacked it from
behind and so won the battle for the rebels.

The procession moved on with a song of victory:

"Woe to be to thine enemies, Lord!
Their dwelling place is in darkness,
But the rest of the earth in thy light.
The sun of them that hate thee is darkened,
The sun of them that love thee is rising!"

Reaching Amon's temple they walked past it and turned to the right, to
Khonsu's sanctuary, easily scattering a small detachment of Midian archers
on the way. But at the sanctuary they learned that at the first news of mutiny
the golden figure of Khonsu had been removed and hidden in the treasury
of Amon's temple.

"Come, good people, you have been saving the god long enough, it is
time you thought about yourselves!" Kiki the Noseless shouted to the
crowd, jumping on the empty pedestal of Khonsu's statue. "There is nothing
to be got here, Aton's rabble have cleared the place, but on the other side of
the river in the Chanik Palace there is still plenty of stuff left. Let's make for
the river, mates!"

There arose a dispute, almost a fight, as to what they were to do—save

the god or plunder.

As Yubra listened, he grew uneasy: was this what he had been hoping
for or something utterly different?

After much wrangling the crowd divided into two: the bigger part went
to the other side of the river with Kiki and the smaller set out towards
Amon's temple.
 Pentaur led them. Expecting another ambush they put out the torches.
Men walked in silence, with stern faces; they knew that perhaps they were
going to their death. "We shall all die for Him!" Yubra thought, with quiet
joy.

When they reached the temple they saw there were no guards there.
Two granite colossi and two obelisks, as though keeping watch, threw
black, menacing shadows on to the square of white stone bathed in
moonlight.

Pentaur and Hafra, the blacksmith, walked up to the temple gates; the
gold, with the hieroglyphics of dark bronze upon it, the two words 'Great
Spirit,' dimly glistened in the moonlight.

"Hack them!" Pentaur said.

Hafra raised the axe, but let it down again, not daring to strike. Pentaur
seized the axe from him and cried:

"Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors,

and the King of Glory shall come in!"

He lifted the axe and struck; the ponderous echo rolled through the
empty, resonant air behind the gates, as though the Great Spirit himself had
answered him.

"Achaeans, Achaeans, the devils!" was heard in the crowd.

Achaeans, the half-savage mercenaries from the North, had just arrived
in Egypt to serve the king. They had come straight to the City of the Sun,
and were hardly known at Thebes, but there were terrible rumours about
their ferocity and mad courage.

Rushing out from three ambushes at once they surrounded the crowd on
all sides, pressing it to the walls of the temple so that escape was
impossible. And above the gates on the flat roof of the temple copper
helmets and spears were glistening, too. Ethiopian slingers were ambushed
there. Arrows, stones and lead fell from there like hail.
 Pentaur raised his eyes and saw just above him, in a narrow window of
the temple wall, a boy of fifteen, with a black monkey-like face, white teeth
bared like those of a beast of prey, and two feathers, a green and a red one,
stuck aslant in the black frizzy hair. Placing an arrow on the bowstring, he
aimed at Pentaur slowly bending a huge bow made of rhinoceros bone.

Pentaur remembered the tame monkey on the top of the palm tree over
Khnum's house, throwing the shells of the pods at the sleeping dancer,
Miruit, and he smiled. He might have jumped behind the projecting wall,
but he thought "what for? I shall be killed anyway, and it is good to die for
Him Who has been!"

The bowstring sounded.

"Has been or will be?" he had time to ask and to answer: "Has been, is
and will be," while the arrow whistled through the air. Its copper sting
pierced him just under the left breast. He fell on the threshold of the closed
gates. For him the gates lifted their heads, the everlasting doors were lifted
up and the King of Glory came in.

Standing by the tabernacle Yubra was watching the last batch of the
Lybians fighting. Suddenly the leaden bullet from a sling struck him on the
temple. He fell and thought he was dying. But a minute later he propped
himself up on his elbow and saw that the Achaean devils were hacking the
tabernacle.

The white curtains flapped like broken wings laying bare the small,
worm-eaten, wooden figure of the god, blackened with the smoke of
incense, polished with the kisses of the worshippers. A soldier seized it, and
lifting it up, flung it upon the ground and trampled it underfoot. The god's
body cracked like a crushed insect.

Yubra fell upon his face so as not to see.

Pentaur was dying happily. Some one gentle as the god whose name is
Quiet-Heart was bending over him—he could not tell whether it was a boy
who looked like a girl or a girl who looked like a boy. He wanted to ask
'Who are you?' when the kiss of eternity sealed his lips. And the dulcet
chords played on:
"Death is now to me like sweetest myrrh,
Death is now to me like healing,
Death is now to me like refreshing rain,
Death is now to me like a home to an exile!"

VIII
 hen Dio had set out to see Ptamose the mutiny was just
beginning beyond the river and all was quiet on this side.

Issachar was waiting for her by the Eastern Gates of

the Apet-Oisit wall, where the deserted tomb-sanctuary of
King Tutmose the Third lay in ruins. Stepping out of the
litter and telling the bearers to wait for her at the gate, she went with
Issachar into the half-destroyed porch of the sanctuary. Walking up to the
wall, which was completely covered with bas-reliefs and mural paintings,
he leaned his shoulder against it. A movable stone turned on its axis,
revealing a dark narrow opening. They both squeezed themselves sideways
through it and descended some steep steps cut in the thickness of the rock.
Issachar walked in front of Dio down a slanting underground passage,
carrying a torch.

It was close: the depths of the earth warmed through by the eternal
Egyptian sun, never cooled; the darkness was filled with warmth. "Glory be
to thee who dwelleth in darkness, O Lord!" Dio remembered. It seemed to
her that here the dead were as warm lying in their tombs in the bosom of the
earth as a child in its mother's womb.

The endless mural paintings represented the journey of the Sun-god

down the subterranean Nile: the sail of the boat hung limply in the
breathless stillness and the dead oarsmen were dragging it over dry land
through the twelve caves—the twelve hours of the night, from the eternal
night to the eternal morn.

The hieroglyphic inscriptions glorified the Midnight Sun, Amon the

Hidden.

"When thou descendest beyond the sky

The most secret of secret Gods,
Thou bringest light to them who are in death.
Glorifying thee from within their tombs,
The dead lift up their arms
And those under the earth rejoice."
 The main passage was intersected by side passages. Suddenly the red
flame of torches and the black shadows of men carrying spears, swords,
bows and arrows flitted across them.

"Where are they carrying the arms?" Dio asked.

"I don't know," Issachar answered reluctantly.

"It must be the rebels in the town," she guessed.

Supplies of arms and also of gold, silver and lapis-lazuli—remnants of

the temple treasuries concealed from the king's spies were hidden in these
subterranean recesses of Amon's temple. It was all kept there for the day of
rebellion against the apostate king.

Turning into one of the side passages and walking to the end of it, they
stopped at a closed door in the wall. Opening it, Issachar walked in, lit a
lamp with his torch and said, putting the lamp on the floor:

"Wait here, they will come for you."

"And where are you going?" Dio asked.

"To fetch Pentaur."

"Good, bring him here!" she said joyfully: she had been thinking about
him all the time.

Issachar went out, closing the door after him.

Dio looked round the empty vaulted cell, long and narrow like the tomb
—and perhaps indeed it was one. The walls were covered from top to
bottom with hieroglyphic script and pictures.

She sat on the floor and waited. Tired of sitting still she got up and,
taking the lamp, began looking at the mural paintings and reading the
hieroglyphics. She was so absorbed in this that she did not notice the
passage of time.
 Suddenly the flame grew dim, gave a last flicker and went out. Walls of
stifling, black, and, as it were, tangible darkness, closed in upon her. She
was afraid of being left and forgotten in this coffin.

She fumbled her way to the door and began knocking and calling. She
listened: a deadly stillness. She felt more frightened than ever. All of a
sudden she recalled Pentaur and the fear left her: if he was alive he would
come.

She sat down again, leaning her back against the wall and remained so.
A strange stillness came over her; she did not know whether it was dream or
waking. She was filled with the black, warm, sunny darkness as a vessel is
with water. With quiet ecstasy she whispered the words she had just read in
the hieroglyphic inscriptions, spoken by the dead man to the Midnight Sun,
the hidden god:

"He is—I am; I am—He is."

And it seemed to her that she herself were dead and lying in the bosom of
the earth like a child in its mother's womb, waiting for resurrection—birth
into eternal life. And the dulcet harpstrings sang

"Death is now to me like sweetest myrrh...."

All of a sudden a light flashed into her eyes. A bent, decrepit old man
with a torch—a priest, to judge by his shaven head and the leopard skin
thrown over his shoulder—stooping over her, took her by the hand, helped
her up and led her out of the room.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" she asked. He said nothing
and was about to lead her down some more steep narrow stairs.

"No, I don't want to go down," she said. "Take me up. Where is

Pentaur? .... Why do you say nothing? Speak."

The old man made an inarticulate sound and, opening his mouth,
showed her a stump in place of a tongue; he explained by signs that Pentaur
would come down too and that somebody was expecting her. She
understood that he meant Ptamose.

They walked further down. Again Dio did not know whether she was
asleep or awake. The dumb man had such a dead face that it seemed to her
Death itself was leading her to the kingdom of death.

They stopped at a closed door. The dumb man knocked. Someone from
within asked "Who is there?" and when Dio said her name the door was
opened.

In a low sepulchral chamber or sanctuary, supported by four

quadrangular columns, cut out in the thickness of the rock, stood a
sepulchral couch, with a mummy in a white shroud lying on it. There was,
Dio thought, something terrible in its face—more terrible than death.

Her dumb guide took her past the couch into the depths of the chamber,
where a vaulted niche, lined with leaf-copper, glowed, like sunset, in the
light of innumerable lamps. There, in the smoke of fragrant incense, a huge
black lop-eared Lybian ram—probably transferred from the upper temple—
lay asleep on a couch of purple. This was the sacred animal, "the bleating
prophet," the living heart of the temple.

A girl of thirteen—not an Egyptian to judge by her fair hair and skin—

lay beside it, with her head on the animal's back and her eyes half-closed,
like a bride on the bed of love. Completely naked, but for a narrow girdle of
precious stones below the navel, shameless and innocent, she stretched
herself out, pale and white on the black fleece, like a narcissus, the flower
of death. She was one of the twelve priestesses of the god Ram—Amon-Ra.

At the approach of Dio, the little girl opened her eyes and looked at her
intently. There was something so mournful in that look that Dio's heart was
wrung; she remembered another victim of the god Beast—Pasiphae-Eoia.

Her dumb guide prostrated himself before the Ram. A young priest, with
an austere meagre face, kneeling next to Dio, was burning fragrant incense
in a censer.
 "Bow down to the god!" he whispered, looking at her severely.

Dio looked at him, too, but said nothing and did not bow to the beast,
though she knew it was dangerous—they might kill her for impiety.

When the girl opened her eyes and moved the Ram woke up and also
moved slowly and heavily: one could see it was very old, almost at its last
gasp. It opened one eye: the pupil, fiery-yellow like a carbuncle, glowed
menacingly from under a dark heavy eyelid, with grey lashes, and looked
into her eyes with an almost human look.

"The god opens his eye, the sun, and there is light in the world," the
priest whispered the prayer.

When he had finished he got up, and taking Dio by the hand led her to
the couch with the mummy. He bent down to the dead man and whispered
something in his ear. Dio drew back horrified: the dead man opened his
eyes.

His deathly, skeleton-like body, brown as a withered tree, showed

through the transparent white of the winding sheet. The veins on the
shrunken temples stood out as though stripped of flesh; the thin, thread-like
lips of the sunk-in mouth and the gristle of the hooked nose—a vulture's
beak—looked deathly under the tightly drawn shiny skin. But living, young,
immortal eyes seemed to have been set in that mask of death.

The priest reverently lifted the mummy and raised its head on the couch.
The dead lips opened and whispered, rustling like dry leaves.

"Listen, the Urma is speaking to you."

It was only then Dio grasped that this was the great seer—urma,
watcher of the secrets of heaven and the prophet of all the gods of north and
south, the high priest of Amon, Ptamose.

He was over a hundred years old—an age not infrequent in Egypt.

Many people thought that he had long been dead, for during the last ten
years, ever since the apostate king began to persecute the faith of his
fathers, Ptamose had been hiding in subterranean hiding-places and tombs;
some of those who knew him to be alive said that he would never die, while
others asserted that he had died and risen again.

Dio knelt down and bending over the low couch put her ear close to the
whispering lips.

"You have come at last, my dear daughter! Why have you delayed so
long?"

There was an insidious caress in his voice, a magnetic power in his

eyes.

"Pentaur has told me much about you, but one cannot tell all about
others. Tell me yourself now."

He began asking her questions, but he seemed to know all before she
had answered him and to read her heart as an open scroll.

"You poor, poor child!" he whispered when she told him how Eoia and
Tammuzadad had perished through her. "To destroy those whom you love—
that's your misery. Do you know this?"

"Yes, I do."

"Mind then that you don't destroy him also."

"Whom?"

"King Akhnaton."

"Well, if I do destroy him so much the better for you!" she said with a
forced smile.

The shadow of a smile flitted in the eyes of the old man, too. "Do you
think I am his enemy? No; God knows I am not lying—why should a dead
man lie?—I love him as my own soul!"

"Why then did you rise against him?"

 "I rose not against him but against Him who comes after him."

"The Son?"

"God has no Son."

"How can the Father be without the Son?"

"All are the Father's sons. Great in His love he gives birth to the gods
and gives breath to the baby bird inside the egg, preserves the son of a
worm, feeds the mouse in its hole and the midge in the air. The son of a
worm is God's son, too. Stones, plants, animals, men, gods—all are his
sons; He has no only Son. He who has said 'I am the Son' has killed the
Father. Ua-en-ua, one and only is He and there is none other beside. He
who says 'there are two gods' kills God. This is whom I have risen against—
the deicide. He will save the world, you think? No, He will destroy it. He
will sacrifice himself for the world? No, He will sacrifice the world to
himself. Men will love Him and hate the world. Honey will be as
wormwood to them, light as darkness, life as death. And they will perish.
Then they will come to us and say 'Save us!' And we will save them again."

"Again? Has it all happened before?"

"Yes. It has been and it will be. Do you know the meaning of Nem-ankh,
eternal recurrence? Eternity spins round and round and repeats its cycles.
All that has been in time shall be in eternity. He has been, too. His first
name was Osiris. He came to us but we killed Him and destroyed His work.
He wanted to make His kingdom in the land of the living but we drove Him
to the Kingdom of the dead, Amenti, the eternal West: we gave Him that
world and kept this one for ourselves. He will come again and we will kill
Him once more and destroy His work. We have conquered the world and
not He."

"There is no Son and perhaps there is no Father either?" Dio asked,

looking at him defiantly. "Tell me the truth, don't lie: is there a God or no?"

"God is—there is no God; say what you like—it all comes to nothing;
all men's words about God are vain."
 "There now! I have caught the thief!" Dio cried, laughing into his face.
"I knew all along you did not believe in God."

"Silly girl!" he said, as gently and kindly as before, "I am dead: the dead
see God. I adjure you by the living God, consider before you go to Him
whether there isn't truth in my words!"

"And if there is, what then?"

"Leave Him and stay with us!"

"No, even then I shall remain with Him!"

"You love Him more than the truth?"

"More."

"Go to Him, then, to the tempter, the son of perdition, the devil!"

"It's you who are the devil!" she cried, raising her hand as though she
would strike him.

The dumb man rushed up to her, seized her by the arm and raised a
knife over her.

"Leave her alone!" Ptamose said, and the old man drew back.

Suddenly there was a sound of bleating, low as the weeping of a child

but old and feeble: it was the Ram. Ptamose looked at the animal and the
animal at him and they seemed to understand each other.

"The Great One foretells woe, woe to the earth with its bleating!" the
old man exclaimed, raising his eyes to Dio. "Go up—you will see what He
is doing. It has begun already and will not end until He comes!"

Then he glanced at the dumb priest and said:

"Take her upstairs and don't molest her, you answer for her with your
life!"
 He shut his eyes and again looked like one dead.

Dio was running upstairs, with one thought only in her mind: "Where is
Pentaur, what has happened to him?"

Going out of the catacomb by the same door as she had entered, she
went past the ruins of Tutmose's tomb and walked along the south wall of
Amon's temple. On the white stones of the temple square, bathed in
moonlight, dead bodies lay about as on a battlefield. Half-savage, hyena-
like dogs were worrying them. An emaciated looking dog, with a blood-
stained mouth, was sitting on its hind legs howling at the moon.

Dio stopped suddenly. The needle of the obelisk showed black against
the moonlit sky: the hieroglyphics on the mirror-like polished surface of its
granite glorified King Akhnaton, the Joy of the Sun, and someone was
sitting hunched up against the base of it—-dead or alive Dio could not make
out. She came nearer and, bending down, saw a dead woman, thin as a
skeleton, stiffly pressing a dead baby to her wrinkled, black, charred-
looking breasts, as she gazed at it with glassy eyes; her white teeth were
bared as though she were laughing. It was the beggar woman from the
province of the Black Heifer.

Dio recalled a black granite figure she had once seen of the goddess
Isis, the Mother with her son Horus, and it suddenly seemed to her that this
dead woman was Mother Isis herself, accursed and killed—by whom?

"Go up, you will see what He is doing," the words of Ptamose sounded
in her ears.

She turned round at the sound of footsteps. Issachar came up to her.

"Where is Pentaur? What has happened?" she cried, and, before he had
time to answer, she understood from his face that Pentaur had been killed.

The familiar pain of inexpiable guilt, insatiable pity pierced her heart.
"To destroy those whom you love—that's your misery," the words of the
seer sounded in her ears again.

It took her some time to grasp what Issachar was saying; at last she
understood: they would not give Pentaur's body to him, but perhaps they
might give it to her.

She followed him. A cordon of sentries guarded the approach to the

gates of Amon's temple. The centurion recognised Dio: he had seen her at
the Viceroy's white house; he let them both through and told the soldiers to
give her Pentaur's body.

He was lying where he had been killed—by the threshold of the western
gates. Their gold with the hieroglyphics of dark bronze—two words 'Great
Spirit'—dimly glittered in the moonlight.

Dio knelt down, and looking into the dead man's face, kissed him on the
lips. Their cold penetrated down to her very heart.

"It is my doing—His doing," she thought and the word 'He' had a
double meaning for her: he—the king, and He—the Son.

IX

io was watching the fire beyond the River from the flat
roof of Khnum's house. Charuk Palace was burning—the
residence of the Viceroy Tutankhaton.

Built of very old dry cedar and cypress wood, it

burned hotly and steadily like a resin torch. The bare crags
of the Lybian Mountains above it glowed as though red hot; the flames were
reflected in the river as a pillar of fire and white smoke coiled in clouds of
moonlight blue and fiery crimson.
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