CHAPTER IX
THE MESSENGER OF PRINCESS NEIT-AKRIT
The next day only exists in my mind as a memory of one long and gorgeous pageant: triumphal processions through the city, shouts of enthusiastic people, messengers sent flying in every direction throughout the land, to announce the great news to the inhabitants of its most outlying corners, with a promise to some of the more important cities that they should soon in their turn be gladdened by the sight of the beloved of Ra, the son of Osiris, the messenger of the Most High. It was a wearying day to us both, who, occupying a comparatively humble position in our own country, were unaccustomed to the pomp and glitter of courts, and to the worship and salaaming of innumerable picturesque people. I, for one, found my long flowing robes very difficult to manage, and my belt of lapis-lazuli, on which were engraved sundry characters denoting my dignity, exceedingly uncomfortable. Hugh seemed to take a keen delight in wilfully upsetting my gravity at the most solemn moments by making irreverent remarks about the elderly dignitaries, who looked for all the world like mummies out of the British Museum escaped from their glass cases.
In the precincts of the temple of Osiris, raised aloft upon a golden throne, Hugh Tankerville received the homage of the nobles of the land, the functionaries, the priests, the scribes and servants of the court. The "mob," as the traders and agriculturists were contemptuously called by the more elevated personages,
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