At first Gudea stood still; then, laying off his shoes and rubbing his hands,—token of purification,—he commenced the sacred dance about the sufferer. In the first rounds he moved slowly, his white garments swelling and falling as he turned, while his watchful wife fed the fire with scraps of dry flesh, spices, and splinters of magic woods. Gudea recited incantation after incantation, calling on Marduk, Istar, Ea, and every other god to aid in driving the “seven fiends” out of Saruch’s throat. He continued, until suddenly the sick man began to quiver and foam at the mouth. “The convulsion again!” moaned the sufferer’s wife, starting forward. “Alas! my Saruch!” “Peace, woman!” thundered Gudea, “will you break the spell? No danger, the fiends are risen in his neck. They struggle against coming forth, but I compel them.” The sufferer almost rose from his cushions; his face was black, his eyes bloodshot. “Glory to Marduk!” howled Gudea, “the spell works. The Maskim depart. Now, wife.” Binit leaped to her feet with a screech that sent all the sparrows scurrying from the eaves. Seven times she screamed, until every ear was tingling, and all the time Gudea danced faster, faster, in a narrow circle about Saruch. “Come out of him! Come out of him! Away, away!” he yelled at each interval in the screeching. The sick man was tottering to his feet. “Glory to Marduk!” bawled Gudea again, “the fiends are mastered. The final spell now, the infallible incantation.” And every breath was bated while he chanted, still dancing, the age-honoured song of the “Maskim”:— “Seven are they, they are seven! In the deeps below they are seven; In the crest of heaven they are seven; In the low abyss were reared the seven; Man or woman are none of the seven; Whirlwinds baneful are all the seven; Wife or child have none of the seven; Mercy or kindness have none of the seven; Prayers and tears hear none of the seven; Eager for mischief are all the seven; Sky-spirit conjure away the seven! Earth-spirit conjure away the seven!” A final howl from Binit. Saruch’s answer was a groan of mortal pain; he reeled, fell. But the wife and son had rushed to the old Jew, and a fearful cry burst from the woman:— “Dead! dead!” When she lifted the head, it fell back lifeless. Almost at the same moment the crowd was thrust aside by a heavy hand, and all saw the stalwart form of Isaiah striding toward Gudea, and at the Hebrew’s heels a dignified, dark-skinned man, in a spotless white robe. “Urtasen, the great Egyptian doctor,” whispered one fellow to another. Gudea was standing panting, gazing upon the dead, the widow, and Joram. His jaw was dropped, his eye vacant. Even his own effrontery had failed him. Isaiah plucked him roughly by the robe. “Make your feet wings, or I will aid you,” he commanded. “You have truly raised the ‘Maskim’ now.” The wizard recovered his tongue. [Illustration: “Isaiah plucked him roughly by the robe.