Chebron was in no state either to act or plan. A deep depression had seized upon him; he cared not whether he escaped or not, and would indeed have hailed detection and death as boons. Intense, therefore, was Amuba’s relief when late in the evening a footstep was heard in the outer chamber, and Jethro entered. He sprang to his feet with a cry of gladness. “Oh, Jethro! thank the gods you have returned. I have suffered terribly on your account. What has happened to you, and so long delayed your return here?” “There is fresh trouble,” Jethro replied in a stern voice. “Fresh trouble, Jethro? In what way?” And even Chebron, who had scarcely sat up languidly on his couch on Jethro’s entrance, looked up with some interest for Jethro’s answer. “Mysa has been carried off,” he replied grimly. Chebron sprang to his feet. He was devoted to his sister, and for a moment this new calamity effaced the remembrance of those which had preceded it. “Mysa carried off!” he exclaimed at the same moment as Amuba. “Who has done it?--when was it done?--how did you learn it?” were questions which broke quickly from the lads. “On leaving here I went as arranged down into the city,” Jethro replied. “There was no difficulty in learning what there was to learn, for all business seemed suspended and the streets were full of groups of people talking over the events of yesterday. The whole city is shaken by the fact that two such terrible acts of sacrilege as the slaying of the sacred cat of Bubastes and the murder of a high priest of Osiris should have taken place within so short a time of each other. All prophesy that some terrible calamity will befall the land, and that the offended gods will in some way wreak their vengeance upon it. A royal order has been issued enjoining all men to search for and arrest every person concerned in the murder of Ameres, and doubtless the severest penalties will be dealt to them. The same decree orders your arrest wherever found, and enjoins upon all officials throughout the kingdom to keep a strict watch in the towns and villages, to examine any strangers who may present themselves, and to send hither bound in chains all young men who may fail to give a satisfactory account of themselves. Sacrifices will be offered up at all the temples throughout the land to appease the wrath of the gods. Messengers have been dispatched in all directions in the provinces, and all seemed to consider it certain that in a few hours our hiding-place would be discovered. All made sure that we had made either for the seacoast or the desert on one side or the other, and as the messengers would reach the coast long before we could do so, it was considered impossible for us to get through unnoticed.