If, on the other hand, the accusation is not sustained, the accusers are stoned away by the friends, who then with great joy unite in a eulogy of the dead, and joined by all the people present pray the gods below to receive him to dwell among the pious dead. In the eulogy, they speak only of virtues--praising his learning, his integrity, his justice, his piety, his temperance, and truthfulness; but no mention is made of rank, since all Egyptians are deemed equally noble. Such an ordeal has no doubt a great influence upon the living Egyptian; for he is certain that at his death every act of injustice he has committed will be brought up before the forty-two judges, and if found guilty, he will be denied sepulture, while infamy will be attached to his memory. "What," I asked of my companion, the high-priest, "is the state of the deceased soul after death?" "That, O prince," said he, "is one of the mysteries. But as you have been initiated into the knowledge of the mystic books in your own land, I will explain to you what our books of the dead teach. We priests of Apis do not believe with those of Osiris at On." "What is their faith?" I asked. "That the soul of man is immortal (which we all believe)," he added positively; "that when the body decays, the soul enters into and is born in the form of a lower animal; and when it has gone the round of the bodies of all terrestrial and marine animals, and of all flying creatures, it enters again into the body of an infant at its birth." "Possibly in this belief," I remarked, "is found the reason for preserving the human body as long as possible by embalming it, thus keeping off the transmigration of its soul into a brute as long as possible." "Without doubt," he replied, "embalming the dead grew out of the doctrine of transmigration of souls. The circuit performed by a soul in this series of inhabitations of the forms of animals, is three thousand years in duration. Such is the belief of the priests of the Sun. This transmigration is not connected either with reward or punishment, but it is a necessity of its creation that the soul should accomplish the whole circuit of the kingdom of animated nature ere it again enters a human body. _Our_ doctrine of metempsychosis only so far embodies this, as to make Osiris send back the transgressing soul from Amenthe to earth, to dwell in the body of swine as a punishment; and when its probation is passed, we allow an ultimate return to the Divine Essence." "What is this tribunal of Osiris?" I asked.