Thoth conducted her to a part of the city to which they had never before been, and they stopped at a narrow gate in a lofty wall. Thoth unlocked the gate, and they entered a spacious garden, in the midst of which was placed a huge building. Scarcely had they passed through the gate when Daphne heard cries of alarm, apparently from women, and saw some figures vanish through the trees in a hurried, fearful manner. For the first time since she had come to the city she noticed signs of distrust and fear. Here, at any rate, Thoth’s rule seemed to rest not on love but on tyranny. Such was Daphne’s first impression, for the women, if women they were, were plainly terror-stricken. They passed into the building, at the gate of which a huge giantess of hideous aspect presented Thoth with a scroll, which seemed to be a carefully kept record. They entered a large hall, and again Daphne saw the same horrible designs as before. Thoth said to her, “These, too, shall be destroyed, but first we must look to the living.” At intervals along the hall Daphne observed curtains, and stopping before one of them, Thoth drew it aside and revealed a small cell. Crouching at the back, like a terrified animal, lay a woman, scantily clad in a tattered garment made of coarse hair. Her figure seemed robust and healthy, but was rendered hideous by glaring streaks of paint and devices of unclean animals branded on the skin. Still more horrible was her head. She was evidently young, but she had no ears, no eyebrows, no hair. Her mouth had been distended, and her teeth were sharpened to fine points. She grovelled on the ground, as if awaiting torture, and Daphne’s heart stood still with horror and indignation. Suddenly Thoth addressed the creature in an unknown tongue, and after repeating the same thing over and over again, apparently made the woman understand and believe what he said, for suddenly she gave a sobbing laugh and crouched to kiss his feet. “I have told her,” said Thoth, “that she need labour no more at her appointed tasks, and will never again be punished. But the thing which pleased her most, and which she could not believe, was that without her request she would never see any of the masked rulers.” “What were her tasks?” Daphne asked. “It would be difficult to explain,” said Thoth. “They were all most irksome, most useless, most trifling, but they were exacted with dreadful punishments. She had to count grains of sand, to unravel tangled knots, to learn by rote strings of meaningless sounds, and to discover all kinds of intricate puzzles.” To confirm his words, Thoth destroyed the various instruments of labour, scattered the sand, tore up the parchments, and stamped upon the fragments of the broken toys. The woman seemed stupefied with incredulous surprise, like a dazed child just recovered from a fit of terror.