Nemu squatted on the step, the dwarf's usual place. The little man
looked down at the lately rebuilt hut, and ground his teeth, when,
through an opening in the hedge, he saw the white robe of a man,
who was sitting by Uarda.
The pretty child's visitor was prince Rameri, who had crossed the Nile in
the early morning, dressed as a young scribe of the treasury, to obtain
news of Pentaur--and to stick a rose into Uarda's hair.
This purpose was, indeed, the more important of the two, for the other
must, in point of time at any rate, be the second.
He found it necessary to excuse himself to his own conscience with a
variety of cogent reasons. In the first place the rose, which lay
carefully secured in a fold of his robe, ran great danger of fading if he
first waited for his companions near the temple of Seti; next, a hasty
return from thence to Thebes might prove necessary; and finally, it
seemed to him not impossible that Bent-Anat might send a master of the
ceremonies after him, and if that happened any delay might frustrate his
purpose.