“Get hence, all of you. Hushai, thou shalt go and summon to me Eliab, the officer of the king’s guard. Let him come alone.”
XI.
Ten priests, in white vestments, maculated with red, stepped out to the centre of the altar. Following them came two other priests, clad in feminine garments. It was their duty to-day to represent Nephthys and Isis, bewailing Osiris. Then out of the depths of the altar came one in a white chiton, without a single ornament, and the eyes of all the men and women were eagerly drawn to him. This was the very same desert anchorite who had undergone a heavy trial of ten years’ wrestling with the flesh upon the mountains of Lebanon, and was now to bring a great, voluntary bloody sacrifice to Isis. His face, emaciated by hunger, wind-beaten and scorched, was stern and pallid, the eyes austerely cast down; and a supernatural horror was wafted from him upon the throng.
Finally, the chief priest of the temple also made his appearance,—a centenarian ancient, with a tiara upon his head, with a tiger skin upon his shoulders, in an apron of brocaded samite adorned with the tails of jackals.
Turning to the worshippers, he uttered in a senile voice, meek and tremulous:
“Suton-di-hotpu.” (“The king bringeth the sacrifice.”)
And then, turning around to the sacrificial altar, he took from the hands of an acolyte a white dove with little red feet, cut off the bird’s head, took the heart out of her breast, and sprinkled the sacrificial altar and the consecrated knife with her blood.