Nubian girls, dressed in white, transparent linen—'woven air'—or naked but for a narrow girdle just above the navel, served round the cups with food and drink. Meat was cut up into small pieces and eaten with the fingers, which were washed in scented water after every dish. Wine and beer were sucked through reeds.
Fans of ostrich feathers and flykillers of jackals' tails were being waved unceasingly to keep off the night midges, zezet.
Each guest wore on his head a tiny cup filled with fragrant ointment, with a lotos stuck through it, so that the flower hung over the forehead. Melting slowly with the warmth of the body and the heat of the room the ointment fell in drops upon the white linen of the dresses, leaving greasy yellow streaks upon it; the greater the number of such streaks the better: it meant the guest had been well looked after. When the cup was empty the girls produced a new one offering the choice between kemi, 'the royal ointment,' or anti, 'the dew of the gods,' which gave a golden tint to the skin and made the face look 'like the morning star.'
"Where is Merira?" the king asked.
"He has promised to come, but he is not here yet. He is not well. He can't sleep," answered Saakera, the heir apparent, a young man with a beautiful face, fine and mournful like the sickle of the moon turning pale in the morning sky.
"Why don't you cure him, Pentu?" the king asked.
"There is only one certain remedy against sleeplessness, sire," Pentu, the physician, answered.
"What is it?"
"A clear conscience."
"But isn't his conscience clear?"