Kathi’s fears were somewhat dissipated at sight of the onrushing sun-god, now vaulting higher and higher above the rosy Eastern Hills. He stretched forth his hands, palms upward, in that appealing attitude of prayer so suggestive of a spiritual offering.
On the river below him the boatmen burst into the Hymn to Ra at his Rising, which had been first sung by the Sage and Prophet Imhotep, two thousand years before their time!
Nature, too, added her welcome to the nurturing sun-god. The falcons sailed in great circles above the flashing waters of the river. To their shrill and quavering notes, intermingled with the joyous twitterings and flitterings back and forth of other birds, there was added the soft lowing of the sacred cows and the shrill chattering of the apes belonging to the Temple of Mut in Asheru.
Beams of light seemed to dance upon the gold caps of the lofty obelisks. Huge streamers rose upon the flag-poles which fronted the great portal of the sun-god’s mightiest temple.
Along the walls of the temple of the deified King Thomes, a phyle of chanting priests moved slowly, the keri heb with his tube-like censer at their head. Kathi found it next to impossible to believe that a hideous civil war was about to burst upon such peace as this.
Kathi shook his head. He turned once more to his unfinished task within.
CHAPTER IV
How Bhanar Came to Thebes
It was about the third hour of the auspicious sixteenth day of Athyr. On the river a high-prowed galley of foreign cut could be seen attempting to gain the western landing under her own sail. This great sail, picturesquely marked with broad stripes of green and dull red, spread itself to the fitful breeze with but little effect.