"That was quite well," answered Nebsecht carelessly.
"But they will require the uninjured corpse of you, to embalm it," said
Pentaur.
"Will they?" muttered Nebsecht; and he looked at his friend like a boy who is asked for an apple that has long been eaten.
"And you have already been doing something with it," said Pentaur, in a tone of friendly vexation.
The leech nodded. "I have opened him, and examined his heart.'
"You are as much set on hearts as a coquette!" said Pentaur. "What is become of the human heart that the old paraschites was to get for you?"
Nebsecht related without reserve what the old man had done for him, and said that he had investigated the human heart, and had found nothing in it different from what he had discovered in the heart of beasts.
"But I must see it in connection with the other organs of the human body," cried he; "and my decision is made. I shall leave the House of Seti, and ask the kolchytes to take me into their guild. If it is necessary I will first perform the duties of the lowest paraschites."
Pentaur pointed out to the leech what a bad exchange he would be making, and at last exclaimed, when Nebsecht eagerly contradicted him, "This dissecting of the heart does not please me. You say yourself that you learned nothing by it. Do you still think it a right thing, a fine thing—or even useful?"
"I do not trouble myself about it," replied Nebsecht. "Whether my observations seem good or evil, right or heinous, useful or useless, I want to know how things are, nothing more."