The pleasant-looking priest led her to the strangers and was glad and happy because Apis’ mother was so comely:
“Is she not handsome?” he asked proudly.
The strangers smiled and agreed that she was very handsome; and the priest, with respectful familiarity, stroked her snow-white flank and pointed out that she had one black foot. Then he kissed her, fondly and reverently, on her moist muzzle and led her back, with the pressure of his hand, to the temple that was her stall. She went, solemnly, as though aware of her high, sacred dignity, which existed only because of the strangers and their fee.
The priest, still smiling, returned; and the other priests sang their hymn.
And, by the priest’s pleasant manner, Lucius seemed to observe that he ought to pay. He beckoned to Caleb; and there were mutual, smiling, roguish negotiations between Caleb and the priest. For Caleb always tried to pay the fees which he distributed on Lucius’ behalf a little less liberally than he set them down on the long papyrus scroll of his bill; and he generally succeeded.
But the priest was not only roguish, but very crafty and polite; and the transaction, conducted in mysterious and jocular whispers, lasted a long time ... until Lucius said, impatiently, but still smiling:
“And may we now see Apis himself?”
So Caleb paid, grudgingly. But the priest remained pleasant and the other priests sang while conducting the strangers to Apis’ own secos.
This sanctuary was even bigger and more impressive than that of the white bull-mother. There was a square in front of it, with obelisks; and the pleasant-looking priest entered between two sphinxes. But the pillars, the obelisks, the sphinxes seemed to totter, to slant, to burst with old age.
The priests sang the hymn; and suddenly, like a whirlwind, a young bull came trotting out of the stable over the grass-plot. It was Apis; and the priests lifted their hands in adoration as they sang.