He thought he heard his name spoken, and scarcely had he raised his head to listen when a taricheut came in and desired him to follow him.
In front of the rooms, filled with resinous odors and incense, in which the actual process of embalming was carried on, a number of taricheutes were standing and looking at an object in an alabaster bowl.

The knees of the old man knocked together as he recognized the heart of the beast which he had substituted for that of the Prophet.
The chief of the taricheutes asked him whether he had opened the body of the dead priest.
Pinem stammered out "Yes." Whether this was his heart?
The old man nodded affirmatively.
The taricheutes looked at each other, whispered together; then one of them went away, and returned soon with the inspector of victims from the temple of Anion, whom he had found in the house of the weaver, and the chief of the kolchytes.
"Show me the heart," said the superintendent of the sacrifices as he approached the vase.

"I can decide in the dark if you have seen rightly.
I examine a hundred animals every day.

Give it here!--By all the Gods of Heaven and Hell that is the heart of a ram!" "It was found in the breast of Rui," said one of the taricheutes decisively.

"It was opened yesterday in the presence of us all by this old paraschites." "It is extraordinary," said the priest of Anion.