As far as Keft she had sailed down the Nile with her escort, from thence she had crossed the desert by easy marches, and she had been obliged to wait a full week in the port on the Red Sea, which was chiefly inhabited by Phoenicians, for a ship which had finally brought her to the little seaport of Pharan.

From Pharan she had crossed the mountains to the oasis, where the sanctuary she was to visit stood on the northern side.
The old priests, who conducted the service of the Goddess, had received the daughter of Rameses with respect, and undertook to restore her to cleanness by degrees with the help of the water from the mountain-stream which watered the palm-grove of the Amalekites, of incense-burning, of pious sentences, and of a hundred other ceremonies.

At last the Goddess declared herself satisfied, and Bent-Anat wished to start for the north and join her father, but the commander of the escort, a grey-headed Ethiopian field officer--who had been promoted to a high grade by Ani--explained to the Chamberlain that he had orders to detain the princess in the oasis until her departure was authorized by the Regent himself.
Bent-Anat now hoped for the support of her father, for her brother Rameri, if no accident had occurred to him, might arrive any day.

But in vain.
The position of the ladies was particularly unpleasant, for they felt that they had been caught in a trap, and were in fact prisoners.

In addition to this their Ethiopian escort had quarrelled with the natives of the oasis, and every day skirmishes took place under their eyes--indeed lately one of these fights had ended in bloodshed.
Bent-Anat was sick at heart.