On each side of the court was a shady, covered colonnade of wood, and in the midst a tank with ornamental plants.

In the upper story were the apartments for the scholars, and instruction was usually given in the paved courtyard strewn with mats.
The most imposing was the house of the chief prophets; it was distinguished by its waving standards and stood about a hundred paces behind the temple of Seti, between a well kept grove and a clear lake--the sacred tank of the temple; but they only occupied it while fulfilling their office, while the splendid houses which they lived in with their wives and children, lay on the other side of the river, in Thebes proper.
The untimely visit to the temple could not remain unobserved by the colony of sages.

Just as ants when a hand breaks in on their dwelling, hurry restlessly hither and thither, so an unwonted stir had agitated, not the school-boys only, but the teachers and the priests.

They collected in groups near the outer walls, asking questions and hazarding guesses.

A messenger from the king had arrived--the princess Bent-Anat had been attacked by the Kolchytes--and a wag among the school-boys who had got out, declared that Paaker, the king's pioneer, had been brought into the temple by force to be made to learn to write better.