Then he stared at the staff in his hand. I stared also, because I could not help it, and saw, or thought I saw, the dead wood begin to swell and curve. This was enough for me and I said hastily:
"If you mean the night of the Coronation, I do recall——"
"Ah! I thought you would. You, learned Ana, who like all scribes observe so closely, will have noted how little things—such as the scent of a flower, or the passing of a bird, or even the writhing of a snake in the dust—often bring back to the mind events or words it has forgotten long ago."
"Well—what of our meeting?" I broke in hastily.
"Nothing at all—or only this. Just before it you were talking with the Hebrew Jabez, the lady Merapi's uncle, were you not?"
"Yes, I was talking with him in an open place, alone."
"Not so, learned Scribe, for you know we are never alone—quite. Could you but see it, every grain of sand has an ear."
"Be pleased to explain, O Ki."
"Nay, Ana, it would be too long, and short jests are ever the best. As I have told you, you were not alone, for though there were some words that I did not catch, I heard much of what passed between you and Jabez."
"What did you hear?" I asked wrathfully, and next instant wished that I had bitten through my tongue before it shaped the words.
"Much, much. Let me think. You spoke about the lady Merapi, and whether she would do well to bide at Memphis in the shadow of the Prince, or to return to Goshen into the shadow of a certain—I forget the name. Jabez, a well-instructed man, said he thought that she might be happier at Memphis, though perhaps her presence there would bring a great sorrow upon herself and—another."
Here again he looked at the child, which seemed to feel his glance, for it woke up and beat the air with its little hands.
The nurse felt it also, although her head was turned away, for she started and then took shelter behind the bole of one of the palm-trees. Now Merapi said in a low and shaken voice:
"I know what you mean, Magician, for since then I have seen my uncle Jabez."
"As I have also, several times, Lady, which may explain to you what Ana here thinks so wonderful, namely that I should have learned what they said together when he thought they were alone, which, as I have told him, no one can ever be, at least in Egypt, the land of listening gods——"
"And spying sorcerers," I exclaimed.
"——And spying sorcerers," he repeated after me, "and scribes who take notes, and learn them by heart, and priests with ears as large as asses, and leaves that whisper—and many other things."
"Cease your gibes, and say what you have to say," said Merapi, in the same broken voice.
He made no answer, but only looked at the tree behind which the nurse and child had vanished.
"Oh! I know, I know," she exclaimed in tones that were like a cry. "My child is threatened! You threaten my child because you hate me."
"Your pardon, Lady. It is true that evil threatens this royal babe, or so I understood from Jabez, who knows so much. But it is not I that threaten it, any more than I hate you, in whom I acknowledge a fellow of my craft, but one greater than myself that it is my duty to obey."
"Have done! Why do you torment me?"
"Can the priests of the Moon-goddess torment Isis, Mother of Magic, with their prayers and offerings? And can I who would make a prayer and an offering——"
"What prayer, and what offering?"
"The prayer that you will suffer me to shelter in this house from the many dangers that threaten me at the hands of Pharaoh and the prophets of your people, and an offering of such help as I can give by my arts and knowledge against blacker dangers which threaten—another."
Here once more he gazed at the trunk of the tree beyond which I heard the infant wail.
"If I consent, what then?" she asked, hoarsely.
"Then, Lady, I will strive to protect a certain little one against a curse which Jabez tells me threatens him and many others in whom runs the blood of Egypt. I will strive, if I am allowed to bide here—I do not say that I shall succeed, for as your lord has reminded me, and as you showed me in the temple of Amon, my strength is smaller than that of the prophets and prophetesses of Israel."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then, Lady," he answered in a voice that rang like iron, "I am sure that one whom you love—as mothers love—will shortly be rocked in the arms of the god whom we name Osiris."
"Stay," she cried and, turning, fled away.
"Why, Ana, she is gone," he said, "and that before I could bargain for my reward. Well, this I must find in your company. How strange are women, Ana! Here you have one of the greatest of her sex, as you learned in the temple of Amon. And yet she opens beneath the sun of hope and shrivels beneath the shadow of fear, like the touched leaves of that tender plant which grows upon the banks of the river; she who, with her eyes set on the mystery that is beyond, whereof she hears the whispering winds, should tread both earthly hope and fear beneath her feet, or make of them stepping stones to glory. Were she a man she would do so, but her sex wrecks her, she who thinks more of the kiss of a babe than of all the splendours she might harbour in her breast. Yes, a babe, a single wretched little babe. You had one once, did you not, Ana?"
"Oh! to Set and his fires with you and your evil talk," I said, and left him.
When I had gone a little way, I looked back and saw that he was laughing, throwing up his staff as he laughed, and catching it again.
"Set and his fires," he called after me. "I wonder what they are like, Ana. Perhaps one day we shall learn, you and I together, Scribe Ana."
So Ki took up his abode with us, in the same lodgings as Bakenkhonsu, and almost every day I would meet them walking in the garden, since I, who was of the Prince's table, except when he ate with the lady Merapi, did not take my food with them. Then we would talk together about many subjects. On those which had to do with learning, or even religion, I had the better of Ki, who was no great scholar or master of theology. But always before we parted he would plant some arrow in my ribs, at which old Bakenkhonsu laughed, and laughed again, yet ever threw over me the shield of his venerable wisdom, just because he loved me I think.
It was after this that the plague struck the cattle of Egypt, so that tens of thousands of them died, though not all as was reported. But, as I have said, of the herds of Seti none died, nor, as we were told, did any of those of the Israelites in the land of Goshen. Now there was great distress in Egypt, but Ki smiled and said that he knew it would be so, and that there was much worse to come, for which I could have smitten him over the head with his own staff, had I not feared that, if I did so, it might once more turn to a serpent in my hand.
Old Bakenkhonsu looked upon the matter with another face. He said that since his last wife died, I think some fifty years before, he had found life very dull because he missed the exercises of her temper, and her habit of presenting things as these never had been nor could possibly ever be. Now, however, it grew interesting again, since the marvels which were happening in Egypt, being quite contrary to Nature, reminded him of his last wife and her arguments. All of which was his way of saying that in those years we lived in a new world, whereof for the Egyptians Set the Evil One seemed to be the king.
But still Pharaoh would not let the Hebrews go, perhaps because he had vowed as much to Meneptah who set him on the throne, or perhaps for those other reasons, or one of them, which Ki had given to the Prince.
Then came the curse of sores afflicting man, woman, and child throughout the land, save those who dwelt in the household of Seti. Thus the watchman and his family whose lodge was without the gates suffered, but the watchman and his family who lived within the gates, not twenty paces away, did not suffer, which caused bitterness between their women. In the