“Not as a laborer.  Nay, the sentence was not so harsh.  But as a scribe to the governor over them.”

“It matters little!” she declared indignantly.  “The boy-prince—­the poor, misguided young brother sent to a year of banishment—­a lifelong humiliation!  Libya, the death-country!  Now, was anything more brutal?  Nay, it is like Rameses!”

“Aye,” the captain replied quickly, leaning over her with a cautioning motion of his hand.  “Aye, and it is like thee to say it.  But hear me yet further.  The queen and the Son of Ptah have quarreled, violently, over Seti,” he continued in a low tone.  “The little prince merited thy father’s disfavor, because Seti espoused the cause of Ta-user in thy place, though he loves thee, and for that—­we can find no other reason—­the noble Har-hat also urged the king into the harsh sentence of the little prince.  For this the queen hath publicly turned her back upon the crown prince and the fan-bearer, and the atmosphere of the palace is most unhappy.”

He lowered his voice to a whisper.  “Hotep championed Seti,—­for the young sister’s sake, it would appear,—­but to me it seemeth that the scribe hath lost his wits.”

“It would seem that he courteth a sentence to the mines likewise, and he needs but to go on as he hath begun to succeed most thoroughly.  And it behooveth his friends to prevent him.”

He took Masanath’s hand and, leaning from the saddle, whispered: 

“Ye are under the same roof—­thou and Hotep.  Avoid him as though he were a pestilence.”

He straightened himself and drew his horse away from her so that she could not answer.

The captain’s meaning, though obscure to any other that might have heard him, was very clear to Masanath.  Har-hat was still holding a threat of Hotep’s undoing over his daughter’s head, lest, at the last moment, she rebel against her marriage.  She trembled, realizing how desperately she was weighted with the safety of the scribe.  Her fear for him brought the first feeling of willingness to wed with Rameses that she had ever experienced.  Distasteful as marriage was to her, it was a species of sacrifice to be catalogued with the many self-abnegations of which womanhood is capable when the welfare of the beloved is at stake.

She sank back in the shadows of her litter, covered her face with her hands and shuddered because of the imminence of her trial.

So they journeyed on, till at last Masanath fell asleep—­not from indifference, for her fears exhausted her—­but because her mind still retained babyhood’s way of comforting itself when too roughly beset.

She was aroused in the middle of the first watch by the passage of her litter between bewildering stretches of lights.  She was within the palace.  The soldiers that bore her were tramping over a Damascene carpet, and between long lines of groveling attendants, through an atmosphere of overwhelming perfume.  The messenger had been swift and the court had had time to prepare to greet the coming crown princess with propriety.