“Certainly,” answered Tua.  “I never thought that you would rob us, for if you were of the tribe of thieves, surely you would be richer, and less hungry than you seem.  I only thought that you were almost blind, Father Kepher, and therefore could not know the difference between a pearl and a pebble.”

“My feeling still remains to me, Daughter Neferte,” he answered with a little smile.

Then Tua gave him the basket.  He opened it and drew out the strings of pearls, feeling them, smelling and peering at them, touching them with his tongue, especially the large single ones which were wrapped up by themselves.  At length, having handled them all, he restored them to the basket, saying drily: 

“It is strange, indeed, Nurse Asti, that those Syrian man-stealers attempted no pursuit of you, for here, whether they were theirs or not, are enough gems to buy a kingdom.”

“We cannot eat pearls,” answered Asti.

“No, but pearls will buy more than you need to eat.”

“Not in a desert,” said Asti.

“True, but as it chances there is a city in this desert, and not so very far away.”

“Is it named Napata?” asked Tua eagerly.

“Napata?  No, indeed.  Yet, I have heard of such a place, the City of Gold they called it.  In fact, once I visited it in my youth, over a hundred years ago.”

“A hundred years ago!  Do you remember the way thither?”

“Yes, more or less, but on foot it is over a year’s journey away, and the path thither lies across great deserts and through tribes of savage men.  Few live to reach that city.”

“Yet I will reach it, or die, Father.”

“Perhaps you will, Daughter Neferte, perhaps you will, but I think not at present.  Meanwhile, you have a harp, and therefore it is probable that you can play and sing; also you have pearls.  Now the inhabitants of this town whereof I spoke to you love music.  Also they love pearls, and as you cannot begin your journey to Napata for three months, when the rain on the mountains will have filled the desert wells, I suggest that you would do wisely to settle yourselves there for a while.  Nurse Asti here would be a dealer in pearls, and you, her daughter, would be a musician.  What say you?”

“I say that I should be glad to settle myself anywhere out of this desert,” said Tua wearily.  “Lead us on to the city, Father Kepher, if you know the way.”

“I know the way, and will guide you thither in payment for that good meal of yours.  Now come.  Follow me.”  And taking his long staff he strode away in front of them.

“This Kepher goes at a wonderful pace for an old man,” said Tua presently.  “When first we saw him he could scarcely hobble.”

“Man!” answered Asti.  “He is not a man, but a spirit, good or bad, I don’t know which, appearing as a beggar.  Could a man eat as much as he did—­all our basketful of food?  Does a man talk of cities that he visited in his youth over a hundred years ago, or declare that my dead husband spoke to him in his dreams?  No, no, he is a ghost like those upon the ship.”