On the night of the drawing-forth of the Ka of Neter-Tua, Kaku the wizard, and Merytra the spy, she who had been Lady of the Footstool to Pharaoh, sat together in that high chamber where Merytra had vowed her vow, and received the magic image.

“Why do you look so disturbed?” asked the astrologer of his accomplice who glanced continually over her shoulder, and seemed very ill at ease.  “All has gone well.  If Set himself had fashioned that image, it could not have done its work more thoroughly.”

“Thoroughly, indeed,” broke in Merytra in an angry voice.  “You have tricked me, Wizard, I promised to help you to lame Pharaoh, not to murder him!”

“Hush!  Beloved,” said Kaku nervously, “murder is an ugly word, and murderers come to ugly ends—­sometimes.  Is it your fault if an accursed fool of a priest chose to burn the mannikin upon an altar, and thus bring this god to his lamented end?”

“No,” answered Merytra, “not mine, or the priest’s, but yours, and that hog, Abi’s; and Set’s the master of both of you.  But I shall get the blame of it, for the Queen and Asti know the truth, and soon or late it will come out, and they will burn me as a sorceress, sending me to the Underworld with the blood of Pharaoh upon my hands.  Pharaoh who never did me aught but good.  And then, what will happen to me?”

Evidently Kaku did not know, for he rose and stood opposite to her, scratching his lean chin and smiling in a sickly, indeterminate fashion that enraged Merytra.

“Cease grinning at me like an ape of the rocks,” she said, “and tell me, what is to be the end of this evil business?”

“Why trouble about ends, Fair One?” he asked.  “They are always a long way off; indeed, the best philosophers hold that there is no such thing as an end.  You know the sacred symbol of a snake with its tail in its mouth that surrounds the whole world, but begins where it ends, and ends where it begins.  It may be seen in any tomb——­”

“Cease your talk of snakes and tombs,” burst in Merytra.  “The thought of them makes me shudder.”

“By all means, Beloved.  I have always held that we Egyptians dwell too much on tombs, and—­whatever it may be that lies beyond them, which after all remains a matter of doubt—­fortunately.  So let us turn from tombs and corpses to palaces and life.  As I said just now, although we grieve over the accident of Pharaoh’s death, and that of all his guard —­and I may add, of Abi’s four legitimate sons, things have gone well for us.  To-day I have received from the Prince, in writing, my appointment as Vizier, and first King’s companion, to come into force when he mounts the throne as he must do, and to-day you have received from me, with all the usual public rites and ceremonies, the name of wife, as I promised that you should.  Merytra, you are the wife of the great Vizier, the pre-eminent lord, the sole Companion of the King of Egypt, a high position for one who after all during the late reign was but Pharaoh’s favourite, and Lady of the Footstool.”