She was the wife of a fisherman who made his home in this cave, and said that seven days before the Nile had turned to blood, so that they could not drink of it, and had no water save a little in a pot.  Nor could they dig to find it, since here the ground was all rock.  Nor could they escape, since when he saw the marvel, her husband in his fear had leapt from his boat and waded to land and the boat had floated away.

I asked where was her husband, and she pointed behind her.  I went to look, and there found a man hanging by his neck from a rope that was fixed to the capital of a pillar in the tomb, quite dead and cold.  Returning sick at heart, I inquired of her how this had come about.  She answered that when he saw that all the fish had perished, taking away his living, and that thirst had killed his youngest child, he went mad, and creeping to the back of the tomb, without her knowledge hung himself with a net rope.  It was a dreadful story.

Having given the widow of our food, we went to sleep in another tomb, not liking the company of those dead ones.  Next morning at the dawn we took the woman and her children on board the barge, and rowed them three hours’ journey to a town where she had a sister, whom she found.  The dead man and the child we left there in the tomb, since my men would not defile themselves by touching them.

So, seeing much terror and misery on our journey, at last we came safe to Memphis.  Leaving the boatmen to draw up the barge, I went to the palace, speaking with none, and was led at once to the Prince.  I found him in a shaded chamber seated side by side with the lady Merapi, and holding her hand in such a fashion that they remind me of the life-sized Ka statues of a man and his wife, such as I have seen in the ancient tombs, cut when the sculptors knew how to fashion the perfect likenesses of men and women.  This they no longer do to-day, I think because the priests have taught them that it is not lawful.  He was talking to her in a low voice, while she listened, smiling sweetly as she ever did, but with eyes, fixed straight before her that were, as it seemed to me, filled with fear.  I thought that she looked very beautiful with her hair outspread over her white robe, and held back from her temples by a little fillet of god.  But as I looked, I rejoiced to find that my heart no longer yearned for her as it had upon that night when I had seen her seated beneath the trees without the pleasure-house.  Now she was its friend, no more, and so she remained until all was finished, as both the Prince and she knew well enough.

When he saw me Seti sprang from his seat and came to greet me, as a man does the friend whom he loves.  I kissed his hand, and going to Merapi, kissed hers also noting that on it now shone that ring which once she had rejected as too large.

“Tell me, Ana, all that has befallen you,” he said in his pleasant, eager voice.

“Many things, Prince; one of them very strange and terrible,” I answered.