“Strange and terrible things have happened here also,” broke in Merapi, “and, alas! this is but the beginning of woes.”

So saying, she rose, as though she could trust herself to speak no more, bowed first to her lord and then to me, and left the chamber.

I looked at the Prince and he answered the question in my eyes.

“Jabez has been here,” he said, “and filled her heart with forebodings.  If Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go, by Amon I wish he would let Jabez go to some place whence he never could return.  But tell me, have you also met blood travelling against the stream of Nile?  It would seem so,” and he glanced at the rusty stains that no washing would remove from my garments.

I nodded and we talked together long and earnestly, but in the end were no wiser for all our talking.  For neither of us knew how it came about that men by striking water with a rod could turn it into what seemed to be blood, as the Hebrew prophet and Ki both had done, or how that blood could travel up the Nile against the stream and everywhere endure for a space of seven days; yes, and spread too to all the canals in Egypt, so that men must dig holes for water and dig them fresh each day because the blood crept in and poisoned them.  But both of us thought that this was the work of the gods, and most of all of that god whom the Hebrews worship.

“You remember, Ana,” said the Prince, “the message which you brought to me from Jabez, namely that no harm should come to me because of these Israelites and their curses.  Well, no harm as come as yet, except the harm of Jabez, for he came.  On the day before the news of this blood plague reached us, Jabez appeared disguised as a merchant of Syrian stuffs, all of which he sold to me at three times their value.  He obtained admission to the chambers of Merapi, where she is accustomed to see whom she wills, and under pretence of showing her his stuffs, spoke with her and, as I fear, told her what you and I were so careful to hide, that she would bring trouble on me.  At the least she has never been quite the same since, and I have thought it wise to make her swear by an oath, which I know she will never break, that now we are one she will not attempt to separate herself from me while we both have life.”

“Did he wish her to go away with him, Prince?”

“I do not know.  She never told me so.  Still I am sure that had he come with his evil talk before that day when you returned from Tanis, she would have gone.  Now I hope that there are reasons that will keep her where she is.”

“What then did he say, Prince?”