“Man,” I said, indignantly, “how in the name of Ptah and all his priests did you pass a sentry and through that gate without my seeing you?”

“Do not trouble yourself with a new problem when already you have so many to perplex you, friend Ana.  Say, have you yet solved that of how a rod like this turned itself into a snake in your hand?” and he threw back his hood, revealing the shaved head and the glowing eyes of the Kherheb Ki.

“No, I have not,” I answered, “and I thank you,” for here he proffered me the staff, “but I will not try the trick again.  Next time the beast might bite.  Well, Ki, as you can pass in here without my leave, why do you ask it?  In short, what do you want with me, now that those Hebrew prophets have put you on your back?”

“Hush, Ana.  Never grow angry, it wastes strength, of which we have so little to spare, for you know, being so wise, or perhaps you do not know, that at birth the gods give us a certain store of it, and when that is used we die and have to go elsewhere to fetch more.  At this rate your life will be short, Ana, for you squander it in emotions.”

“What do you want?” I repeated, being too angry to dispute with him.

“I want to find an answer to the question you asked so roughly:  Why the Hebrew prophets have, as you say, put me on my back?”

“Not being a magician, as you pretend you are, I can give you none, Ki.”

“Never for one moment did I suppose that you could,” he replied blandly, stretching out his hands, and leaving the staff which had fallen from them standing in front of him. (It was not till afterwards that I remembered that this accursed bit of wood stood there of itself without visible support, for it rested on the paving-stone of the gateway.) “But, as it chances, you have in this house the master, or rather the mistress of all magicians, as every Egyptian knows to-day, the lady Merapi, and I would see her.”

“Why do you say she is a mistress of magicians?” I asked indignantly.

“Why does one bird know another of its own kind?  Why does the water here remain pure, when all other water turns to blood?  Why do not the frogs croak in Seti’s halls, and why do the flies avoid his meat?  Why, also, did the statue of Amon melt before her glance, while all my magic fell back from her breast like arrows from a shirt of mail?  Those are the questions that Egypt asks, and I would have an answer to them from the beloved of Seti, or of the god Set, she who is named Moon of Israel.”

“Then why not go seek it for yourself, Ki?  To you, doubtless, it would be a small matter to take the form of a snake or a rat, or a bird, and creep or run or fly into the presence of Merapi.”

“Mayhap it would not be difficult, Ana.  Or, better still, I might visit her in her sleep, as I visited you on a certain night at Thebes, when you told me of a talk you had held with a woman in the avenue of the Sphinxes, and of what it cost you in gold and tears.  But, as it chances, I wish to appear as a man and a friend, and to stay a while.  Bakenkhonsu tells me that he finds life here at Memphis very pleasant, free too from the sicknesses which just now seem to be so common in Egypt; so why should not I do the same, Ana?”