“Have done!  Why do you torment me?”

“Can the priests of the Moon-goddess torment Isis, Mother of Magic, with their prayers and offerings?  And can I who would make a prayer and an offering——­”

“What prayer, and what offering?”

“The prayer that you will suffer me to shelter in this house from the many dangers that threaten me at the hands of Pharaoh and the prophets of your people, and an offering of such help as I can give by my arts and knowledge against blacker dangers which threaten—­another.”

Here once more he gazed at the trunk of the tree beyond which I heard the infant wail.

“If I consent, what then?” she asked, hoarsely.

“Then, Lady, I will strive to protect a certain little one against a curse which Jabez tells me threatens him and many others in whom runs the blood of Egypt.  I will strive, if I am allowed to bide here—­I do not say that I shall succeed, for as your lord has reminded me, and as you showed me in the temple of Amon, my strength is smaller than that of the prophets and prophetesses of Israel.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then, Lady,” he answered in a voice that rang like iron, “I am sure that one whom you love—­as mothers love—­will shortly be rocked in the arms of the god whom we name Osiris.”

“Stay,” she cried and, turning, fled away.

“Why, Ana, she is gone,” he said, “and that before I could bargain for my reward.  Well, this I must find in your company.  How strange are women, Ana!  Here you have one of the greatest of her sex, as you learned in the temple of Amon.  And yet she opens beneath the sun of hope and shrivels beneath the shadow of fear, like the touched leaves of that tender plant which grows upon the banks of the river; she who, with her eyes set on the mystery that is beyond, whereof she hears the whispering winds, should tread both earthly hope and fear beneath her feet, or make of them stepping stones to glory.  Were she a man she would do so, but her sex wrecks her, she who thinks more of the kiss of a babe than of all the splendours she might harbour in her breast.  Yes, a babe, a single wretched little babe.  You had one once, did you not, Ana?”

“Oh! to Set and his fires with you and your evil talk,” I said, and left him.

When I had gone a little way, I looked back and saw that he was laughing, throwing up his staff as he laughed, and catching it again.

“Set and his fires,” he called after me.  “I wonder what they are like, Ana.  Perhaps one day we shall learn, you and I together, Scribe Ana.”

So Ki took up his abode with us, in the same lodgings as Bakenkhonsu, and almost every day I would meet them walking in the garden, since I, who was of the Prince’s table, except when he ate with the lady Merapi, did not take my food with them.  Then we would talk together about many subjects.  On those which had to do with learning, or even religion, I had the better of Ki, who was no great scholar or master of theology.  But always before we parted he would plant some arrow in my ribs, at which old Bakenkhonsu laughed, and laughed again, yet ever threw over me the shield of his venerable wisdom, just because he loved me I think.