“But did he fail, Lady?  What they did he did, sending among the Israelites the plagues that your prophets had sent among us.”

“Yes, some of them, but he was outpaced, or feared to be outpaced at last.  Is Ki a man to forget that?  And if Ki chances really to believe that I am his adversary and his master at this black work, as because of what happened in the temple of Amon thousands believe to-day, will he not mete me my own measure soon or late?  Oh!  I fear Ki, Ana, and I fear the people of Egypt, and were it not for my lord beloved, I would flee away into the wilderness with my son, and get me out of this haunted land!  Hush! he wakes.”

From this time forward until the sword fell there was great dread in Egypt.  None seemed to know exactly what they dreaded, but all thought that it had to do with death.  People went about mournfully looking over their shoulders as though someone were following them, and at night they gathered together in knots and talked in whispers.  Only the Hebrews seemed to be glad and happy.  Moreover, they were making preparations for something new and strange.  Thus those Israelitish women who dwelt in Memphis began to sell what property they had and to borrow of the Egyptians.  Especially did they ask for the loan of jewels, saying that they were about to celebrate a feast and wished to look fine in the eyes of their countrymen.  None refused them what they asked because all were afraid of them.  They even came to the palace and begged her ornaments from Merapi, although she was a countrywoman of their own who had showed them much kindness.  Yes, and seeing that her son wore a little gold circlet on his hair, one of them begged that also, nor did she say her nay.  But, as it chanced, the Prince entered, and seeing the woman with this royal badge in her hand, grew very angry and forced her to restore it.

“What is the use of crowns without heads to wear them?” she sneered, and fled away laughing, with all that she had gathered.

After she had heard that saying Merapi grew even sadder and more distraught than she was before, and from her the trouble crept to Seti.  He too became sad and ill at ease, though when I asked him why he vowed he did not know, but supposed it was because some new plague drew near.

“Yet,” he added, “as I have made shift to live through nine of them, I do not know why I should fear a tenth.”

Still he did fear it, so much that he consulted Bakenkhonsu as to whether there were any means by which the anger of the gods could be averted.

Bakenkhonsu laughed and said he thought not, since always if the gods were not angry about one thing they were angry about another.  Having made the world they did nothing but quarrel with it, or with other gods who had a hand in its fashioning, and of these quarrels men were the victims.

“Bear your woes, Prince,” he added, “if any come, for ere the Nile has risen another fifty times at most, whether they have or have not been, will be the same to you.”