“I believe it is true, Sir, but I have not seen him.”

“Why not, if he is here?”

“Because I do not wish to, Sir.  Why should a daughter of Israel desire to look upon the face of a prince of Egypt?”

“In truth I do not know,” replied Seti forgetting his feigned voice.  Then, seeing that she glanced at him sharply, he added in gruff tones: 

“Brother, either this woman lies or she is none other than the maid they call Moon of Israel who dwells with old Jabez the Levite, her uncle.  What think you?”

“I think, Brother, that she lies, and for three reasons,” I answered, falling into the jest.  “First, she is too fair to be of the black Hebrew blood.”

“Oh!  Sir,” moaned Merapi, “my mother was a Syrian lady of the mountains, with a skin as white as milk, and eyes blue as the heavens.”

“Secondly,” I went on without heeding her, “if the great Prince Seti is really in Goshen and she dwells there, it is unnatural that she should not have gone to look upon him.  Being a woman only two things would have kept her away, one—­that she feared and hated him, which she denies, and the other—­that she liked him too well, and, being prudent, thought it wisest not to look upon him more.”

When she heard the first of these words, Merapi glanced up with her lips parted as though to answer.  Instead, she dropped her eyes and suddenly seemed to choke, while even in the moonlight I saw the red blood pour to her brow and along her white arms.

“Sir,” she gasped, “why should you affront me?  I swear that never till this moment did I think such a thing.  Surely it would be treason.”

“Without doubt,” interrupted Seti, “yet one of a sort that kings might pardon.”

“Thirdly,” I went on as though I had heard neither of them, “if this girl were what she declares, she would not be wandering alone in the desert at night, seeing that I have heard among the Arabs that Merapi, daughter of Nathan the Levite, is a lady of no mean blood among the Hebrews and that her family has wealth.  Still, however much she lies, we can see for ourselves that she is beautiful.”

“Yes, Brother, in that we are fortunate, since without doubt she will sell for a high price among the slave traders beyond the desert.”

“Oh!  Sir,” cried Merapi seizing the hem of his robe, “surely you who I feel, I know not why, are no evil thief, you who have a mother and, perchance, sisters, would not doom a maiden to such a fate.  Misjudge me not because I am alone.  Pharaoh has commanded that we must find straw for the making of bricks.  This morning I came far to search for it on behalf of a neighbour whose wife is ill in childbed.  But towards sundown I slipped and cut myself upon the edge of a sharp stone.  See,” and holding up her foot she showed a wound beneath the instep from which the blood still dropped, a sight that moved both of us not a little, “and now I cannot walk and carry this heavy straw which I have been at such pains to gather.”