I came thrice and each time that old cock picked more corn.  At last I grew enraged and, forgetting where I was, began to shout at him and call him a thief, so that folks gathered round to listen.  This seemed to frighten him.  At first he looked towards the door as though to summon the guard to thrust me out; then changed his mind, and in a grumbling voice bade me follow him.  We went down long passages, past soldiers who stood at watch in them still as mummies in their coffins, till at length we came to some broidered curtains.  Here Pambasa whispered to me to wait, and passed through the curtains which he left not quite closed, so that I could see the room beyond and hear all that took place there.

It was a small room like to that of any scribe, for on the tables were palettes, pens of reed, ink in alabaster vases, and sheets of papyrus pinned upon boards.  The walls were painted, not as I was wont to paint the Books of the Dead, but after the fashion of an earlier time, such as I have seen in certain ancient tombs, with pictures of wild fowl rising from the swamps and of trees and plants as they grow.  Against the walls hung racks in which were papyrus rolls, and on the hearth burned a fire of cedar-wood.

By this fire stood the Prince, whom I knew from his statues.  His years appeared fewer than mine although we were born upon the same day, and he was tall and thin, very fair also for one of our people, perhaps because of the Syrian blood that ran in his veins.  His hair was straight and brown like to that of northern folk who come to trade in the markets of Egypt, and his eyes were grey rather than black, set beneath somewhat prominent brows such as those of his father, Meneptah.  His face was sweet as a woman’s, but made curious by certain wrinkles which ran from the corners of the eyes towards the ears.  I think that these came from the bending of the brow in thought, but others say that they were inherited from an ancestress on the female side.  Bakenkhonsu my friend, the old prophet who served under the first Seti and died but the other day, having lived a hundred and twenty years, told me that he knew her before she was married, and that she and her descendant, Seti, might have been twins.

In his hand the Prince held an open roll, a very ancient writing as I, who am skilled in such matters that have to do with my trade, knew from its appearance.  Lifting his eyes suddenly from the study of this roll, he saw the chamberlain standing before him.

“You came at a good time, Pambasa,” he said in a voice that was very soft and pleasant, and yet most manlike.  “You are old and doubtless wise.  Say, are you wise, Pambasa?”

“Yes, your Highness.  I am wise like your Highness’s uncle, Khaemuas the mighty magician, whose sandals I used to clean when I was young.”

“Is it so?  Then why are you so careful to hide your wisdom which should be open like a flower for us poor bees to suck at?  Well, I am glad to learn that you are wise, for in this book of magic that I have been reading I find problems worthy of Khaemuas the departed, whom I only remember as a brooding, black-browed man much like my cousin, Amenmeses his son—­save that no one can call Amenmeses wise.”