“To pray me, if I would save myself from death and the vengeance of God, to work upon the heart of his Highness, which I know not how to do——­”

“Yet I think you might find means, Merapi.”

“——­save through you, his friend and counsellor,” she went on, turning away her face.  “Jabez has learned that it is in the mind of Pharaoh utterly to destroy the people of Israel.”

“How does he know that, Merapi?”

“I cannot say, but I think all the Hebrews know.  I knew it myself though none had told me.  He has learned also that this cannot be done under the law of Egypt unless the Prince who is heir to the throne and of full age consents.  Now I am come to pray you to pray the Prince not to consent.”

“Why not pray to the Prince yourself, Merapi——­” I began, when from the shadows behind me I heard the voice of Seti, who had entered by the private door bearing some writings in his hand, saying: 

“And what prayer has the lady Merapi to make to me?  Nay, rise and speak, Moon of Israel.”

“O Prince,” she pleaded, “my prayer is that you will save the Hebrews from death by the sword, as you alone have the power to do.”

At this moment the doors opened and in swept the royal Userti.

“What does this woman here?” she asked.

“I think that she came to see Ana, wife, as I did, and as doubtless you do.  Also being here she prays me to save her people from the sword.”

“And I pray you, husband, to give her people to the sword, which they have earned, who would have murdered you.”

“And been paid, everyone of them, Userti, unless some still linger beneath the rods,” he added with a shudder.  “The rest are innocent—­why should they die?”

“Because your throne hangs upon it, Seti.  I say that if you continue to thwart the will of Pharaoh, as by the law of Egypt you can do, he will disinherit you and set your cousin Amenmeses in your place, as by the law of Egypt he can do.”

“I thought it, Userti.  Yet why should I turn my back upon the right over a matter of my private fortunes?  The question is—­is it the right?”

She stared at him in amazement, she who never understood Seti and could not dream that he would throw away the greatest throne in all the world to save a subject people, merely because he thought that they should not die.  Still, warned by some instinct, she left the first question unanswered, dealing only with the second.

“It is the right,” she said, “for many reasons whereof I need give but one, for in it lie all the others.  The gods of Egypt are the true gods whom we must serve and obey, or perish here and hereafter.  The god of the Israelites is a false god and those who worship him are heretics and by their heresy under sentence of death.  Therefore it is most right that those whom the true gods have condemned should die by the swords of their servants.”