Paaker stood over her in silence.

There are trees in the tropics, on which white blossoms hang close by the withered fruit, there are days when the pale moon shows itself near the clear bright sun;—­and it is given to the soul of man to feel love and hatred, both at the same time, and to direct both to the same end.

Nefert’s tears fell as dew, her sobs as manna on the soul of Paaker, which hungered and thirsted for revenge.  Her pain was joy to him, and yet the sight of her beauty filled him with passion, his gaze lingered spell-bound on her graceful form; he would have given all the bliss of heaven once, only once, to hold her in his arms—­once, only once, to hear a word of love from her lips.

After some minutes Nefert’s tears grew less violent.  With a weary, almost indifferent gaze she looked at the Mohar, still standing before her, and said in a soft tone of entreaty: 

’My tongue is parched, fetch me a little water.”

“The princess may come out at any moment,” replied Paaker.

“But I am fainting,” said Nefert, and began again to cry gently.

Paaker shrugged his shoulders, and went farther into the valley, which he knew as well as his father’s house; for in it was the tomb of his mother’s ancestors, in which, as a boy, he had put up prayers at every full and new moon, and laid gifts on the altar.

The hut of the paraschites was prohibited to him, but he knew that scarcely a hundred paces from the spot where Nefert was sitting, lived an old woman of evil repute, in whose hole in the rock he could not fail to find a drink of water.

He hastened forward, half intoxicated with had seen and felt within the last few minutes.

The door, which at night closed the cave against the intrusions of the plunder-seeking jackals, was wide open, and the old woman sat outside under a ragged piece of brown sail-cloth, fastened at one end to the rock and at the other to two posts of rough wood.  She was sorting a heap of dark and light-colored roots, which lay in her lap.  Near her was a wheel, which turned in a high wooden fork.  A wryneck made fast to it by a little chain, and by springing from spoke to spoke kept it in continual motion.—­[From Theocritus’ idyl:  The Sorceress.]—­A large black cat crouched beside her, and smelt at some ravens’ and owls’ heads, from which the eyes had not long since been extracted.

Two sparrow-hawks sat huddled up over the door of the cave, out of which came the sharp odor of burning juniper-berries; this was intended to render the various emanations rising from the different strange substances, which were collected and preserved there, innocuous.

As Paaker approached the cavern the old woman called out to some one within: 

“Is the wax cooking?”

An unintelligible murmur was heard in answer.

Then throw in the ape’s eyes,

[The sentences and mediums employed by the witches, according to papyrus-rolls which remain.  I have availed myself of the Magic papyrus of Harris, and of two in the Berlin collection, one of which is in Greek. ]

and the ibis feathers, and the scraps of linen with the black signs on them.  Stir it all a little; now put out the fire,