“You alarm me,” the widow declared.  “And in speaking ill of you, his only motive was to raise his favorite in Nefert’s estimation.”

“Tell me what he said!” cried the pioneer; cold drops stood on his brown forehead, and his glaring eyes showed the white eye-balls.

Katuti quailed before him, and drew back, but he followed her, seized her arm, and said huskily: 

“What did he say?”

“Paaker!” cried the widow in pain and indignation.  “Let me go.  It is better for you that I should not repeat the words with which Rameses sought to turn Nefert’s heart from you.  Let me go, and remember to whom you are speaking.”

But Paaker gripped her elbow the tighter, and urgently repeated his question.

“Shame upon you!” cried Katuti, “you are hurting me; let me go!  You will not till you have heard what he said?  Have your own way then, but the words are forced from me!  He said that if he did not know your mother Setchem for an honest woman, he never would have believed you were your father’s son—­for you were no more like him than an owl to an eagle.”

Paaker took his hand from Katuti’s arm.  “And so—­and so—­” he muttered with pale lips.

“Nefert took your part, and I too, but in vain.  Do not take the words too hardly.  Your father was a man without an equal, and Rameses cannot forget that we are related to the old royal house.  His grandfather, his father, and himself are usurpers, and there is one now living who has a better right to the throne than he has.”

“The Regent Ani!” exclaimed Paaker decisively.  Katuti nodded, she went up to the pioneer and said in a whisper: 

“I put myself in your hands, though I know they may be raised against me.  But you are my natural ally, for that same act of Rameses that disgraced and injured you, made me a partner in the designs of Ani.  The king robbed you of your bride, me of my daughter.  He filled your soul with hatred for your arrogant rival, and mine with passionate regret for the lost happiness of my child.  I feel the blood of Hatasu in my veins, and my spirit is high enough to govern men.  It was I who roused the sleeping ambition of the Regent—­I who directed his gaze to the throne to which he was destined by the Gods.  The ministers of the Gods, the priests, are favorably disposed to us; we have—­”

At this moment there was a commotion in the garden, and a breathless slave rushed in exclaiming “The Regent is at the gate!”

Paaker stood in stupid perplexity, but he collected himself with an effort and would have gone, but Katuti detained him.

“I will go forward to meet Ani,” she said.  “He will be rejoiced to see you, for he esteems you highly and was a friend of your father’s.”

As soon as Katuti had left the hall, the dwarf Nemu crept out of his hiding-place, placed himself in front of Paaker, and asked boldly: 

“Well?  Did I give thee good advice yesterday, or no?”