Put Paaker did not answer him, he pushed him aside with his foot, and walked up and down in deep thought.

Katuti met the Regent half way down the garden.  He held a manuscript roll in his hand, and greeted her from afar with a friendly wave of his hand.

The widow looked at him with astonishment.

It seemed to her that he had grown taller and younger since the last time she had seen him.

“Hail to your highness!” she cried, half in joke half reverently, and she raised her hands in supplication, as if he already wore the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt.  “Have the nine Gods met you? have the Hathors kissed you in your slumbers?  This is a white day—­a lucky day—­I read it in your face!” “That is reading a cipher!” said Ani gaily, but with dignity.  “Read this despatch.”

Katuti took the roll from his hand, read it through, and then returned it.

“The troops you equipped have conquered the allied armies of the Ethiopians,” she said gravely, “and are bringing their prince in fetters to Thebes, with endless treasure, and ten thousand prisoners!  The Gods be praised!”

“And above all things I thank the Gods that my general Scheschenk—­my foster-brother and friend—­is returning well and unwounded from the war.  I think, Katuti, that the figures in our dreams are this day taking forms of flesh and blood!”

“They are growing to the stature of heroes!” cried the widow.  “And you yourself, my lord, have been stirred by the breath of the Divinity.  You walk like the worthy son of Ra, the Courage of Menth beams in your eyes, and you smile like the victorious Horus.”

“Patience, patience my friend,” said Ani, moderating the eagerness of the widow; “now, more than ever, we must cling to my principle of over-estimating the strength of our opponents, and underrating our own.  Nothing has succeeded on which I had counted, and on the contrary many things have justified my fears that they would fail.  The beginning of the end is hardly dawning on us.”

“But successes, like misfortunes, never come singly,” replied Katuti.

“I agree with you,” said Ani.  “The events of life seem to me to fall in groups.  Every misfortune brings its fellow with it—­like every piece of luck.  Can you tell me of a second success?”

“Women win no battles,” said the widow smiling.  “But they win allies, and I have gained a powerful one.”

“A God or an army?” asked Ani.

“Something between the two,” she replied.  “Paaker, the king’s chief pioneer, has joined us;” and she briefly related to Ani the history of her nephew’s love and hatred.

Ani listened in silence; then he said with an expression of much disquiet and anxiety: 

“This man is a follower of Rameses, and must shortly return to him.  Many may guess at our projects, but every additional person who knows them may be come a traitor.  You are urging me, forcing me, forward too soon.  A thousand well-prepared enemies are less dangerous than one untrustworthy ally—­”