Rameri listened to her in silence, and then said, “I am still young, and have done nothing yet, but the time shall come in which you shall look up to me too as to a tree, not perhaps a sacred tree, but as to a sycamore under whose shade we love to rest.  I am no longer gay; I will leave you for I have a serious duty to fulfil.  Pentaur is a complete man, and I will be one too.  But you shall be the rose-garland to grace me.  Men who can be compared to flowers disgust me!”

The prince rose, and offered Uarda his hand.

“You have a strong hand,” said the girl.  “You will be a noble man, and work for good and great ends; only look, my fingers are quite red with being held so tightly.  But they too are not quite useless.  They have never done anything very hard certainly, but what they tend flourishes, and grandmother says they are ‘lucky.’  Look at the lovely lilies and the pomegrenate bush in that corner.  Grandfather brought the earth here from the Nile, Pentaur’s father gave me the seeds, and each little plant that ventured to show a green shoot through the soil I sheltered and nursed and watered, though I had to fetch the water in my little pitcher, till it was vigorous, and thanked me with flowers.  Take this pomegranate flower.  It is the first my tree has borne; and it is very strange, when the bud first began to lengthen and swell my grandmother said, ’Now your heart will soon begin to bud and love.’  I know now what she meant, and both the first flowers belong to you—­the red one here off the tree, and the other, which you cannot see, but which glows as brightly as this does.”

Rameri pressed the scarlet blossom to his lips, and stretched out his hand toward Uarda; but she shrank back, for a little figure slipped through an opening in the hedge.

It was Scherau.

His pretty little face glowed with his quick run, and his breath was gone.  For a few minutes he tried in vain for words, and looked anxiously at the prince.

Uarda saw that something unusual agitated him; she spoke to him kindly, saying that if he wished to speak to her alone he need not be afraid of Rameri, for he was her best friend.

“But it does not concern you and me,” replied the child, “but the good, holy father Pentaur, who was so kind to me, and who saved your life.”

“I am a great friend of Pentaur,” said the prince.  “Is it not true, Uarda?  He may speak with confidence before me.”

“I may?” said Scherau, “that is well.  I have slipped away; Hekt may come back at any moment, and if she sees that I have taken myself off I shall get a beating and nothing to eat.”

“Who is this horrible Hekt?” asked Rameri indignantly.