“Take the jug and fetch some water—­make haste, here comes a stranger.”

A sooty-black negro woman, with a piece of torn colorless stuff hanging round her hips, set a large clay-jar on her grey woolly matted hair, and without looking at him, went past Paaker, who was now close to the cave.

The old woman, a tall figure bent with years, with a sharply-cut and wrinkled face, that might once have been handsome, made her preparations for receiving the visitor by tying a gaudy kerchief over her head, fastening her blue cotton garment round her throat, and flinging a fibre mat over the birds’ heads.

Paaker called out to her, but she feigned to be deaf and not to hear his voice.  Only when he stood quite close to her, did she raise her shrewd, twinkling eyes, and cry out: 

“A lucky day! a white day that brings a noble guest and high honor.”

“Get up,” commanded Paaker, not giving her any greeting, but throwing a silver ring among the roots that lay in her lap,

   [The Egyptians had no coins before Alexander and the Ptolemies, but
   used metals for exchange, usually in the form of rings.]

“and give me in exchange for good money some water in a clean vessel.”

“Fine pure silver,” said the old woman, while she held the ring, which she had quickly picked out from the roots, close to her eyes; “it is too much for mere water, and too little for my good liquors.”

“Don’t chatter, hussy, but make haste,” cried Paaker, taking another ring from his money-bag and throwing it into her lap.

“Thou hast an open hand,” said the old woman, speaking in the dialect of the upper classes; “many doors must be open to thee, for money is a pass-key that turns any lock.  Would’st thou have water for thy good money?  Shall it protect thee against noxious beasts?—­shall it help thee to reach down a star?  Shall it guide thee to secret paths?—­It is thy duty to lead the way.  Shall it make heat cold, or cold warm?  Shall it give thee the power of reading hearts, or shall it beget beautiful dreams?  Wilt thou drink of the water of knowledge and see whether thy friend or thine enemy—­ha! if thine enemy shall die?  Would’st thou a drink to strengthen thy memory?  Shall the water make thee invisible? or remove the 6th toe from thy left foot?”

“You know me?” asked Paaker.

“How should I?” said the old woman, “but my eyes are sharp, and I can prepare good waters for great and small.”

“Mere babble!” exclaimed Paaker, impatiently clutching at the whip in his girdle; “make haste, for the lady for whom—­”

“Dost thou want the water for a lady?” interrupted the old woman.  “Who would have thought it?—­old men certainly ask for my philters much oftener than young ones—­but I can serve thee.”

With these words the old woman went into the cave, and soon returned with a thin cylindrical flask of alabaster in her hand.