A slight tremor shook the dying girl.  She closed her eyes for a short time and a sunny smile hovered around her lips.

She lay in this attitude so long that Nun feared death had claimed her and, holding the medicine in his hand, listened to hear her breathing.

Kasana did not seem to notice it; but when she finally opened her eyes, she held out her hand for the cordial, drank it, and then began again: 

“It seemed just as if I had seen him, Hosea.  He wore the panoply of war just as he did the first time he took me into his arms.  I was a little thing and felt afraid of him, he looked so grave, and my nurse had told me that he had slain a great many of our foes.  Yet I was glad when he came and grieved when he went away.  So the years passed, and love grew with my growth.  My young heart was so full of him, so full....  Even when they forced me to wed another, and after I had become a widow.”

The last words had been scarcely audible, and she rested some time ere she continued: 

“Hosea knows all this, except how anxious I was when he was in the field, and how I longed for him ere he returned.  At last, at last he came home, and how I rejoiced!  But he, Hosea....?  That woman—­Ephraim told me so—­ that tall, arrogant woman summoned him to Pithom.  But he returned, and then....  Oh, Nun, your son.... that was the hardest thing....!  He refused my hand, which my father offered....  And how that hurt me....!  I can say no more....!  Give me the drink!”

Her cheeks had flushed crimson during these painful confessions, and when the experienced old man perceived how rapidly the excitement under which she was laboring hastened the approach of death, he begged her to keep silence; but she insisted upon profiting by the time still allowed her, and though the sharp pain with which a short cough tortured her forced her to press her hand upon her breast, she continued: 

“Then hate came; but it did not last long—­and never did I love him more ardently than when I drove after the poor convict—­you remember, my boy.  Then began the horrible, wicked, evil time.... of which I must tell him that he may not despise me, if he hears about it.  I never had a mother, and there was no one to warn me....  Where shall I begin?  Prince Siptah —­you know him, father—­that wicked man will soon rule over my country.  My father is in a conspiracy with him.... merciful gods, I can say no more!”

Terror and despair convulsed her features as she uttered these words; but Ephraim interrupted her and, with tearful eyes and faltering voice, confessed that he knew all.  Then he repeated what he had heard while listening outside of her tent, and her glance confirmed the tale.

When he finally spoke of the wife of the viceroy and chief-priest Bai, whose body had been borne to the shore with her, Kasana interrupted him with the low exclamation: 

“She planned it all.  Her husband was to be the greatest man in the country and rule even Pharaoh; for Siptah is not the son of a king.”