which you were not ashamed to listen I did
not pray for any lover, I prayed to be rid of one."

"Now, Ana," said the Prince bursting into laughter and throwing back his
dark cloak, "do you discover the name of that unhappy man of whom the
lady Merapi wishes to be rid, for I dare not."

She gazed into his face and uttered a little cry.

"Ah!" she said, "I thought I knew the voice again when once you forget
your part. Prince Seti, does your Highness think that this was a kind
jest to practise upon one alone and in fear?"

"Lady Merapi," he answered smiling, "be not wroth, for at least it was
a good one and you have told us nothing that we did not know. You may
remember that at Tanis you said that you were affianced and there was
that in your voice----. Suffer me now to tend this wound of yours."

Then he knelt down, tore a strip from his ceremonial robe of fine linen,
and began to bind up her foot, not unskilfully, being a man full of
strange and unexpected knowledge. As he worked at the task, watching
them, I saw their eyes meet, saw too that rich flood of colour creep
once more to Merapi's brow. Then I began to think it unseemly that the
Prince of Egypt should play the leech to a woman's hurts, and to wonder
why he had not left that humble task to me.

Presently the bandaging was done and made fast with a royal scarabaeus
mounted on a pin of gold, which the Prince wore in his garments. On it
was cut the uraeus crown and beneath it were the signs which read "Lord
of the Lower and the Upper Land," being Pharaoh's style and title.

"See now, Lady," he said, "you have Egypt beneath your foot," and when
she asked him what he meant, he read her the writing upon the jewel,
whereat for the third time she coloured to the eyes. Then he lifted
her up, instructing her to rest her weight upon his shoulder, saying he
feared lest the scarab, which he valued, should be broken.

Thus we started, I bearing the bundle of straw behind as he bade me,
since, he said, having been gathered with such toil, it must not be
lost. On reaching the chariot, where we found the guide gone and the
driver asleep, he sat her in it upon his cloak, and wrapped her in mine
which he borrowed, saying I should not need it who must carry the straw.
Then he mounted also and they drove away at a foot's pace. As I walked
after the chariot with the straw that fell about my ears, I heard
nothing of their further talk, if indeed they talked at all which, the
d