ithout the pleasure-house. Now she was its
friend, no more, and so she remained until all was finished, as both the
Prince and she knew well enough.

When he saw me Seti sprang from his seat and came to greet me, as a man
does the friend whom he loves. I kissed his hand, and going to Merapi,
kissed hers also noting that on it now shone that ring which once she
had rejected as too large.

"Tell me, Ana, all that has befallen you," he said in his pleasant,
eager voice.

"Many things, Prince; one of them very strange and terrible," I
answered.

"Strange and terrible things have happened here also," broke in Merapi,
"and, alas! this is but the beginning of woes."

So saying, she rose, as though she could trust herself to speak no more,
bowed first to her lord and then to me, and left the chamber.

I looked at the Prince and he answered the question in my eyes.

"Jabez has been here," he said, "and filled her heart with forebodings.
If Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go, by Amon I wish he would let
Jabez go to some place whence he never could return. But tell me, have
you also met blood travelling against the stream of Nile? It would seem
so," and he glanced at the rusty stains that no washing would remove
from my garments.

I nodded and we talked together long and earnestly, but in the end were
no wiser for all our talking. For neither of us knew how it came about
that men by striking water with a rod could turn it into what seemed to
be blood, as the Hebrew prophet and Ki both had done, or how that blood
could travel up the Nile against the stream and everywhere endure for a
space of seven days; yes, and spread too to all the canals in Egypt, so
that men must dig holes for water and dig them fresh each day because
the blood crept in and poisoned them. But both of us thought that this
was the work of the gods, and most of all of that god whom the Hebrews
worship.

"You remember, Ana," said the Prince, "the message which you brought to
me from Jabez, namely that no harm should come to me because of these
Israelites and their curses. Well, no harm as come as yet, except the
harm of Jabez, for he came. On the day before the news of this blood
plague reached us, Jabez appeared disguised as a merchant of Syrian
stuffs, all of which he sold to me at three times their value. He
obtained admission to the chambers of Merapi, where she is accustomed to
see whom she wills, and under pretence of showing her his stuffs, s