or make
of them stepping stones to glory. Were she a man she would do so, but
her sex wrecks her, she who thinks more of the kiss of a babe than
of all the splendours she might harbour in her breast. Yes, a babe, a
single wretched little babe. You had one once, did you not, Ana?"

"Oh! to Set and his fires with you and your evil talk," I said, and left
him.

When I had gone a little way, I looked back and saw that he was
laughing, throwing up his staff as he laughed, and catching it again.

"Set and his fires," he called after me. "I wonder what they are like,
Ana. Perhaps one day we shall learn, you and I together, Scribe Ana."

So Ki took up his abode with us, in the same lodgings as Bakenkhonsu,
and almost every day I would meet them walking in the garden, since I,
who was of the Prince's table, except when he ate with the lady Merapi,
did not take my food with them. Then we would talk together about many
subjects. On those which had to do with learning, or even religion, I
had the better of Ki, who was no great scholar or master of theology.
But always before we parted he would plant some arrow in my ribs, at
which old Bakenkhonsu laughed, and laughed again, yet ever threw over me
the shield of his venerable wisdom, just because he loved me I think.

It was after this that the plague struck the cattle of Egypt, so that
tens of thousands of them died, though not all as was reported. But, as
I have said, of the herds of Seti none died, nor, as we were told, did
any of those of the Israelites in the land of Goshen. Now there was
great distress in Egypt, but Ki smiled and said that he knew it would
be so, and that there was much worse to come, for which I could have
smitten him over the head with his own staff, had I not feared that, if
I did so, it might once more turn to a serpent in my hand.

Old Bakenkhonsu looked upon the matter with another face. He said that
since his last wife died, I think some fifty years before, he had found
life very dull because he missed the exercises of her temper, and her
habit of presenting things as these never had been nor could possibly
ever be. Now, however, it grew interesting again, since the marvels
which were happening in Egypt, being quite contrary to Nature, reminded
him of his last wife and her arguments. All of which was his way of
saying that in those years we lived in a new world, whereof for the
Egyptians Set the Evil One seemed to be the king.

But still Pharaoh