nted
land! Hush! he wakes."

From this time forward until the sword fell there was great dread in
Egypt. None seemed to know exactly what they dreaded, but all thought
that it had to do with death. People went about mournfully looking over
their shoulders as though someone were following them, and at night
they gathered together in knots and talked in whispers. Only the Hebrews
seemed to be glad and happy. Moreover, they were making preparations
for something new and strange. Thus those Israelitish women who dwelt
in Memphis began to sell what property they had and to borrow of the
Egyptians. Especially did they ask for the loan of jewels, saying that
they were about to celebrate a feast and wished to look fine in the eyes
of their countrymen. None refused them what they asked because all were
afraid of them. They even came to the palace and begged her ornaments
from Merapi, although she was a countrywoman of their own who had showed
them much kindness. Yes, and seeing that her son wore a little gold
circlet on his hair, one of them begged that also, nor did she say her
nay. But, as it chanced, the Prince entered, and seeing the woman with
this royal badge in her hand, grew very angry and forced her to restore
it.

"What is the use of crowns without heads to wear them?" she sneered, and
fled away laughing, with all that she had gathered.

After she had heard that saying Merapi grew even sadder and more
distraught than she was before, and from her the trouble crept to Seti.
He too became sad and ill at ease, though when I asked him why he vowed
he did not know, but supposed it was because some new plague drew near.

"Yet," he added, "as I have made shift to live through nine of them, I
do not know why I should fear a tenth."

Still he did fear it, so much that he consulted Bakenkhonsu as to
whether there were any means by which the anger of the gods could be
averted.

Bakenkhonsu laughed and said he thought not, since always if the gods
were not angry about one thing they were angry about another. Having
made the world they did nothing but quarrel with it, or with other gods
who had a hand in its fashioning, and of these quarrels men were the
victims.

"Bear your woes, Prince," he added, "if any come, for ere the Nile has
risen another fifty times at most, whether they have or have not been,
will be the same to you."

"Then you think that when we go west we die indeed, and that Osiris is
but another name for t