d Setchem is
of thy own blood, and kind-hearted."

"She is not rich," replied Katuti. "Every palm in her garden comes from
her husband, and belongs to her children."

"Paaker, too, was with you?"

"Certainly only by the entreaty of his mother--he hates my son-in-law."

"I know it," muttered the dwarf, "but if Nefert would ask him?"

The widow drew herself up indignantly. She felt that she had allowed the
dwarf too much freedom, and ordered him to leave her alone.

Nemu kissed her robe and asked timidly:

"Shall I forget that thou hast trusted me, or am I permitted to consider
further as to thy son's safety?" Katuti stood for a moment undecided,
then she said:

"You were clever enough to find what I carelessly dropped; perhaps some
God may show you what I ought to do. Now leave me."

"Wilt thou want me early to-morrow?"

"No."

"Then I will go to the Necropolis, and offer a sacrifice."

"Go!" said Katuti, and went towards the house with the fatal letter in
her hand.

Nemu stayed behind alone; he looked thoughtfully at the ground, murmuring
to himself.

"She must not lose her honor; not at present, or indeed all will be lost.
What is this honor? We all come into the world without it, and most of us
go to the grave without knowing it, and very good folks notwithstanding.
Only a few who are rich and idle weave it in with the homely stuff of
their souls, as the Kuschites do their hair with grease and oils, till it
forms a cap of which, though it disfigures them, they are so proud that
they would rather have their ears cut off than the monstrous thing. I
see, I see--but before I open my mouth I will go to my mother. She knows
more than twenty prophets."

CHAPTER XII.

Before the sun had risen the next morning, Nemu got himself ferried over
the Nile, with the small white ass which Mena's deceased father had given
him many years before. He availed himself of the cool hour which precedes
the rising of the sun for his ride through the Necropolis.

Well acquainted as he was with every stock and stone, he avoided the high
roads which led to the goal of his expedition, and trotted towards the
hill which divides the valley of the royal tombs from the plain of the
Nile.

Before him opened a noble amphitheatre of lofty lime-stone peaks, the
background of the stately terrace-temple which the proud ancestress of
two kings of the fallen family, the great Hatasu, had erected to their
memory, and to the Goddess