or, he
felt his eyes swimming in tears.
"Your highness is surely not weeping?" asked the official.
"Why?" asked the prince sharply.
"I thought I saw tears on your highness' cheeks."
"Tears of joy that I am out of the trap," cried Rameri; he sprang on
shore, and in a few minutes he was with his sister in the palace.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Ask for what is feasible
I know that I am of use
Like the cackle of hens, which is peculiar to Eastern women
Think of his wife, not with affection only, but with pride
Those whom we fear, says my uncle, we cannot love
UARDA
By Georg Ebers
Volume 6.
CHAPTER XXIV.
This eventful day had brought much that was unexpected to our friends in
Thebes, as well as to those who lived in the Necropolis.
The Lady Katuti had risen early after a sleepless night. Nefert had come
in late, had excused her delay by shortly explaining to her mother that
she had been detained by Bent-Anat, and had then affectionately offered
her brow for a kiss of "good-night."
When the widow was about to withdraw to her sleeping-room, and Nemu had
lighted her lamp, she remembered the secret which was to deliver Paaker
into Ani's hands. She ordered the dwarf to impart to her what he knew,
and the little man told her at last, after sincere efforts at
resistance--for he feared for his mother's safety--that Paaker had
administered half of a love-philter to Nefert, and that the remainder was
still in his hands.
A few hours since this information would have filled Katuti with
indignation and disgust; now, though she blamed the Mohar, she asked
eagerly whether such a drink could be proved to have any actual effect.
"Not a doubt of it," said the dwarf, "if the whole were taken, but Nefert
only had half of it."
At a late hour Katuti was still pacing her bedroom, thinking of Paaker's
insane devotion, of Mena's faithlessness, and of Nefert's altered
demeanor; and when she went to bed, a thousand conjectures, fears, and
anxieties tormented her, while she was distressed at the change which had
come over Nefert's love to her mother, a sentiment which of all others
should be the most sacred, and the most secure against all shock.
Soon after sunrise she went into the little temple attached to the house,
and made an offering to the statue, which, under the form of Osiris,
represented her lost husband; then she went to the temple of Anion, where
she also
|