r more frequently and severely; a
little lamp of clay burned before her, and on her lap crouched a sick and
ruffled hawk; the creature shivered from time to time, closing the filmy
lids of his keen eyes, which glowed with a dull fire when Hekt took him
up in her withered hand, and tried to blow some air into his hooked beak,
still ever ready to peck and tear her.

At her feet little Scherau lay asleep. Presently she pushed the child
with her foot. "Wake up," she said, as he raised himself still half
asleep. "You have young ears--it seemed to me that I heard a woman scream
in Ani's tent. Do you hear any thing?"

"Yes, indeed," exclaimed the little one. "There is a noise like crying,
and that--that was a scream! It came from out there, from Nemu's tent."

"Creep through there," said the witch, "and see what is happening!"

The child obeyed: Hekt turned her attention again to the bird, which no
longer perched in her lap, but lay on one side, though it still tried to
use its talons, when she took him up in her hand.

"It is all over with him," muttered the old woman, "and the one I called
Rameses is sleeker than ever. It is all folly and yet--and yet! the
Regent's game is over, and he has lost it. The creature is stretching
itself--its head drops--it draws itself up--one more clutch at my
dress--now it is dead!"

She contemplated the dead hawk in her lap for some minutes, then she took
it up, flung it into a corner of the tent, and exclaimed:

"Good-bye, King Ani. The crown is not for you!" Then she went on: "What
project has he in hand now, I wonder? Twenty times he has asked me
whether the great enterprise will succeed; as if I knew any more than he!
And Nemu too has hinted all kinds of things, though he would not speak
out. Something is going on, and I--and I? There it comes again."

The old woman pressed her hand to her heart and closed her eyes, her
features were distorted with pain; she did not perceive Scherau's return,
she did not hear him call her name, or see that, when she did not answer
him, he left her again. For an hour or more she remained unconscious,
then her senses returned, but she felt as if some ice-cold fluid slowly
ran through her veins instead of the warm blood.

"If I had kept a hawk for myself too," she muttered, "it would soon
follow the other one in the corner! If only Ani keeps his word, and has
me embalmed!

"But how can he when he too is so near his end. They will let me rot and
dis