shrill old wife's voice--"I
will--be not so foolish, boy--the scratch of a lion is a venomous thing,
a terrible thing; yea, as bad as the bite of an asp--it must be treated,
else it will fester, and all thy days thou shalt dream of lions; ay, and
snakes; and, also, it will break out in sores. But I know of it--I know.
I am not crazed for nothing. For mark! everything has its balance--in
madness is much wisdom, and in wisdom much madness. _La! la! la!_
Pharaoh himself can't say where the one begins and the other ends. Now,
don't stand gazing there, looking as silly as a cat in a crocus-coloured
robe, as they say in Alexandria; but just let me stick these green
things on the place, and in six days you'll heal up as white as a
three-year-child. Never mind the smart of it, lad. By Him who sleeps
at Philae, or at Abouthis, or at Abydus--as our divine masters have it
now--or wherever He does sleep, which is a thing we shall all find out
before we want to--by Osiris, I say, you'll live to be as clean from
scars as a sacrifice to Isis at the new moon, if you'll but let me put
it on.

"Is it not so, good folk?"--and she turned to address some people who,
while she prophesied, had assembled unseen by me--"I've been speaking a
spell over him, just to make a way for the virtue of my medicine--_la!
la!_ there's nothing like a spell. If you don't believe it, just you
come to me next time your wives are barren; it's better than scraping
every pillar in the Temple of Osiris, I'll warrant. I'll make 'em bear
like a twenty-year-old palm. But then, you see, you must know what to
say--that's the point--everything comes to a point at last. _La! la!_"

Now, when I heard all this, I, Harmachis, put my hand to my head, not
knowing if I dreamed. But presently looking up, I saw a grey-haired
man among those who were gathered together, who watched us sharply, and
afterwards I learned that this man was the spy of Ptolemy, the very man,
indeed, who had wellnigh caused me to be slain of Pharaoh when I was in
my cradle. Then I understood why Atoua spoke so foolishly.

"Thine are strange spells, old wife," the spy said. "Thou didst speak of
Pharaoh and the double crown and of the form fashioned by Ptah to bear
it; is it not so?"

"Yea, yea--part of the spell, thou fool; and what can one swear by
better nowadays than by the Divine Pharaoh the Piper, whom, and whose
music, may the Gods preserve to charm this happy land?--what better than
by the doub