there are a number of difficulties
which my reason does not explain. First, why should Tahoser, if it is
she, don this disguise? Next, by what miracle do I meet here the maiden
whom I left last night on the other bank of the Nile, and who certainly
could not know whither I was going?"

"No doubt she followed you," said Ra'hel.

"I am quite sure that at that time there was no other boat on the river
but mine."

"That is the reason her hair was so dripping-wet and her garments
soaked. She must have swum across the Nile."

"That may well be,--I thought for a moment that I had caught sight in
the darkness of a human head above the waters."

"It was she, poor child!" said Ra'hel; "her fatigue and her fainting
corroborate it, for after your departure I picked her up stretched
senseless outside the hut."

"No doubt that is the way things occurred," said the young man. "I can
see the acts, but I cannot understand the motive."

"Let me explain it," said Ra'hel, smiling, "although I am but a poor,
ignorant woman, and you are compared, as regards your vast knowledge, to
the priests of Egypt who study night and day within sanctuaries covered
with mystic hieroglyphs, the hidden meaning of which they alone can
penetrate. But sometimes men, who are so busy with astronomy, music, and
numbers, do not guess what goes on in a maiden's heart. They can see a
distant star in the heavens; they do not notice a love close to them.
Hora--or rather, Tahoser, for it is she--took this disguise to penetrate
into your house and to live near you; jealous, she glided in the shadow
behind you; at the risk of being devoured by the crocodiles in the river
she swam across the Nile. On arriving here she watched us through some
crack in the wall, and was unable to bear the sight of our happiness.
She loves you because you are very handsome, very strong, and very
gentle. But I do not care, since you do not love her. Now do you
understand?"

A faint blush coloured Poeri's cheeks; he feared lest Ra'hel were angry
and spoke thus to entrap him, but her clear, pure glance betrayed no
hidden thought. She was not angry with Tahoser for loving the man whom
she loved herself.

In her dreams Tahoser saw Poeri standing by her; ecstatic joy lighted up
her features, and half raising herself, she seized the hand of the young
man to bear it to her lips.

"Her lips are burning," said Poeri, withdrawing his hand.

"With love as much as with fever," replied Ra'he