ure after death. If I live I
shall no longer be oppressed with the doubts and difficulties which
have so long weighed upon me. Though till now you have given me no
glimpse of the great truth, I have at times felt not only that the
answers you gave me failed to satisfy me, but it seemed to me also
that you yourself with all your learning and wisdom were yet unable to
set me right in these matters as you did in all others upon which I
questioned you. My father, you have given me life, and more than
life--you have given me a power over fate. I am ready now to fly,
should you think it best, or to remain here and risk whatever may
happen."

"I do not think you should fly, Chebron. In the first place, flight
would be an acknowledgment of guilt; in the second, I do not see where
you could fly. To-morrow, at latest, the fact that the creature is
missing will be discovered, and as soon as it was known that you had
gone a hot pursuit would be set up. If you went straight down to the
sea you would probably be overtaken long before you got there; and
even did you reach a port before your pursuers you might have to wait
days before a ship sailed.

"Then, again, did you hide in any secluded neighborhood, you would
surely be found sooner or later, for the news will go from end to end
of Egypt, and it will be everyone's duty to search for and denounce
you. Messengers will be sent to all countries under Egyptian
government, and even if you passed our frontiers by land or sea your
peril would be as great as it is here. Lastly, did you surmount all
these difficulties and reach some land beyond the sway of Egypt, you
would be an exile for life. Therefore I say that flight is your last
resource, to be undertaken only if a discovery is made; but we may
hope that no evil fortune will lead the searchers to the conclusion
that the cat was killed here.

"When it is missed there will be search high and low in which every
one will join. When the conclusion is at last arrived at that it has
irrecoverably disappeared all sorts of hypotheses will be started to
account for it; some will think that it probably wandered to the hills
and became the prey of hyenas or other wild beasts; some will assert
that it has been killed and hidden away; others that it has made its
way down to the Nile and has been carried off by a crocodile. Thus
there is no reason why suspicion should fall upon you more than upon
others, but you will have to play your part care