"Have they treated you so very badly then, old
man?"

"Pestilence and Khamsin!" blustered the old man.

[The south-west wind, which does so much injury to the crops in the
Nile valley. It is known to us as the Simoom, the wind so perilous
to travellers in the desert.]

"There's not a more good-for-nothing Typhon's brood on the face of the
earth than these Persians. I only wonder they're not all red-haired and
leprous. Ah, child, two whole days I have been in this hell already, and
all that time I was obliged to live among these blasphemers. They said
no one could see you; you were never allowed to leave Nitetis' sick-bed.
Poor child! I always said this marriage with a foreigner would come to
no good, and it serves Amasis right if his children give him trouble.
His conduct to you alone deserves that."

"For shame, old man!"

"Nonsense, one must speak one's mind sometimes. I hate a king, who comes
from nobody knows where. Why, when he was a poor boy he used to steal
your father's nuts, and wrench the name-plates off the house-doors. I
saw he was a good-for-nothing fellow then. It's a shame that such people
should be allowed to...."

"Gently, gently, old man. We are not all made of the same stuff, and if
there was such a little difference between you and Amasis as boys, it,
is your own fault that, now you are old men, he has outstripped you so
far.

"My father and grandfather were both servants in the temple, and of
course I followed in their footsteps."

"Quite right; it is the law of caste, and by that rule, Amasis ought
never to have become anything higher than a poor army-captain at most."

"It is not every one who's got such an easy conscience as this upstart
fellow."

"There you are again! For shame, Hib! As long as I can remember, and
that is nearly half a century, every other word with you has been an
abusive one. When I was a child your ill-temper was vented on me, and
now the king has the benefit of it."

"Serves him right! All, if you only knew all! It's now seven months
since ..."

"I can't stop to listen to you now. At the rising of the seven stars I
will send a slave to take you to my rooms. Till then you must stay in
your present lodging, for I must go to my patient."

"You must?--Very well,--then go and leave poor old Hib here to die. I
can't possibly live another hour among these creatures."

"What would you have me do then?"

"Let me live with you as long as we are in Persia.