maiden, who had pressed her pink cheeks to
my lips, and when she came to sit opposite to me upon the cushion, I
spoke to her through Zaphnath,--

"Thy ways have pleased me, but upon my star we do not think it proper
to own any slaves. When we know well-favoured and graceful women, such
as thou art, we prefer to be their slaves, rather than they ours. If I
could take thee with me to the Earth, the laws there would set thee free
to do whatever pleased thee best. Wishest thou that I make thee free
here?"

She was evidently surprised when Zaphnath put this question to her. She
replied in a sincere and pleading tone, but her words astonished me,--

"Whatever the dark Man of Ice wisheth, I will do. I know not why he hath
asked what I desire. He speaketh of freedom, but I beseech him not to
send me back to that! I was born an unhappy and masterless maiden, and
many years I struggled and laboured for a miserable existence. I drove
asses, gleaned in the fields, and did the menial work of men. But I felt
I was fit for better, nobler things. At last, I heard that the armies of
the Pharaoh were coming to my land, and I took heed of my appearance,
put on my neatest feather clothing, and went to throw myself before the
soldiers. They were pleased with me, and brought me to this city, where
fortune favoured me, and Pharaoh, looking over all the women whom the
soldiers brought from the wars, chose me, with many others, to join his
household. And here in the Palace for a few years I have been happy and
well cared for. I pray thee do not turn me out again; do not degrade me
to the labour and misery of freedom. Even the beasts have masters! They
are housed, and fed, and cared for; why should I then be cast out and
left to drudge or beg?"

"Doth she mean this?" I exclaimed. "What then is the chief aim of women
in Kem? What is the highest state to which they may aspire?"

"'Tis a strange, simple question!" he answered. "There is no greater
blessing for a woman than to belong to the household of the Pharaoh.
Here they are delighted with constant music and dancing; their beauty is
cultivated and heightened by rich and tasteful clothing; and their
charms and graces may win for them a selection as one of the
one-and-twenty favourites of the Pharaoh. What they fear most is being
chosen and carried away by guests whose palaces and ways of life are
less luxurious than the Pharaoh's."

"Why then, as we have no palaces and wish no slaves, it w