s the Mohar into my power--may the Spirits whom
she rules, annihilate me before I mount the throne.' Do not be vexed,
my lord--and say only 'Yes.' What I can tell, is worth more than a mere
word."

"Well then--yes!" cried the Regent, eager for the mighty revelation.

The old woman muttered a few unintelligible words; then she collected
herself, stretched out her lean neck, and asked, as she fixed her
sparkling eyes on the man before her:

"Did'st thou ever, when thou wert young, hear of the singer Beki? Well,
look at me, I am she."

She laughed loud and hoarsely, and drew her tattered robe across her
bosom, as if half ashamed of her unpleasing person.

"Ay!" she continued. "Men find pleasure in grapes by treading them
down, and when the must is drunk the skins are thrown on the dung-hill.
Grape-skins, that is what I am--but you need not look at me so
pitifully; I was grapes once, and poor and despised as I am now, no one
can take from me what I have had and have been. Mine has been a life
out of a thousand, a complete life, full to overflowing of joy and
suffering, of love and hate, of delight, despair, and revenge. Only to
talk of it raises me to a seat by thy throne there. No, let me be, I am
used now to squatting on the ground; but I knew thou wouldst hear me to
the end, for once I too was one of you. Extremes meet in all things--I
know it by experience. The greatest men will hold out a hand to a
beautiful woman, and time was when I could lead you all as with a rope.
Shall I begin at the beginning? Well--I seldom am in the mood for it
now-a-days. Fifty years ago I sang a song with this voice of mine; an
old crow like me? sing! But so it was. My father was a man of rank, the
governor of Abydos; when the first Rameses took possession of the throne
my father was faithful to the house of thy fathers, so the new king sent
us all to the gold mines, and there they all died--my parents, brothers,
and sisters. I only survived by some miracle. As I was handsome and sang
well, a music master took me into his band, brought me to Thebes,
and wherever there was a feast given in any great house, Beki was
in request. Of flowers and money and tender looks I had a plentiful
harvest; but I was proud and cold, and the misery of my people had made
me bitter at an age when usually even bad liquor tastes of honey. Not
one of all the gay young fellows, princes' sons, and nobles, dared to
touch my hand. But my hour was to come; the hand