should he not
believe that in a fit of craziness he sailed past Chennu?"

"That is clever! that is splendid!" exclaimed Ani. "What is once
remarkable never becomes common. You were the greatest of singers--you
are now the wisest of women--my lady Beki."

"I am no longer Beki, I am Hekt," said the old woman shortly.

"As you will! In truth, if I had ever heard Beki's singing, I should be
bound to still greater gratitude to her than I now am to Hekt," said Ani
smiling. "Still, I cannot quit the wisest woman in Thebes without asking
her one serious question. Is it given to you to read the future?
Have you means at your command whereby you can see whether the great
stake--you know which I mean--shall be won or lost?"

Hekt looked at the ground, and said after reflecting a short time:

"I cannot decide with certainty, but thy affair stands well. Look at
these two hawks with the chain on their feet. They take their food from
no one but me. The one that is moulting, with closed, grey eyelids, is
Rameses; the smart, smooth one, with shining eyes, is thyself. It
comes to this--which of you lives the longest. So far, thou hast the
advantage."

Ani cast an evil glance at the king's sick hawk; but Hekt said: "Both
must be treated exactly alike. Fate will not be done violence to."

"Feed them well," exclaimed the Regent; he threw a purse into Hekt's
lap, and added, as he prepared to leave her: "If anything happens to
either of the birds let me know at once by Nemu."

Ani went down the hill, and walked towards the neighboring tomb of
his father; but Hekt laughed as she looked after him, and muttered to
herself:

"Now the fool will take care of me for the sake of his bird! That
smiling, spiritless, indolent-minded man would rule Egypt! Am I then so
much wiser than other folks, or do none but fools come to consult Hekt?
But Rameses chose Ani to represent him! perhaps because he thinks that
those who are not particularly clever are not particularly dangerous.
If that is what he thought, he was not wise, for no one usually is so
self-confident and insolent as just such an idiot."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

An hour later, Ani, in rich attire, left his father's tomb, and drove
his brilliant chariot past the witch's cave, and the little cottage of
Uarda's father.

Nemu squatted on the step, the dwarf's usual place. The little man
looked down at the lately rebuilt hut, and ground his teeth, when,
through an opening in the hedge,