ree
immediately."

But Sarah, instead of being moved by this proof of friendliness, fell
into anger.

"Jackals," cried she, "two victims are not enough; ye want still more.
I, unfortunate woman, did this; I, for who else would be so abject as
to kill a child a little child that had never harmed any one?"

"But dost Thou know, stubborn woman, what threatens thee?" asked the
holy Mefres. "Thou wilt hold the remains of thy child for three days in
thy arms, and then be fifteen years in prison."

"Only three days?" repeated Sarah. "But I would never part with my
little Seti; and not only to prison, but to the grave will I go with
him, and my lord will command to bury us together."

When the high priest left Sarah, the most pious Sem said,

"I have seen mothers who killed their own children, and I have judged
them; but none were like her."

"For she did not kill her child," answered Mefres, angrily.

"Who, then?"

"He whom the servants saw when he rushed into Sarah's house and fled a
moment later; he who, when going against the enemy, took with him the
priestess Kama, who denied the altar; he," concluded Mefres, excitedly,
"who hunted Sarah out of the house, and made her a slave because her
son had been made a Jew."

"Thy words are terrible," answered Sem, in alarm.

"The criminal is still worse, and, in spite of that stupid woman's
stubbornness, he will be discovered."

But the holy man did not suppose that his prophecy would be
accomplished so quickly.

And it was accomplished in the following manner: Prince Ramses, when
moving from Pi-Bast with the army, had not left the palace when the
chief of the police learned of the murder of Sarah's child, and the
flight of Kama, and this, too, that Sarah's servants saw the prince
entering her house in the night time. The chief of police was a very
keen person; he pondered over this question, Who could have committed
the crime? and instead of inquiring on the spot, he hastened to pursue
the guilty parties outside the city, and forewarned Hiram of what had
happened.

While Mefres was trying to extort a confession from Sarah, the most
active agents of the Pi-Bast police, and with them every Phoenician
under the leadership of Hiram, were hunting the Greek Lykon and the
priestess Kama.

So three nights after the prince had departed, the chief of police
returned to Pi-Bast, bringing with him a large cage covered with linen,
in which was some woman who screamed in heav