"And what do the people say?" Khnum asked.
"They haven't much hope of the bread," said Ini, screwing up his eyes with a sly air. "'The king's clerks, Aton's hangers-on, will steal it all,' they say, 'and we shan't get a morsel!' And the priests incite them, of course: stand up for the god, do not allow the holy image to be defiled! And saying such things to the people is like setting fire to straw. You know yourself, my lord, what times these are; I shouldn't wonder if there were a mutiny."
"Quite, quite, quite! Mutiny is a dreadful thing,"
"Nothing could be worse! It is said: 'the earth will tremble, unable to endure that slaves should be masters.' But indeed what is one to expect of slaves when the king himself...."
"Don't presume to speak about the king; you will be food for fish," Khnum restrained him.
That meant: if anyone found fault with the king he would be thrown after death into the river to be eaten by fishes.
"And what is the second decree about?"
"About making burial grounds crown property. They are to be taken from the rich and given to the poor: 'it is time the dead stopped taking food out of the mouths of the living.'"
"Quite, quite, quite," Khnum repeated, and said nothing more, watching Nibituia's little hands move rapidly as she wrapped up the mummy of a grasshopper.
"Uhuh have mercy upon us!" she sighed again and, leaving the grasshopper, looked at her husband with round, frightened eyes. "How can this be, Khnum? What will the dead live by?"