"Menes is malevolent—" he began.
"Aye, malevolent as Mesu!" she panted.
"What!" the soldier cried. "Has the Hebrew sorcerer already become a bugbear to the children?"
"If he become not a bugbear to all Egypt, we may thank the gods,"
Siptah put in.
Rameses laughed scornfully, but Ta-user and Seti spoke simultaneously:
"Siptah speaks truly."
"Yea, Menes," the heir scoffed; "he hath already become a bugbear to the infants. Hear them confess it?"
Siptah buried his clenched hand in a cushion on the floor near him.
"O thou paternal Prince," he said, "repeat us a prayer of exorcism as a father should, and rid us of our fears."
"And pursuant of the custom bewailed an hour agone, we shall return thanks to the Pharaoh, for the things thou dost achieve, O our Rameses," Menes added.