Someone answered that he was named Khuaka.
“Bring him to the steps of the temple of Amon,” said Seti to the Nubians who held him fast. “Follow me, friend Ana, if you have the strength. Nay, lean upon my shoulder.”
So resting upon the shoulder of the Prince, for I was bruised and breathless, I walked with him a hundred paces or more to the steps of the great temple where we climbed to the platform at the head of the stairs. After us came the prisoner, and after him all the multitude, a very great number who stood upon the steps and on the flat ground beyond. The Prince, who was very white and quiet, sat himself down upon the low granite base of a tall obelisk which stood in front of the temple pylon, and said:
“As Governor of Tanis, the City of Rameses, with power of life and death at all hours and in all places, I declare my Court open.”
“The Royal Court is open!” cried the multitude in the accustomed form.
“This is the case,” said the Prince. “Yonder man who is named Khuaka, by his dress a captain of Pharaoh’s army, is charged with the murder of a certain Hebrew, and with the attempted murder of Ana the scribe. Let witnesses be called. Bring the body of the dead man and lay it here before me. Bring the woman who strove to protect him, that she may speak.”
The body was brought and laid upon the platform, its wide eyes staring up at the moon. Then soldiers who had gathered thrust forward the weeping girl.
“Cease from tears,” said Seti, “and swear by Kephera the creator, and by Maat the goddess of truth and law, to speak nothing but the truth.”
The girl looked up and said in a rich low voice that in some way reminded me of honey being poured from a jar, perhaps because it was thick with strangled sobs:
“O Royal Son of Egypt, I cannot swear by those gods who am a daughter of Israel.”