“I do not return. I, the Princess of Egypt, cannot live as the wife of a common man who falls from a throne to set himself upon the earth, and smears his own brow with mud for a uræus crown. When your prophecies come true, Seti, and you crawl from your dust, then perhaps we may speak again.”
“Aye, Userti, but the question is, what shall we say?”
“Meanwhile,” she added, as she turned, “I leave you to your chosen counsellors—yonder scribe, whom foolishness, not wisdom, has whitened before his time, and perchance the Hebrew sorceress, who can give you moonbeams to drink from those false lips of hers. Farewell, Seti, once a prince and my husband.”
“Farewell, Userti, who, I fear, must still remain my sister.”
Then he watched her go, and turning to me, said:
“To-day, Ana, I have lost both a crown and a wife, yet strange to tell I do not know which of these calamities grieves me least. Yet it is time that fortune turned. Or mayhap all the evils are not done. Would you not go also, Ana? Although she gibes at you in her anger, the Princess thinks well of you, and would keep you in her service. Remember, whoever falls in Egypt, she will be great till the last.”
“Oh! Prince,” I answered, “have I not borne enough to-day that you must add insult to my load, you with whom I broke the cup and swore the oath?”
“What!” he laughed. “Is there one in Egypt who remembers oaths to his own loss? I thank you, Ana,” and taking my hand he pressed it.
At that moment the door opened, and old Pambasa entered, saying:
“The Hebrew woman, Merapi, would see you; also two Hebrew men.”