“Why is your sword drawn, O Husband?”
“To kill you, O Wife,” he answered furiously, for his rage mastered him.
She continued to look at him a little while and said, smiling in her strange fashion:
“Indeed? But why more now than at any other time? Has Kaku’s counsel given you courage?”
“Need you ask, shameless woman? Does not this window-place open on to yonder garden?”
“Oh! I remember, that captain of yours—he who slew Mermes, your daughter’s husband who made love to me—so well that I rewarded him with a funeral flower, knowing that you watched us. Settle your account with him as you and his wife may wish; it is no matter of mine. But I warn you that if you would take men’s lives for such a fault as this, soon you will have no servants left, since they all are sinners who desire to usurp your place.”
Then Abi’s fury broke out. He cursed and reviled her, he called her by ill names, swearing that she should die, who bewitched all men and was the love of none, and who made him a mock and a shame in the sight of Egypt. But Neter-Tua only listened until at length he raved himself to silence.
“You talk much and do little,” she said at length. “The sword is in your hand, use it, I am here.”
Maddened by her scorn he lifted the weapon and rushed at her, only to reel back again as though he had been smitten by some power unseen. He rested against the wall, then again rushed and again reeled back.
“You are a poor butcher,” she said at length, “after so many years of practice. Let Kaku yonder try. I think he has more skill in murder.”