“Welcome, Father, however it may please you to come, and with or without a shadow. Surely we have much to thank you for who have found us this fine house and servants and food—by the way, will you not eat again?”
“Nay,” he answered, smiling, “as you may have guessed yesterday, I touch meat seldom; as a rule, once only in three days, and then take my fill. Life is so short that I cannot waste time in eating.”
“Oh!” said Tua, “if you feel thus whose youth began more than a hundred years ago, how must it seem to the rest of us? But, Father Kepher, what are we to do in this town Tat?”
“I have told you, Maiden. Asti here will deal in pearls and other goods, and you will sing, but always behind the curtain, since here in Tat you must suffer no man to see your beauty, and least of all him who rules it. Now give me two more pearls, for I go out to buy for you other things that are needful, and after that perhaps you will see me no more for a long while. Yet if trouble should fall upon you, go to the window-place wherever you may be, and strike upon that harp of yours, and call thrice upon the name of Kepher. Doubtless there will be some listening who will hear you and bring me the news in the Desert, where I dwell who do not love towns, and then I may be able to help you.”
“I thank you, my Father, and I will remember. But pardon me if I ask how can one so——” and she paused.
“So old, so ragged and so miserable give help to man or woman—that is what you would say, Daughter Neferte, is it not? Well, judge not from the outward seeming; good wine is often found in jars of common clay, and the fire hid in a rough flint can destroy a city.”
“And therefore a wanderer who can swallow his own shadow can aid another wanderer in distress,” remarked Tua drily. “My Father, I understand, who although I am still young, have seen many things and ere now been dragged out of deep water by strange hands.”
“Such as those of Phoenician pirates,” suggested Kepher. “Well, good-bye. I go to purchase what you need with the price of these pearls, and then the Desert calls me for a while. Remember what I told you, and do not seek to leave this town of Tat until the rain has fallen on the mountains, and there is water in the wells. Good-bye, Friend Asti, also; when I come again we will talk more of Doubles, until which time may the great god of Egypt—he is called Amen, is he not?—have you and your Lady in his keeping.”
Then he turned and went.
“What is that man?” asked Tua when they had heard the door of the house close behind him.