“Morning Star, this evening, when I come back from school and am allowed to play with you, we can look at the wonderful beast in the tank, for look, I have the key which that fat priest will not search for till seven days are gone by, before which I can take it to him, saying that I found it in the sand, or perhaps put it back into his wallet.”
When she heard this Tua’s eyes shone, since above all things she desired to see this holy monster. But in the evening when the boy came running to her eagerly—for he had thought of nothing but the crocodile all day, and had bought a pigeon from a school-fellow with which to feed the brute—he found Tua in a different mood.
“I don’t think that we will go to see the holy crocodile, Rames,” she said, looking at him thoughtfully.
“Why not?” he asked amazed. “There is no one about, and I have put fat upon the key so that it will make no noise.”
“Because my Ka has been with me, Rames, and told me that it is a bad act and if we do trouble will come to us.”
“Oh! may the fiend Set take your Ka,” replied the lad in a rage. “Show it to me and I will talk with it.”
“I cannot, Rames, for it is me. Moreover, if Set took it, he would take me also, and you are wicked to wish such a thing.”
Now the boy began to cry with vexation, sobbing out that she was not to be trusted, and that he had paid away his bronze knife, which Pharaoh had given him when last he visited the temple, for a pigeon to tempt the beast to the top of the water, so that they might see it, although the knife was worth many pigeons, and Pharaoh would be angry if he heard that he had parted with it.
“Why should we take the life of a poor pigeon to please ourselves?” asked Tua, softening a little at the sight of his grief.
“It’s taken already,” he answered. “It fluttered so that I had to sit on it to hide it from the priest, and when he had gone it was dead. Look,” and he opened the linen bag he held, and showed her the dove cold and stiff.