“A big business, Merytra, and by the gods I do not know that I should trust you with it. You tricked me once, you have tricked Pharaoh for years; how do I know that you will not play the same game once more and earn me an order to cut my own throat, and so lose life and soul together?”
“If you think that, Kaku, perhaps you will unlock the door and give me an escort home, for we are only wasting time.”
“I don’t know what to think, for you are as cunning as you are beautiful. Listen, woman,” he continued in a savage whisper, and clasping her by the wrist. “If you are false, I tell you that you shall die horribly, for if the knife and poison fail, I am no charlatan, I have arts. I can make you turn loathsome to the sight and waste away, I can haunt you at nights so that you may never sleep a wink, save in full sunshine, and I will do it all and more. If I die, Merytra, we go together. Now will you swear to be true, will you swear it by the oath of oaths?”
The spy looked about her. She knew Kaku’s power which was famous throughout Egypt, and that it was said to be of the most evil sort, and she feared him.
“It seems that this is a dangerous affair,” she replied uneasily, “and I think that I can guess your aim. Now if I help you, Kaku, what am I to get?”
“Me,” he answered.
“I am flattered, but what else?”
“After Pharaoh the greatest place and the most power in Egypt, as the wife of Pharaoh’s Vizier.”
“The wife? Doubtless from what I have heard of you, Kaku, there would be other wives to share these honours.”
“No other wife—upon the oath, none, Merytra.”