“I am glad to hear it,” interrupted Bastin, “for Bickley wants a lot of cooking done, and I find it tedious.”
“You eat also, Lady,” said Bickley.
“Yes, I eat sometimes because I like it, but I can go weeks and not eat, when I have the Life-water. Just now, after so long a sleep, I am hungry. Please give me some of that fruit. No, not the flesh, flesh I hate.”
We handed it to her. She took two plantains, peeled and ate them with extraordinary grace. Indeed she reminded me, I do not know why, of some lovely butterfly drawing its food from a flower.
While she ate she observed us closely; nothing seemed to escape the quick glances of those beautiful eyes. Presently she said:
“What, O Humphrey, is that with which you fasten your neckdress?” and she pointed to the little gold statue of Osiris that I used as a pin.
I told her that it was a statuette of a god named Osiris and very, very ancient, probably quite five thousand years old, a statement at which she smiled a little; also that it came from Egypt.
“Ah!” she answered, “is it so? I asked because we have figures that are very like to that one, and they also hold in their hands a staff surmounted by a loop. They are figures of Sleep’s brother—Death.”
“So is this,” I said. “Among the Egyptians Osiris was the god of Death.”
She nodded and replied that doubtless the symbol had come down to them.