"Yes, Sesostris, I have heard it all! Thou knowest the secret also, says my moth——nay—I forgot—I should have said—the queen!" Here his emotion overcame him. He leaned his noble head upon my shoulder and continued: "Yet she is my mother, prince! She has ever been a mother to me! I have known no other! I shall love her, while my life lasts, above all earthly things. Pardon my grief, Sesostris! Nature is mighty in sorrow, and will have her way! The heart, like our Nile, will sometimes overflow, if full."
In a few moments he was composed, and said sadly—
"Knowing my history, can you regard me as before?"
"I love thee as ever, O prince—"
He interrupted me—"Call me not 'prince,' call me by my name—that, at least, is left me! But I am a slave!"
"No—not to me! You are a descendant of kings! Are not Prince Abraham, Isaac, and the great Prince Jacob your ancestors? I am not an Egyptian any more than thyself," I answered him.
"True, true! I must not forget that! I thank thee, O prince, for reminding me of this. A slave in Egypt may be a freeman in Tyre!"
"That is true also," I said. "May I ask, O Remeses, why you have left the temples and are here; and how you heard this intelligence, which you bear up under like a god?"
"I am calm now; but, Sesostris, I have passed through a sirocco of the soul! You shall hear all. Come and sit here."
I placed myself by the table opposite to him. He then began as follows: