Sĕra picked up her cigarette.
“When did Hatatcha go to Anubis?” she asked her daughter.
“Kāra did not say,” returned the girl. “I was with her at the last sunset, and she was dying then.”
“It matters nothing,” said the dragoman, carelessly. “Hatatcha is better off in the nether world, and her rascally grandson must now go to work or starve his royal stomach.”
“Who knows?” whispered Sĕra, with an accent of awe. “They have never worked. Perhaps the gods supply their needs.”
“Or they have robbed a tomb,” returned Tadros. “It is much more likely; but if that is so I would like to find the place. There is money in a discovery of that sort. It means scarabs, and funeral idols, and amulets, and vases and utensils of olden days, all of which can be sold in Cairo for a good price. Sometimes it means jewels and gold ornaments as well; but that is only in the tombs of kings. Go to Hatatcha, my Sĕra, and keep your eyes open. Henf! what says the proverb? ‘The outrunner of good fortune is thoughtfulness.’”
The mother of Nephthys nodded, and drew the last possible whiff from her cigarette. Then she left the hut and hurried under the heavy arch of Hatatcha’s dwelling.
Five women, mostly old and all clothed in deep black, squatted in a circle around the rushes upon which lay the dead. Someone had closed Hatatcha’s eyes, but otherwise she lay as she had expired. In a corner Kāra was chewing a piece of sugar-cane.
Sĕra joined the circle. She threw sand upon her head and wailed shrilly, rocking her body with a rhythmical motion. The others followed her example, and their cries were nerve-racking. Kāra looked at them a moment and then carried his sugar-cane out of doors.
For a time he stood still, hesitating. There was work for him to do, and he had only delayed it until the mourners were in possession of the house. But the sun was already hot and a journey lay before him. Kāra sighed. He was not used to work.