"If she loved him as much as she said she did, why did she run off when, with your consent, he accepted her as his second wife? It was the condition that she must renounce the false gods and adore Jehovah which put to flight that devil in disguise."
"In any case, that devil had a very sweet voice and very tender eyes."
At bottom Ra'hel was perhaps not greatly dissatisfied with the disappearance of Tahoser; she thus kept wholly to herself the heart which she had been willing to share, and yet she had the merit of the sacrifice she had made.
Under pretext of going to the market, Thamar went out and started for the King's palace, her cupidity not having allowed her to forget his promise. She had provided herself with a great bag of coarse cloth which she proposed to fill with gold.
When she appeared at the palace gate the soldiers did not beat her as they had done the first day. She enjoyed the king's favour, and the officer of the guard made her enter at once. Timopht brought her to the Pharaoh.
When he perceived the vile old hag crawling towards his throne like a crushed insect, the King remembered his promise and gave orders to open one of the granite chambers of the treasury, and to allow her to take as much gold as she could carry away. Timopht, whom Pharaoh trusted, and who knew the secret of the lock, opened the stone gate.
The vast mass of gold sparkled in the sunbeams, but the brilliancy of the metal was no brighter than the glance of the old woman. Her eyes turned yellow and flashed strangely. After a few moments of dazzled contemplation, she pulled up the sleeves of her patched tunic and bared her withered arms, on which the muscles stood out like cords, and which were deeply wrinkled above the elbow; then she opened and closed her curved fingers, like the talons of a griffin, and sprang at the mass of golden bars with fierce and bestial avidity. She plunged her arms amid the ingots, moved them, stirred them round, rolled them over, threw them up; her lips trembled, her nostrils swelled, and down her spine ran convulsive tremors. Intoxicated, mad, shaken by trepidation and spasmodic laughter, she cast handfuls of gold into her bag, saying, "More! more! more!" so that soon it was full up to the mouth.
Timopht, amused at the sight, let her have her way, not dreaming that such a skinny spectre could move so enormous a weight. But Thamar bound the mouth of her sack with a cord, and to the great surprise of the Egyptian, lifted it on her back. Avarice lent to that broken-down frame unexpected strength of muscles; all the nerves and fibres of the arms, the neck, the shoulders, strained to breaking, bore up under a mass of metal which would have made the most robust Nahasi porter bow down. Her brows bent, like those of an ox when the ploughshare strikes a stone, Thamar staggered out of the palace, knocking up against the walls, walking almost on all-fours, for every now and then she put her hands out to save herself from being crushed under her burden. But at last she got out, and the load of gold was her legitimate property. Breathless, exhausted, covered with sweat, her back bruised and her fingers cut, she sat down at the palace gate upon her beloved sack, and never did any seat appear to her so soft. After a short time, she perceived a couple of Israelites, passing by with a litter on which they had been bearing a burden. She called them, and promising them a handsome reward, induced them to take up the sack and to follow her. The Israelites, preceded by Thamar, went down the streets of Thebes, reached the waste places studded with mud huts and placed the sack in one of them. Thamar paid them grumblingly the promised reward.
Meanwhile Tahoser had been installed in a splendid apartment, a regal apartment as beautiful as that of the Pharaoh. Elegant pillars with lotus capitals upbore the starry roof, framed in by a cornice of blue palm-branches painted upon a golden background. Panels of a tender lilac-colour with green lines ending in flower buds showed symmetrically on the walls; fine matting covered the stone slabs of the flooring; sofas, inlaid with plates of metal alternating with enamels, and covered with black stuffs adorned with red circles, armchairs with lions' feet, with cushions that fell over the back, stools formed of swans' necks interlaced, piles of purple leather cushions filled with thistle-down, seats which could hold two persons, tables of costly woods supported by statues of Asiatic captives,—formed the furniture of the room.
On richly carved pedestals rested tall porcelain vases and great golden bowls, the workmanship of which was even more precious than the material. One of them with a slender base, was supported by two horses' heads with fringed hoods and harness. The handles were formed of two lotus stalks gracefully falling over two rose ornaments; on the cover were ibises with erect ears and sharp horns, and on the body of the vase were represented gazelles flying from the dogs amid stalks of papyrus. Another, no less curious, had for cover a monstrous Typhon head, adorned with palms and grimacing between two vipers. The sides were ornamented with leaves and denticulated bands.