khonsu, having indeed only
determined upon it since Jabez left me.

"I know nothing, Ana, save that a faithful servant who has learned all
you have learned to-day will hurry to make report of it to his master,
especially if there is some other to whom he would also wish to make
report, as Bakenkhonsu thinks."

"Bakenkhonsu talks too much, whatever he may think," I exclaimed
testily.

"The aged grow garrulous. You were at the crowning to-day, were you
not?"

"Yes, and if I saw aright from far away, those Hebrew prophets seemed
to worst you at your own trade there, Kherheb, which must grieve you, as
you were grieved in the temple when Amon fell."

"It does not grieve me, Ana. If I have powers, there may be others who
have greater powers, as I learned in the temple of Amon. Why therefore
should I feel ashamed?"

"Powers!" I replied with a laugh, for the strings of my mind seemed torn
that night, "would not craft be a better word? How do you turn a stick
into a snake, a thing which is impossible to man?"

"Craft might be a better word, since craft means knowledge as well as
trickery. 'Impossible to man!' After what you saw a while ago in the
temple of Amon, do you hold that there is anything impossible to man or
woman? Perhaps you could do as much yourself."

"Why do you mock me, Ki? I study books, not snake-charming."

He looked at me in his calm fashion, as though he were reading, not my
face, but the thoughts behind it. Then he looked at the cedar wand in
his hand and gave it to me, saying:

"Study this, Ana, and tell me, what is it."

"Am I a child," I answered angrily, "that I should not know a priest's
rod when I see one?"

"I think that you are something of a child, Ana," he murmured, all the
while keeping those eyes of his fixed upon my face.

Then a horror came about. For the rod began to twist in my hand and
when I stared at it, lo! it was a long, yellow snake which I held by
the tail. I threw the reptile down with a scream, for it was turning
its head as though to strike me, and there in the dust it twisted and
writhed away from me and towards Ki. Yet an instant later it was only a
stick of yellow cedar-wood, though between me and Ki there was a snake's
track in the sand.

"It is somewhat shameless of you, Ana," said Ki, as he lifted the wand,
"to reproach me with trickery while you yourself try to confound a poor
juggler with such arts as these."

Then I know not what I said to him, save the