bbed me through with the talk of
our dead child, for it is true that when that sweet one took flight to
Osiris my heart broke and in a fashion has never mended itself again.
Lastly, I feared lest it might also be true that I had neglected the
mother for the sake of this child which was the jewel of my worship,
yes, and is, and thereby helped her on to shame. So much did this
thought torment me that through an agent whom I trusted, who believed
that I was but providing for one whom I had wronged, I caused enough to
be paid to her to keep her in comfort.

She did marry again, a merchant about whom she had cast her toils, and
in due course spent his wealth and brought him to ruin, after which he
ran away from her. As for her, she died of her evil habits in the third
year of the reign of Seti II. But, the gods be thanked she never knew
that the private scribe of Pharaoh's chamber was that Ana who had been
her husband. Here I will end her story.

Now as I was passing down the Nile with a heart more heavy than the
great stone that served as anchor on the barge, we moored at dusk on
the third night by the side of a vessel that was sailing up Nile with
a strong northerly wind. On board this boat was an officer whom I had
known at the Court of Pharaoh Meneptah, travelling to Thebes on duty.
This man seemed so much afraid that I asked him if anything weighed upon
his mind. Then he took me aside into a palm grove upon the bank, and
seating himself on the pole whereby oxen turned a waterwheel, told me
that strange things were passing at Tanis.

It seemed that the Hebrew prophets had once more appeared before
Pharaoh, who since his accession had left the Israelites in peace,
not attacking them with the sword as Meneptah had wished to do, it was
thought through fear lest if he did so he should die as Meneptah died.
As before, they had put up their prayer that the people of the Hebrews
should be suffered to go to worship in the wilderness, and Pharaoh had
refused them. Then when he went down to sail upon the river early in
the morning of another day, they had met him and one of them struck the
water with his rod, and it had turned to blood. Whereon Ki and Kherheb
and his company also struck the water with their rods, and it turned to
blood. That was six days ago, and now this officer swore to me that the
blood was creeping up the Nile, a tale at which I laughed.

"Come then and see," he said, and led me back to his boat, where all