drew her story from her.

She was the wife of a fisherman who made his home in this cave, and said
that seven days before the Nile had turned to blood, so that they could
not drink of it, and had no water save a little in a pot. Nor could
they dig to find it, since here the ground was all rock. Nor could they
escape, since when he saw the marvel, her husband in his fear had leapt
from his boat and waded to land and the boat had floated away.

I asked where was her husband, and she pointed behind her. I went to
look, and there found a man hanging by his neck from a rope that was
fixed to the capital of a pillar in the tomb, quite dead and cold.
Returning sick at heart, I inquired of her how this had come about. She
answered that when he saw that all the fish had perished, taking away
his living, and that thirst had killed his youngest child, he went mad,
and creeping to the back of the tomb, without her knowledge hung himself
with a net rope. It was a dreadful story.

Having given the widow of our food, we went to sleep in another tomb,
not liking the company of those dead ones. Next morning at the dawn we
took the woman and her children on board the barge, and rowed them three
hours' journey to a town where she had a sister, whom she found. The
dead man and the child we left there in the tomb, since my men would not
defile themselves by touching them.

So, seeing much terror and misery on our journey, at last we came safe
to Memphis. Leaving the boatmen to draw up the barge, I went to the
palace, speaking with none, and was led at once to the Prince. I found
him in a shaded chamber seated side by side with the lady Merapi, and
holding her hand in such a fashion that they remind me of the life-sized
Ka statues of a man and his wife, such as I have seen in the ancient
tombs, cut when the sculptors knew how to fashion the perfect likenesses
of men and women. This they no longer do to-day, I think because the
priests have taught them that it is not lawful. He was talking to her
in a low voice, while she listened, smiling sweetly as she ever did,
but with eyes, fixed straight before her that were, as it seemed to me,
filled with fear. I thought that she looked very beautiful with her
hair outspread over her white robe, and held back from her temples by a
little fillet of god. But as I looked, I rejoiced to find that my heart
no longer yearned for her as it had upon that night when I had seen her
seated beneath the trees w