y worked also,
sending the frogs into Goshen, where they plagued the Israelites. But
however it came about, at Seti's palace at Memphis and on the land that
he owned around it there were no frogs, or at least but few of them,
although at night from the fields about the sound of their croaking went
up like the sound of beaten drums.

Next came a plague of lice, and these Ki and his companions would have
also called down upon the Hebrews, but they failed, and afterwards
struggled no more against the magic of the Israelites. Then followed a
plague of flies, so that the air was black with them and no food could
be kept sweet. Only in Seti's palace there were no flies, and in the
garden but a few. After this a terrible pest began among the cattle,
whereof thousands died. But of Seti's great herd not one was even sick,
nor, as we learned, was there a hoof the less in the land of Goshen.

This plague struck Egypt but a little while after Merapi had given birth
to a son, a very beautiful child with his mother's eyes, that was named
Seti after his father. Now the marvel of the escape of the Prince and
his household and all that was his from these curses spread abroad and
made much talk, so that many sent to inquire of it.

Among the first came old Bakenkhonsu with a message from Pharaoh, and
a private one to myself from the Princess Userti, whose pride would not
suffer her to ask aught of Seti. We could tell him nothing except what
I have written, which at first he did not believe. Having satisfied
himself, however, that the thing was true, he said that he had fallen
sick and could not travel back to Tanis. Therefore he asked leave of the
Prince to rest a while in his house, he who had been the friend of his
father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. Seti laughed, as
indeed did the cunning old man himself, and there with us Bakenkhonsu
remained till the end, to our great joy, for he was the most pleasant
of all companions and the most learned. As for his message, one of his
servants took back the answer to Pharaoh and to Userti, with the news of
his master's grievous sickness.

Some eight days or so later, as I stood one morning basking in the sun
at that gate of the palace gardens which overlooks the temple of Ptah,
idly watching the procession of priests passing through its courts and
chanting as they went (for because of the many sicknesses at this time
I left the palace but rarely), I saw a tall figure approachin