does the lady
Merapi, but he is an ill man to offend, Prince," I answered. "Look, he
is talking with his familiar."

Seti returned to his place, and shaking off the moth which seemed loth
to leave him, for twice it settled on his head, Ki came back into the
shadow.

"Where is the use of your putting questions to me, Ki, when, according
to your own showing, already you know the answer that I will give? What
answer shall I give?" asked the Prince.

"That painted creature which sat upon my hand just now, seemed to
whisper to me that you would say, O Prince, 'Stay, Ki, and be my
faithful servant, and use any little lore you have to shield my house
from ill.'"

Then Seti laughed in his careless fashion, and replied:

"Have your way, since it is a rule that none of the royal blood of Egypt
may refuse hospitality to those who seek it, having been their friends,
and I will not quote against your moth what a bat whispered in my ears
last night. Nay, none of your salutations revealed to you by insects or
by the future," and he gave him his hand to kiss.

When Ki was gone, I said:

"I told you that night-haunting thing was his familiar."

"Then you told me folly, Ana. The knowledge that Ki has he does not get
from moths or beetles. Yet now that it is too late I wish that I had
asked the lady Merapi what her will was in this matter. You should have
thought of that, Ana, instead of suffering your mind to be led astray
by an insect sitting on his hand, which is just what he meant that you
should do. Well, in punishment, day by day it shall be your lot to look
upon a man with a countenance like--like what?"

"Like that which I saw upon the coffin of the good god, your divine
father, Meneptah, as it was prepared for him during his life in the
embalmer's shop at Tanis," I answered.

"Yes," said the Prince, "a face smiling eternally at the Nothingness
which is Life and Death, but in certain lights, with eyes of fire."

On the following day, by her invitation, I walked with the lady Merapi
in the garden, the head nurse following us, bearing the royal child in
her arms.

"I wish to ask you about Ki, friend Ana," she said. "You know he is my
enemy, for you must have heard the words he spoke to me in the temple
of Amon at Tanis. It seems that my lord has made him the guest of this
house--oh look!" and she pointed before her.

I looked, and there a few paces away, where the shadow of the
overhanging palms was deepest, st