impatiently clutching at the whip in his
girdle; "make haste, for the lady for whom--"

"Dost thou want the water for a lady?" interrupted the old woman. "Who
would have thought it?--old men certainly ask for my philters much
oftener than young ones--but I can serve thee."

With these words the old woman went into the cave, and soon returned with
a thin cylindrical flask of alabaster in her hand.

"This is the drink," she said, giving the phial to Paaker. "Pour half
into water, and offer it to the lady. If it does not succeed at first, it
is certain the second time. A child may drink the water and it will not
hurt him, or if an old man takes it, it makes him gay. Ah, I know the
taste of it!" and she moistened her lips with the white fluid. "It can
hurt no one, but I will take no more of it, or old Hekt will be tormented
with love and longing for thee; and that would ill please the rich young
lord, ha! ha! If the drink is in vain I am paid enough, if it takes
effect thou shalt bring me three more gold rings; and thou wilt return, I
know it well."

Paaker had listened motionless to the old woman, and siezed the flask
eagerly, as if bidding defiance to some adversary; he put it in his money
bag, threw a few more rings at the feet of the witch, and once more
hastily demanded a bowl of Nile-water.

"Is my lord in such a hurry?" muttered the old woman, once more going
into the cave. "He asks if I know him? him certainly I do? but the
darling? who can it be hereabouts? perhaps little Uarda at the
paraschites yonder. She is pretty enough; but she is lying on a mat, run
over and dying. We must see what my lord means. He would have pleased me
well enough, if I were young; but he will reach the goal, for he is
resolute and spares no one."

While she muttered these and similar words, she filled a graceful cup of
glazed earthenware with filtered Nile-water, which she poured out of a
large porous clay jar, and laid a laurel leaf, on which was scratched two
hearts linked together by seven strokes, on the surface of the limpid
fluid. Then she stepped out into the air again.

As Paaker took the vessel from her looked at the laurel leaf, she said:

"This indeed binds hearts; three is the husband, four is the wife, seven
is the chachach, charcharachacha."--[This jargon is fund in a
magic-papyrus at Berlin.]

The old woman sang this spell not without skill; but the Mohar appeared
not to listen to her jargon. He descended careful