, or no?"

Put Paaker did not answer him, he pushed him aside with his foot, and
walked up and down in deep thought.

Katuti met the Regent half way down the garden. He held a manuscript roll
in his hand, and greeted her from afar with a friendly wave of his hand.

The widow looked at him with astonishment.

It seemed to her that he had grown taller and younger since the last time
she had seen him.

"Hail to your highness!" she cried, half in joke half reverently, and she
raised her hands in supplication, as if he already wore the double crown
of Upper and Lower Egypt. "Have the nine Gods met you? have the Hathors
kissed you in your slumbers? This is a white day--a lucky day--I read it
in your face!" "That is reading a cipher!" said Ani gaily, but with
dignity. "Read this despatch."

Katuti took the roll from his hand, read it through, and then returned
it.

"The troops you equipped have conquered the allied armies of the
Ethiopians," she said gravely, "and are bringing their prince in fetters
to Thebes, with endless treasure, and ten thousand prisoners! The Gods be
praised!"

"And above all things I thank the Gods that my general Scheschenk--my
foster-brother and friend--is returning well and unwounded from the war.
I think, Katuti, that the figures in our dreams are this day taking forms
of flesh and blood!"

"They are growing to the stature of heroes!" cried the widow. "And you
yourself, my lord, have been stirred by the breath of the Divinity. You
walk like the worthy son of Ra, the Courage of Menth beams in your eyes,
and you smile like the victorious Horus."

"Patience, patience my friend," said Ani, moderating the eagerness of the
widow; "now, more than ever, we must cling to my principle of
over-estimating the strength of our opponents, and underrating our own.
Nothing has succeeded on which I had counted, and on the contrary many
things have justified my fears that they would fail. The beginning of the
end is hardly dawning on us."

"But successes, like misfortunes, never come singly," replied Katuti.

"I agree with you," said Ani. "The events of life seem to me to fall in
groups. Every misfortune brings its fellow with it--like every piece of
luck. Can you tell me of a second success?"

"Women win no battles," said the widow smiling. "But they win allies, and
I have gained a powerful one."

"A God or an army?" asked Ani.

"Something between the two," she replied. "Paaker, the king's chief
p