wn the Goddess.

SOKITI. I?

PAKH. You and I.

SOKITI [_beginning to tremble. After a pause_] I am afraid.

PAKH. I too--I am afraid.

SOKITI. If you touch her you die.

PAKH. You will die of the stick if you do not obey.

SOKITI. Why cannot they leave me at my work. I was happy.

PAKH. We must--we must tell her that it is in order to repair her crown.

SOKITI. Yes. We must let her know.

_They prostrate themselves before the goddess._

PAKH. Oh, Mighty One!--thou who hast given birth to the gods, pardon if
our miserable hands dare to touch thee! Thy horn and thy right plume
have fallen off. 'Tis to replace them.

SOKITI. We are forced to obey--O breath divine--creator of the
universe.... It is to mend thee.

PAKH [_rising, to Sokiti_] Come!

_Bitiou, the dwarf, enters; he is a poor deformed creature.
When he sees Pakh and Sokiti touching the statue, he tries
to run away. He falls, picks himself up, and hides in a
corner. By degrees he watches and draws near during what
follows. Pakh and Sokiti take the statue from its pedestal
and set it upright on the ground._

SOKITI. She has not said anything.

PAKH. She must be laid on her belly.

SOKITI. Gently....

_They lay her flat._

PAKH [_giving him the horn_] Hold that. [_He goes to his hod, takes a
handful of cement, and proceeds to mend the statue_] Here ... the plume
... so ... there ... we must let her dry. In the meantime let us go look
upon the Nile; we may see the boat that brings my son.

SOKITI. You will not see him.

PAKH. I shall not see him?

SOKITI. He is a priest.

PAKH. Not yet.

SOKITI. But he was brought up in the temple ... 'tis to the temple he
will go.

PAKH. He will come here ... because he would see his father and mother
once more.

SOKITI. And Yaouma his betrothed.

PAKH. And Yaouma his betrothed.

_He goes R. Bitiou approaches the statue timidly, and stops
some way off._

SOKITI. There is nothing in sight.

PAKH. No.... [_suddenly_] You saw the crocodile?

SOKITI. Yes.... There is a woman going to the Nile with her pitcher on
her head.

PAKH. That is my wife, that is Kirjipa, that is mine. She seeks with her
eyes the boat that bears her son--Satni.

SOKITI. She is going into the stream.

PAKH. How else can she draw clear water?

SOKITI. But at the very spot where the crocodile plunged.

PAKH. What matter? She wears the feather of an ibis ... and I kno