RHEOU. I did, but he--

MIERIS. Have a care! Is no one there who might overhear you?

RHEOU. No one--but he, in place of ordering them to raise me up, in
place of bidding me speak--Oh, the dog of an Ethiopian!--he feigned not
to see me--for a long while, a long, long while--At length, when he
remembered I was there, anger was choking me; he saw it; he declared an
evil spirit was in me, and having ridiculed me with his pity, he bade me
then withdraw. He forgets that if I wished--

MIERIS. Be still! Be still! Know you not that there, beside you, are the
Gods who hear you!

RHEOU [_derisively_] Oh! the Gods!

MIERIS. What mean you?

RHEOU [_derisively_] I am the son of a high priest; I know the Gods--The
Pharaoh forgets that were I to remind the people of my father's
services, were I to arm all those who work for me, and let them loose
against him--

MIERIS. Rheou! Rheou!

RHEOU. Think you they would not obey me? I am son of that high priest,
the Pharaoh's friend who wished to replace the Gods of Egypt, by one
only God. The court cannot forgive me for that. Little they dream, that
were I to declare my father had appeared to me, all those who know me,
all the poor folk whose backs are blistered by the tax-gatherer's whip,
all who are terrorized by schemes of foreign war--all, all would take my
orders as inspired, divine.

MIERIS. The fear of the Gods would hold them back.

RHEOU. How long--I wonder!

MIERIS. I hear them coming for the prayer.

RHEOU. Yes. Let us pray--that they may have nothing to reproach me with
before I choose my hour.

MIERIS. What hour?

RHEOU. Could I but realize the work my father dreamed of--and at the
same stroke be avenged--avenged for all the humiliations--

MIERIS. Be silent--I hear--

_The singers and the dancers and all the women and servants
come on gradually._

RHEOU [_going to the terrace_] The sun is not yet down upon the hill.
But look--upon the Nile--see, Yaouma! 'tis the galley that bears your
betrothed.

YAOUMA. 'Tis there! 'Tis there!--See--it has stopped--they take the
mallet, and drive in the stake. The boat's prow is aground. Now they
have prayed--they disembark. Look, there is the strange scribe!

RHEOU [_looking_] A stranger--he--I do not think it.

YAOUMA. I thought, from his garments, perhaps--

_Pakh returns._

RHEOU. Did you not wait for your son?

PAKH [_terrified_] Master, on the road that leads to the Nile, I beheld
two dead