e
profited me nothing.

YAOUMA. Sit--you would not sit? They say 'tis shut up in three caskets,
hidden at the bottom of the sea.

SATNI. I tell you again I neither sought, nor found it.

YAOUMA. What do you do then, to strike fire from heaven?

SATNI. I did not strike fire from heaven.

YAOUMA [_crossly_] Oh! I do not love you now!--Yes, yes, yes, I love
you! [_A pause_] So it pleased you then, when you were going away in the
galley, to see me run barefoot on the bank--?

SATNI. Yes.

YAOUMA [_angry_] But speak! speak! [_Checking herself, then more coaxing
still_] You wanted to weep? No? You said you did. For my part I know
not, then, I could see nothing. But the day of your return, when you
learned I was chosen for the sacrifice, then, then I saw your eyes--You
love me--You said to me you would prevent me going to the Nile. I
believed you not--you remember--Why! even yesterday, yes, yesterday
again, in spite of all your words, I was resolved to escape and go to
the temple. It needed this proof of your power!--tell me, it was you who
shook the heavens and the earth for me.

SATNI. No.

YAOUMA. Again!--You must think but little of me, to believe I should
reveal what you bade me keep secret. [_She lays her hands on Satni's
cheeks_] It _was_ you, was it not?

SATNI. No, no, no! a thousand times no!

YAOUMA. It was your gods then, your gods whom I know not.

SATNI. No.

YAOUMA. Who was it then?

SATNI. No one.

YAOUMA [_out of countenance_] No one! [_A pause_] You possess no power
that other men have not?

SATNI. No.

YAOUMA [_the same_] You seem as one speaking truth.

SATNI. I speak the truth.

YAOUMA. 'Tis a pity!

SATNI. Why?

YAOUMA. It would have been more beautiful. [_A long grave pause_] To go
in the barge, on the Nile, that too had been more beautiful.

_Rheou and the Steward enter_

RHEOU [_agitated_] Go in, Yaouma. [_To the Steward_] Conduct her to her
mistress--and make known to her what has passed. [_Yaouma and the
Steward go out_] Satni, terrible news has come to me: the Pharaoh,
finding the people's enmity increase against him, has taken fright, and
striking first, the blow has fallen on me. My goods are confiscated. I
am sent to exile. The palace Chamberlain, but now, brought me the order
to quit my house to-day, and deliver myself to the army leaving for
Ethiopia.

SATNI. Can you do nothing against this order?

RHEOU. Yes. I can kill those who gave it.

SATNI. Kill