last he
came home, and how I rejoiced! But he, Hosea...? That woman--Ephraim
told me so--that tall, arrogant woman summoned him to Pithom. But he
returned, and then.... Oh, Nun, your son... that was the hardest thing!
... He refused my hand, which my father offered.... And how that hurt
me!... I can say no more!... Give me the drink!"

Her cheeks had flushed crimson during these painful confessions, and
when the experienced old man perceived how rapidly the excitement under
which she was laboring hastened the approach of death, he begged her to
keep silence; but she insisted upon profiting by the time still allowed
her, and though the sharp pain with which a short cough tortured her
forced her to press her hand upon her breast, she continued:

"Then hate came; but it did not last long--and never did I love him more
ardently than when I drove after the poor convict--you remember, my boy.
Then began the horrible, wicked, evil time... of which I must tell him
that he may not despise me, if he hears about it. I never had a
mother, and there was no one to warn me.... Where shall I begin? Prince
Siptah--you know him, father--that wicked man will soon rule over my
country. My father is in a conspiracy with him... merciful gods, I can
say no more!"

Terror and despair convulsed her features as she uttered these words;
but Ephraim interrupted her and, with tearful eyes and faltering voice,
confessed that he knew all. Then he repeated what he had heard while
listening outside of her tent, and her glance confirmed the tale.

When he finally spoke of the wife of the viceroy and chief-priest Bai,
whose body had been borne to the shore with her, Kasana interrupted him
with the low exclamation:

"She planned it all. Her husband was to be the greatest man in the
country and rule even Pharaoh; for Siptah is not the son of a king."

"And," the old man interrupted, to quiet her and help her tell what she
desired to say, "as Bai raised, he can overthrow him. He will become,
even more certainly than the dethroned monarch, the tool of the man who
made him king. But I know Aarsu the Syrian, and if I see aright, the
time will come when he will himself strive, in distracted Egypt, rent by
internal disturbances, for the power which, through his mercenaries, he
aided others to grasp. But child, what induced you to follow the army
and this shameful profligate?"

The dying girl's eyes sparkled, for the question brought her directly to
what