"

"Thou thinkest the crops will fail yet three more years!" he exclaimed,
half stupefied by the thought.

"Aye, four! I know it for most certain," I answered, and the insistent
knocking was vigorously renewed.

"Then I am too deep in the mire for thee or any one to pull me out. Open
to this importunate knocker."

I threw open the door, and there stood the keen-eyed, angry-visaged
Zaphnath! How long had he been listening outside there? How much had he
stealthily overheard before he began knocking? All the Kemish had need
to speak doubly loud to us from Earth, for our ears were not made for
thin air and its weak sounds. Moreover, Hotep had spoken throughout with
a fervent declamation. But what I said in my ordinary tones was always
easily understood by Hotep's keen ears. Therefore it seemed quite
certain that Zaphnath had heard through the thin wall all that Hotep had
said, and probably none of what I said. So much the worse. He had
doubtless supplied my speeches to suit himself, and made them fit into
Hotep's plotting. At any rate there was hot anger in his face when he
spoke to me,--

"Thou servest the Pharaoh well, by contriving how to cross his wishes at
every point! It were well thy office were withdrawn; I have brothers
about me now who could better fill it."

"Whenever it pleaseth the Pharaoh or his all-potent ruler to abrogate
his compact with me, I am quite ready to begin where we left off when it
was made," I retorted. I did not think till afterwards that this might
serve wrongly to indicate to him the tenor of my answers to Hotep's
scheming. His eyes flashed angrily at this, yet he made no reply, but
spoke to Hotep instead.

"Before the end of the clock this day, the Pharaoh requireth of thee
full settlement of all thou owest him. Attempt nothing but a just and
full repayment, O most precious Hotep, for thy every act is watched and
known to us!"

CHAPTER XII

The Doctor Disappears

Hotep saw that he was ruined, and he went to fall down before Pharaoh
and beg for mercy. The monarch, not having the courage of his own
hard-heartedness, answered him,--

"I desire not to deal harshly with thee, O Hotep; for thou hast
struggled desperately against an unwilling soil and unpropitious
seasons. But thou knowest all my affairs are in the hands of Zaphnath,
without whom I do nothing. Therefore go thou before him and do even as
he telleth thee."

And Hotep, having made an invoice of all his money,