o Paaker herself for the money. Go back to him, make
him hope that Nefert is inclined to him, tell him what distresses the
ladies, and if he refuses, but only if he refuses, let him see that you
know something of the little dose."

The dwarf looked meditatively on the ground, and then said, looking
admiringly at the old woman: "That is the right thing."

"You will find out the lie without my telling you," mumbled the witch;
"your business is not perhaps such a bad one as it seemed to me at
first. Katuti may thank the ne'er-do-well who staked his father's
corpse. You don't understand me? Well, if you are really the sharpest of
them all over there, what must the others be?"

"You mean that people will speak well of my mistress for sacrificing so
large a sum for the sake--?"

"Whose sake? why speak well of her?" cried the old woman impatiently.
"Here we deal with other things, with actual facts. There stands
Paaker--there the wife of Mena. If the Mohar sacrifices a fortune for
Nefert, he will be her master, and Katuti will not stand in his way; she
knows well enough why her nephew pays for her. But some one else stops
the way, and that is Mena. It is worth while to get him out of the way.
The charioteer stands close to the Pharaoh, and the noose that is flung
at one may easily fall round the neck of the other too. Make the Mohar
your ally, and it may easily happen that your rat-bites may be paid for
with mortal wounds, and Rameses who, if you marched against him openly,
might blow you to the ground, may be hit by a lance thrown from an
ambush. When the throne is clear, the weak legs of the Regent may
succeed in clambering up to it with the help of the priests. Here you
sit-open-mouthed; and I have told you nothing that you might not have
found out for yourself."

"You are a perfect cask of wisdom!" exclaimed the dwarf.

"And now you will go away," said Hekt, "and reveal your schemes to your
mistress and the Regent, and they will be astonished at your cleverness.
To-day you still know that I have shown you what you have to do;
to-morrow you will have forgotten it; and the day after to-morrow you
will believe yourself possessed by the inspiration of the nine great
Gods. I know that; but I cannot give anything for nothing. You live by
your smallness, another makes his living with his hard hands, I earn my
scanty bread by the thoughts of my brain. Listen! when you have half won
Paaker, and Ani shows himself inclined to m