"The prince, I am sure of this, has not grown wild over a favorite, as happens often to young lords in Egypt. One keen, intriguing woman may strip a man of property and health, nay, bring him to the hall of judgment. The prince is amused with her as a grown-up man might be amused with a slave girl. And Sarah is pregnant."

"Is that true?" cried the queen. "How dost thou know?"

"It is not known to his worthiness the heir, or even to Sarah," said Herhor, smiling. "We must know everything. This secret, however, was not difficult to get at. With Sarah is her relative Tafet, an incomparable gossip."

"Have they summoned a physician already?"

"Sarah knows nothing of this, I repeat, but the worthy Tafet, from fear lest the prince might grow indifferent to her foster child, would be glad to twist the neck of this secret. But we do not let her. That will be the prince's child also."

"But if it is a son? Thou knowest that he may make trouble," put in the lady.

"All is foreseen," replied Herhor. "If the child is a daughter, we will give her a dowry and the education proper for young ladies of high station. If a son, he will become a Jew--"

"Oh, my grandson, a Jew!"

"Do not take thy heart too soon from him. Our envoys declare that the people of Israel are beginning to desire a king. Before the child matures their desires will ripen, and then--we may give them a ruler, and of good blood indeed."

"Thou art like an eagle which takes in East and West at a glance,"

said the queen, eying the minister with amazement. "I feel that my repulsion for this maiden begins to grow weaker."

"The least drop of the pharaoh's blood should raise itself above nations, like a star above the earth," added Herhor.

At that moment the heir's boat moved at a few tens of paces from the royal barge, and the queen, shielded by her fan, looked at Sarah through its feathers.

"In truth the girl is shapely," whispered Queen Nikotris.

"Thou art saying those words for the second time, worthy lady."

"So thou hast noted that?" laughed her worthiness.

Herhor dropped his eyes.

In the boat was heard a harp, and Sarah began a hymn, with trembling voice,--

"How great is Jehovah, O Israel! how great is Jehovah, thy G.o.d."

"A most beautiful voice," whispered the queen.

The high priest listened with attention.

"His days have no beginning," sang Sarah, "and His dwelling has no limit. The eternal heavens change beneath His eye, like a garment which a man puts on his body and then casts away from him. The stars flash up, and are quenched, like sparks from fuel, and the earth is like a brick which a traveller touches once with his foot while going ever farther.

"How great is thy Lord, O Israel! There is no being who can say to Him, 'Do this!' there is no womb which could have given birth to Him.

He created the bottomless deeps above which He moves when He wishes.

He brings light out of darkness, and from the dust of the earth He creates living things which have voices.

"For Him savage lions are as locusts, the immense elephant He looks on as nothing, before Him the whale is as weak as an infant.

"His tricolored bow divides the heavens into two parts and rests on the ends of the earth plain. Where are the gates which could equal Him in loftiness? Nations are in terror at the thunder of His chariot, and there is naught beneath the sun which could stand His flashing arrows.

"His breath is the north wind at midnight, which freshens trees when withering, His anger is like the chamsin which burns what it touches.

"When He stretches His hands above the waters, they are petrified. He pours the sea into new places, as a woman pours out leaven. He rends the earth as if it were old linen, and clothes in silvery snow the naked tops of mountains.

"In a grain of wheat He hides one hundred other grains, and causes birds to incubate. From the drowsy chrysalis He leads to life a golden b.u.t.terfly, and makes men's bodies wait in tombs until the day of resurrection."

The rowers, absorbed in the song, raised their oars, and the purple barge dropped slowly down with the sweep of the river. All at once Herhor rose, and commanded,--

"Turn now toward Memphis!"

The oars fell; the barge turned where it stood, and raised the water with noise. After it followed Sarah's hymn decreasing gradually,--

"He sees the movement of hearts, the silent hidden ways on which pa.s.s the innermost thoughts in men's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. But no man can gaze into His heart and spy out His purposes.

"Before the gleam of His garments mighty spirits hide their faces.

Before His glance the G.o.ds of great cities and nations turn aside and shrink like withering leaves.

"He is power, He is life, He is wisdom. He is thy Lord, thy G.o.d, O Israel!"

"Why command, worthiness, to turn away our barge?" asked the worthy Nikotris.

"Lady, dost thou know that hymn?" asked Herhor, in a language understood by priests alone. "That stupid girl is singing in the middle of the Nile a prayer permitted only in the most secret recesses of our temples."

"Is that blasphemy then?"

"There is no priest in the barge except me," replied the minister. "I have not heard the hymn, and if I had I should forget it. Still I am afraid that the G.o.ds will lay hands on that girl yet."

"But whence does she know that awful prayer, for Rameses could not have taught it to her?"

"The prince is not to blame. But forget not, lady, that the Jews have taken from our Egypt many such treasures. That is why, among all nations on earth, we consider them alone as sacrilegious."

The queen seized the hand of the high priest.

"But my son--will no evil strike him?" whispered she, looking into his eyes.

"I say, worthiness, that no evil will happen to any one. I heard not the hymn, and I know nothing. The prince must be separated from that Jewess."

"But separated mildly; is that not the way?" asked the mother.

"In the mildest way possible and the simplest, but separation is imperative. It seemed to me," continued the high priest, as if to himself, "that I foresaw everything. Everything save an action for blasphemy, which threatens the heir while he is with that strange woman."

Herhor thought awhile, and added,--

"Yes, worthy lady! It is possible to laugh at many of our prejudices; still the son of a pharaoh should not be connected with a Jewess."

CHAPTER XVII