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Ra'hel, seeing that she had to do with a fainting woman only, lost all fear and knelt by her, questioning the breathing of her lips and the beating of her heart; the one was just expiring on the pale lips, the other scarce beat under the cold breasts.
Seeing that Ra'hel kept silence, the old woman rose and sat down near her, and winking her eyes, the brown lids of which rose and fell like a bat's wing, she whispered in the Hebrew tongue, "Mistress, nothing good will come of this woman." "Why do you think so, Thamar?" answered Ra'hel, in the same low tone and using the same language.
Then Ra'hel saw how beautiful was Tahoser, but the discovery excited no evil feeling in her heart; Tahoser's beauty softened, instead of irritating her as it did Thamar; she could not believe that such perfection concealed a vile and perfidious soul; and in this respect her youthful candour judged more correctly than the long experience of her maid.
"No," replied Ra'hel; "and did I not yet see her place hollowed out on the bed by the side of my own, and hanging on that peg the gown which she threw off, I could believe that the strange events of the past night were but an illusion and a dream."
To the Pharaoh who had carried off her body she could not give her soul, which had remained with Poëri and Ra'hel; and as the King appeared to await a reply, she said, "How is it, O King, that amid all the maids of Egypt your glance should have fallen on me, on me whom so many others surpass in beauty, in talent, in gifts of all sorts?
Why was her garment soaking wet, as if she had just emerged from a pool or from the river?" "I know no more than you do," replied Ra'hel. "Suppose she were a spy of our masters'," said the old woman, whose fierce eyes were lighted up with hatred. "Great events are preparing, who knows whether the alarm has not been given?" "How could that young girl, ill as she is, hurt us?
Marked astonishment showed in his face as he rose, after having bent over the bed to make quite certain that the young girl who lay there was the one whom he had welcomed, for he could not understand how she happened to be in this place. His look of surprise smote Ra'hel to the heart.
Thamar held up a lamp, while Ra'hel, bending over the girl, looked for the wound; but no red streak showed upon the pallor of Tahoser, and her dress had no crimson stain. They stripped off her wet garment, and cast over her a piece of striped wool, the gentle warmth of which soon restored her suspended circulation.
Twice she strove to rise, but she fell back on her knees. Darkness came over her, her limbs gave way, and she fell in a swoon. Meanwhile Poëri issued from the hut, giving a last kiss to Ra'hel. The Pharaoh, raging and anxious on hearing of the disappearance of Tahoser, had given way to that desire for change which possesses a heart tormented by an unsatisfied passion.
Yet the daughter of Petamounoph, far from being dazzled by this splendour, thought of the rustic villa, of Poëri, and especially of the mean hut of mud and straw in the Hebrew quarter, where she had left Ra'hel, Ra'hel, from henceforward the happy and only spouse of the young Hebrew.
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