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But old Bakenkhonsu, whom you know, waits without, and with him Ki the great magician, whom I think you have not seen. He is a man of wonderful lore and in some ways not altogether human. At least he does strange feats of magic, and at times both the past and the future seem to be open to his sight, though as we know neither the one nor the other, who can tell whether he reads them truly.
Now the marvel of the escape of the Prince and his household and all that was his from these curses spread abroad and made much talk, so that many sent to inquire of it. Among the first came old Bakenkhonsu with a message from Pharaoh, and a private one to myself from the Princess Userti, whose pride would not suffer her to ask aught of Seti.
Now Bakenkhonsu and I came before Pharaoh and we saw that he was greatly aged, for his hair had gone grey about his temples and the flesh hung in bags beneath his eyes. Also not for one minute could he stay still. "Is your lord, and are you also of the servants of this Hebrew prophet whom the Egyptians worship as a god because he has done them so much ill?" he asked.
"That is for the Prince to judge," said Ki, "though I do not see how it can harm the lady Merapi to pray for us in the open square of Memphis." "Let her go," said Bakenkhonsu, "lest presently we should all go further than we would." "I do not wish to go," cried Merapi, "not knowing for whom I am to pray or how." "Be it as you will, Lady," said Seti in his grave and gentle voice.
However that may be, even our new divine lord is afraid. "And what said Ki?" "Ki could say nothing or, rather, that the only answer vouchsafed to him and his company, when they made inquiry of their Kas, was that this god's reign would be very short and that it and his life would end together." "Which perhaps did not please the god Amenmeses, Bakenkhonsu?" "Which did not please the god at all.
The lady Merapi also said as much to me, but I noted that always she shunned Ki, whom she held in mistrust and fear. Then came the hail, and some months after the hail the locusts, and Egypt went mad with woe and terror. It was known to us, for with Ki and Bakenkhonsu in the palace we knew everything, that the Hebrew prophets had promised this hail because Pharaoh would not listen to them.
"That is strange," interrupted the Prince, "but forgive me, Bakenkhonsu sees these things. If you, O Ki, would tell us what is written upon Ana's tablets which neither of you can see, it would be stranger still, that is if anything is written." Ki smiled and stared upwards at the ceiling. Presently he said: "The scribe Ana uses a shorthand of his own that is not easy to decipher.
"Behold my God has answered me, the most humble of His servants," said Merapi in the same sweet and gentle voice. "Behold the sign and the wonder!" "Witch!" screamed the head-priest Roi, and fled away, followed by his fellows. "Sorceress!" hissed Userti, and fled also, as did all the others, save the Prince, Bakenkhonsu, I Ana, and Ki the Magician.
"It strayed here from the town three days ago, Ana. And the bats also may have flown from the town. Hark to the wailing. Was ever such a sound heard before in Egypt?" Bakenkhonsu was right. Save the son of Seti alone, none died who dwelt in or about his house, though elsewhere all the first-born of Egypt lay dead, and the first-born of the beasts also.
There, not a yard away, fell the white hail, turning the world to wreck, while here within the gate there was not a single stone. Merapi watched also, and presently came Ki as well, and with him Bakenkhonsu, who for once had never seen anything like this in all his long life.
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