“Tell me what has chanced, Nurse,” she said faintly, “for I am bewildered, and know not in what world we wander.”

“Our own, Queen, I think,” answered Asti, “but in charge of those who are not of it, for surely this is no mortal boat, nor do mortals guide her to her port.  Come, we need food.  Let us eat while we may.”

So they ate and drank heartily enough, and when they had finished even dared to go out of the pavilion.  Looking around them they saw that they stood upon a high deck in the midst of a great ship, but that this ship was enclosed with a net of silver cords in which they could find no opening.  Looking through its meshes they noted that the oars were inboard, and the great purple sails set upon the mast, also that the rowers were gone, perchance to rest beneath the deck, while on the forecastle of the ship stood the captain, white-robed and masked, and aft the steersman, also still masked, so that they could see nothing of their faces.  Now, too, they were no longer sailing on a river, but down a canal bordered by banks of sand on either side, beyond which stretched desert farther than the eye could reach.

Asti studied the desert, then turned and said: 

“I think I know this canal, Lady, for once I sailed it as a child.  I think it is that which was dug by the Pharaohs of old, and repaired after the fall of the Hyksos kings, and that it runs from Bubastis to that bay down which wanderers sail towards the rising sun.”

“Mayhap,” answered Tua.  “At least, this is the world that bore us and no other, and by the mercy of Amen and the power of my Spirit we are still alive, and not dead, or so it seems.  Call now to the captain on yonder deck; perhaps he will tell whither he bears us in his magic ship.”

So Asti called, but the captain made no sign that he saw or heard her.  Next she called to the steersman, but although his veiled face was towards them, he also made no sign, so that at last they believed either that these were spirits or that they were men born deaf and dumb.  In the end, growing weary of staring at this beautiful ship, at the canal and the desert beyond it, and of wondering where they were, and how they came thither, they returned to the pavilion to avoid the heat of the sun.  Here they found that during their absence some hand unseen had arranged the silken bed-clothing on their couches and cleared away the fragments of their meal, resetting the beautiful table with other foods.

“Truly here is wizardry at work,” said Tua, as she sank into a leather-seated ivory chair that was placed ready.

“Who doubts it?” answered Asti calmly.  “By wizardry were you born; by wizardry was Pharaoh slain; by wizardry we are saved to an end that we cannot guess; by wizardry, or what men so name, does the whole world move; only being so near we see it not.”

Tua thought a while, then said: 

“Well, this golden ship is better than the sty of Abi the hog, nor do I believe that we journey to no purpose.  Still I wonder what that spirit who named herself my Ka does on the throne of Egypt; also how we came on board this boat, and whither we sail.”