Rameses did not observe the Regent’s dismay, for he had signed to Mena to come closer to him.

“Before I sleep,” said the king, “I will bring matters to an end with you too.  You have put your wife’s constancy to a severe test, and she has trusted you with a childlike simplicity that is often wiser than the arguments of sages, because she loved you honestly, and is herself incapable of guile.  I promised you that I would grant you a wish if your faith in her was justified.  Now tell me what is your will?”

Mena fell on his knees, and covered the king’s robe with kisses.

“Pardon!” he exclaimed.  “Nothing but pardon.  My crime was a heavy one, I know; but I was driven to it by scorn and fury—­it was as if I saw the dishonoring hand of Paaker stretched out to seize my innocent wife, who, as I now know, loathes him as a toad—­”

“What was that?” exclaimed the king.  “I thought I heard a groan outside.”

He went up to the window and looked out, but he did not see the pioneer, who watched every motion of the king, and who, as soon as he perceived that his involuntary sigh of anguish had been heard, stretched himself close under the balustrade.  Mena had not risen from his knees when the king once more turned to him.

“Pardon me,” he said again.  “Let me be near thee again as before, and drive thy chariot.  I live only through thee, I am of no worth but through thee, and by thy favor, my king, my lord, my father!”

Rameses signed to his favorite to rise.  “Your request was granted,” said he, “before you made it.  I am still in your debt on your fair wife’s account.  Thank Nefert—­not me, and let us give thanks to the Immortals this day with especial fervor.  What has it not brought forth for us!  It has restored to me you two friends, whom I regarded as lost to me, and has given me in Pentaur another son.”

A low whistle sounded through the night air; it was Katuti’s last signal.

Paaker blew up the tinder, laid it in the bole under the parapet, and then, unmindful of his own danger, raised himself to listen for any further words.

“I entreat thee,” said the Regent, approaching Rameses, “to excuse me.  I fully appreciate thy favors, but the labors of the last few days have been too much for me; I can hardly stand on my feet, and the guard of honor—­”

“Mena will watch,” said the king.  “Sleep in all security, cousin.  I will have it known to all men that I have put away from me all distrust of you.  Give the my night-robe, Mena.  Nay-one thing more I must tell you.  Youth smiles on the young, Ani.  Bent-Anat has chosen a worthy husband, my preserver, the poet Pentaur.  He was said to be a man of humble origin, the son of a gardener of the House of Seti; and now what do I learn through Ameni?  He is the true son of the dead Mohar, and the foul traitor Paaker is the gardener’s son.  A witch in the Necropolis