Part 14 (1/2)
The old woman, as if startled into wakefulness by the voice of her mistress, slowly uncoiled her spider-like limbs, rose to her feet, rubbed several times her brown eyelids with the back of her left hand, yellower than that of a mummy, and said with a well assumed air of astonishment: ”Is she not there?”
”No,” replied Ra'hel; ”and did I not yet see her place hollowed out on the bed by the side of ohich she threw off, I could believe that the strange events of the past night were but an illusion and a dreah she was perfectly well aware of the manner of Tahoser's disappearance, Thamar raised a piece of the drapery stretched in the corner of the rooht have been concealed behind it She opened the door of the hut and standing on the threshold lance; then turning towards the interior, she signed negatively to her htfully
”Mistress,” said the old wo tone, ”you know that I disliked the foreign woman”
”You dislike every one, Tha
”Except you,to her lips one of the young woman's hands
”I know it You are devoted to me”
”I never had any children, and sometimes I fancy that I am your mother”
”Good Tha,” continued Thae?
Her disappearance explains it She said she was Tahoser, the daughter of Peta but a fiend which took that form to seduce and tempt a child of Israel Did you see how troubled she hen Poeri spoke against the idols of wood, stone, and metal, and how difficult it was for her to say, 'I will try to believe in your God'? It seeh the words burnt her lips like hot coals”
”The tears which fell upon enuine tears,--a woman's tears,” said Ra'hel
”Crocodiles hen they want, and hyenas laugh to attract their prey,” continued the old woht in the stones and ruins knowto you, poor Tahoser was nothing but a phantom raised up by hell?”
”Unquestionably,” replied Thahter of the priest Petamounoph would have fallen in love with Poeri and preferred him to the Pharaoh, who, it is said, loves her?”
Ra'hel, who did not admit that any one in the world was superior to Poeri, did not think this unlikely
”If she loved him as much as she said she did, why did she run off when, with your consent, he accepted her as his second wife? It was the condition that she must renounce the false Gods and adore Jehovah which put to flight that devil in disguise”
”In any case, that devil had a very sweet voice and very tender eyes”
At bottoreatly dissatisfied with the disappearance of Tahoser; she thus kept wholly to herself the heart which she had been willing to share, and yet she had the oing to the 's palace, her cupidity not having allowed her to forget his pro of coarse cloth which she proposed to fill with gold
When she appeared at the palace gate the soldiers did not beat her as they had done the first day She enjoyed the king's favour, and the officer of the guard ht her to the Pharaoh
When he perceived the vile old hag crawling towards his throne like a crushed insect, the King reranite chaold as she could carry away Timopht, whom Pharaoh trusted, and who knew the secret of the lock, opened the stone gate
The vast old sparkled in the sunbealance of the old woely After a few moments of dazzled contemplation, she pulled up the sleeves of her patched tunic and bared her withered arms, on which the muscles stood out like cords, and which were deeply wrinkled above the elbow; then she opened and closed her curved fingers, like the talons of a griffin, and sprang at the olden bars with fierce and bestial avidity She plunged her arots, moved them, stirred them round, rolled them over, threw them up; her lips trembled, her nostrils swelled, and down her spine ran convulsive tremors Intoxicated, hter, she cast handfuls of gold into her bag, saying, ”More! more! more!” so that soon it was full up to the ht, let her have her way, not dreaht But Thareat surprise of the Egyptian, lifted it on her back Avarice lent to that broken-down frath of muscles; all the nerves and fibres of the ar, bore up under a mass of metal which would have made the most robust Nahasi porter bon Her brows bent, like those of an ox when the ploughshare strikes a stone, Thaainst the walls, walking almost on all-fours, for every now and then she put her hands out to save herself froot out, and the load of gold was her legitimate property Breathless, exhausted, covered with sweat, her back bruised and her fingers cut, she sat down at the palace gate upon her beloved sack, and never did any seat appear to her so soft After a short ti by with a litter on which they had been bearing a burden She called the them a handsome reward, induced them to take up the sack and to follow her The Israelites, preceded by Thamar, went down the streets of Thebes, reached the waste places studded with mud huts and placed the sack in one of thely the promised reward