but sand and rock, and the desert stretched in front as far as the borders of Al-Kusiyeh.
Kāra, entering the short and narrow street between the hovels, pushed a goat from his path and proceeded calmly toward his dwelling. As he entered its one room, he paused to allow his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom and then gazed around with an expression of mild surprise.
In one corner, upon a bed of dried rushes, lay the form of an old woman. Her single black cotton garment was open at the throat, displaying a wrinkled, shrunken bosom that rose and fell spasmodically, as if the hag breathed with great effort. Her eyes were closed and the scant, tousled locks of fine gray hair surrounding her face gave it a weird and witch-like expression. In spite of her age and the clime in which she ad lived, Hatatcha’s skin was almost as white as that of Europeans, its tint being so delicate as to be scarcely noticeable.
Upon a short wooden bench beside the rushes sat a girl with a palm branch, which she swayed back and forth to keep the flies from settling upon Hatatcha’s face. She was, perhaps, fifteen years of age, but as fully matured in form as an English girl of twenty-five. Her face was remarkably handsome from the standpoint of regularity of contour, but its absolute lack of expression would render it uninviting to a connoisseur of beauty. Her dark eyes were magnificent, and seemed to have depths which were disappointing when you probed them. She wore the conventional black gown, or tunic, but because of the heat had allowed it to slip down to her waist, leaving her shoulders and breasts bare.
After a long and thoughtful look at his grandmother, Kāra sat down beside the girl and put his arm around her, drawing her close to his body. She neither resented the caress nor responded to it, but yielded herself inertly to the embrace while she continued to sway the palm branch with her free right arm.
“Ah, my Nephthys,” said the man, lightly, in the Coptic tongue, “is our Hatatcha in the grip of the devils again?”
The girl made no reply, but at the sound of Kāra’s voice the old woman opened her great eyes and gazed for an instant steadfastly upon her grandson. Her hands, which had been nervously clutching her robe, were raised in supplication, and she said in English, in a weak, hoarse voice:
“The draught, Kāra! Be quick!”
The man hesitated, but released the girl and stood up.
“It is the last, my Hatatcha. You know that no more can be procured,” he said, in protest.
“I shall need no more,” she answered, with much difficulty. “It is the last time. Be quick, Kāra!” Her voice died away in an odd gurgle, and her chest fluttered as if the breath was about to leave it.
Kāra, watching her curiously, as a dog might, was impressed by the symptoms. He turned to Nephthys.
“Go out,” he commanded, in Coptic, and the girl arose and passed under the arch.
Then he went to a part of the wall and removed a loose stone, displaying a secret cavity. From this he took a small vase, smooth and black, which had a stopper of dull metal. Carrying it to Hatatcha, he knelt down, removed the stopper and placed the neck of the vase to her lips. The delicate, talon-like fingers clutched the vessel eagerly and the woman drank, while Kāra followed the course of the liquid down her gullet by watching her skinny throat.
When it was done, he carried the empty vase back to the crypt and replaced the loose stone. Then he returned to the bedside and sat down upon the bench. A bowl containing some bits of bread stood near. He stooped and caught a piece in his fingers, munching it between his strong teeth while he stared down upon Hatatcha’s motionless form.
It was quite dark in the room by this time, for twilights are short in Egypt. But the pupils of the man’s eyes expanded like those of a cat, and he could follow the slow rise and fall of the woman’s chest and knew she was again breathing easily.
An hour passed, during which Kāra moved but once, to drink from a jar standing in the opposite corner. Hatatcha’s condition disturbed him. If she died, he would be at a loss what to do. Unused to work and without resource of any sort, life would become a burden to him. He was, moreover, accustomed to be led by the strong old woman in all things, and she had been the provider during all the twenty-three years of his life. Kāra had been trained to think deeply upon many subjects, but here was one which had never occurred to him before because Hatatcha had never discussed it, and the matter of her death was until lately a thing that did not need to be considered. But her condition was serious to-night, and the precious life-giving elixir was gone to the last drop.
All the people around Abu Fedah deferred to Hatatcha, because she claimed, with some show of reason, to be of royal descent. But they did not know the story of Ahtka-Rā, and her escapades in London years ago were all unsuspected by them. Hatatcha only confided such things to Kāra, and he would never dare breathe them to any except the Englishman, from whose lips the tales would never be liable to return.
But there was a great deal that Kāra himself did not know, and he realized this as he gazed uneasily upon his sick grandparent. She ought to tell him where the coins and jewels had come from, and if there were any left. He would need some trifles of that sort when she was gone. And the matter of her funeral – she had expressed strange desires, at times, regarding the disposition of her body after death. How was he to find means to carry out such desires?
A voice, low and clear, fell upon his ear and made him start. Hatatcha’s big eyes were open and he caught their sparkle even in the darkness.
“Come nearer,” she said.
He dropped upon the floor at her side and sat cross-legged near her head, bending over to catch her slightest whisper. She spoke in English to him.
“Anubis calls me, my son, and I must join his kingdom. My years are not great, but they have worn out my body with love and hatreds and plans of vengeance. You are my successor, and the inheritor of my treasures and my revenge and hates. The time is come when you must repay my care and perform a mission for which I have trained you since childhood. Promise me that you will fulfil my every wish to the letter!”
“Of necessity, Hatatcha,” he responded, calmly. “Are you not my grandmother?”
She remained silent a moment.
“You are cold, and selfish and cruel,” she resumed, her tone hardening, “and I have made you so. You are intelligent, and fearless, and strong. It is due to my training. Listen, then! Once I was young and beautiful and loving, and when I faced the world it fell at my feet in adoration. But one who claimed to be a man crushed all the joy and love from my heart, and left me desolate and broken. Like a spurned hind, I crept from the glare of palaces back to my mud hut, bearing my child in my arms, and here I mourned and suffered for years and found no comfort. Then the love that had destroyed my peace fell away, and in its place Set planted the seeds of vengeance. These I have cherished, and lo! a tree has sprouted and grown, of which you, my son, are the stalwart trunk. The fruit has been long maturing, but it is now ripe. Presently you, too, will face the world; but as a man – not like the weak woman I was – and you will accomplish my revenge. Is it not so, my Kāra?”
“If you say it, my Hatatcha, it is so,” he answered. But he wondered.
“Then pay close attention to my words,” she continued, “and store them carefully in your mind, that nothing shall be forgotten when it is needed to assist you. I will explain all things while I have the strength of the elixir, for when it leaves me my breath will go with it, and then your labors will begin.”
Kāra leaned still lower. For once his heart beat faster than was its custom, and he felt a thrill of excitement pervading his entire being. The climax in his life had at
