will not listen to his mother, but thou hast influence with him. He
meditates frightful things, and if he cannot be terrified by threats of
punishment from the Immortals, he will raise his hand against Mena, and
perhaps--"

"Against the king," interrupted Ameni gravely. "I know it, and I will
speak to him."

"Thanks, oh a thousand thanks!" cried the widow, and she seized the
high-priests robe to kiss it. "It was thou who soon after his birth
didst tell my husband that he was born under a lucky star, and would grow
to be an honor and an ornament to his house and to his country. And now
--now he will ruin himself in this world, and the next."

"What I foretold of your son," said Ameni, "shall assuredly be fulfilled,
for the ways of the Gods are not as the ways of men."

"Thy words do me good!" cried Setchem. "None can tell what fearful
terror weighed upon my heart, when I made up my mind to come here. But
thou dost not yet know all. The great masts of cedar, which Paaker sent
from Lebanon to Thebes to bear our banners, and ornament our gateway,
were thrown to the ground at sunrise by the frightful wind."

"Thus shall your son's defiant spirit be broken," said Ameni; "But for
you, if you have patience, new joys shall arise."

"I thank thee again," said Setchem. But something yet remains to be
said. I know that I am wasting the time that thou dost devote to thy
family, and I remember thy saying once that here in Thebes thou wert like
a pack-Horse with his load taken off, and free to wander over a green