they are not yet finished. Question and I will answer."

"You will answer, yes, but what will you answer? Not the truth, I fancy,
because you are a coward, though if anyone can read the truth, it is
you. Man," he added fiercely, "if you dare to lie to me I will cut your
head off and take it to Pharaoh as a traitor's; and your body shall
lie, not in that fine tomb which you have made, but in the belly of a
crocodile whence there is no resurrection. Do you understand? Then
let us come to the point. Look, the sun sets there behind the Tombs of
Kings, where the departed Pharaohs of Egypt take their rest till the Day
of Awakening. It is a bad omen for me, I know, who wished to reach this
city in the morning when Ra was in the House of Life, the East, and not
in the House of Death, the West; but that accursed wind sent by Typhon,
held me back and I could not. Well, let us begin at the end which must
come after all. Tell me, you reader of the heavens, shall I sleep at
last in that valley?"

"I think so, Prince; at least, so says your planet. Look, yonder, it
springs to life above you," and he pointed to an orb that appeared at
the topmost edge of the red glow of the sunset.

"You are keeping something back from me," said Abi, searching Kaku's
face with his fierce eyes. "Shall I sleep in the tomb of Pharaoh, in my
own everlasting house that I shall have made ready to receive me?"

"Son of Ra, I cannot say," answered the astrologer. "Divine One, I will
be frank with you. Though you be wrath, yet will I tell you the truth
as you command me. An evil influence is at work in your House of Life.
Another star crosses and re-crosses your path, and though for a long
time you seem to swallow it up, yet at the last it eclipses you--it and