prisoner, it is too dangerous. But there are other ways."

"What ways? Poison?"

"Too dangerous again. Now, if he fell sick, and he has been sick before,
and could not stir, it would give us time to bring about the marriage,
would it not? Oh! I know that he is well at present--for him, but look
here, Merytra, I have something to show you."

Then going to a chest Kaku took from it a plain box of cedar wood which
was shaped like a mummy case, and, lifting off its lid, revealed within
it a waxen figure of the length of a hand. This figure was beautifully
fashioned to the living likeness of Pharaoh, and crowned with the double
crown of Egypt.

"What is it?" asked Merytra, shrinking back. "An _ushapti_ to be placed
in his tomb?"

"No, woman, a magic Ka fashioned with many a spell out of yonder ancient
roll, that can bring _him_ to the tomb if it be rightly used, as you
shall use it."

"I!" she exclaimed, starting. "How?"

"Thus: You, as one of Pharaoh's favourite ladies, have charge of the
chamber where he sleeps. Now you must make shift to enter there alone
and lay this figure in his bed, that the breath of Pharaoh may enter
into it. Then take it from the bed and say these words, 'Figure, figure,
I command thee by the power within thee and in the name of the Lord
if Ill, that as thy limbs waste, so shall the limbs of him in whose