"Then it would seem, Prince, that the cage is built about you. After all
it is a very splendid cage and made of gold."

"Yes, Ana, yet not one in which I would live. Still, except by death how
can I escape from the threefold chain of the will of Pharaoh, of Egypt,
and of Userti? Oh!" he went on in a new voice, one that had in it both
sorrow and passion, "this is a matter in which I would have chosen for
myself who in all others must be a servant. And I may not choose!"

"Is there perchance some other lady, Prince?"

"None! By Hathor, none--at least I think not. Yet I would have been free
to search for such a one and take her when I found her, if she were but
a fishergirl."

"The Kings of Egypt can have large households, Prince."

"I know it. Are there not still scores whom I should call aunt and
uncle? I think that my grandsire, Rameses, blessed Egypt with quite
three hundred children, and in so doing in a way was wise, since thus
he might be sure that, while the world endures, in it will flow some the
blood that once was his."

"Yet in life or death how will that help him, Prince? Some must beget
the multitudes of the earth, what does it matter who these may have
been?"

"Nothing at all, Ana, since by good or evil fortune they are born.
Therefore, why talk of large households? Though, like any man who can