"Did I, Sister--I mean Wife? If so, it was because I was not sure
whether Ana, who is to be my chariot companion, would be back."

"A scribe your chariot companion! Surely it would be more fitting that
your cousin Amenmeses----"

"To Set with Amenmeses!" he exclaimed. "You know well, Userti, that the
man is hateful to me with his cunning yet empty talk."

"Indeed! I grieve to hear it, for when you hate you show it, and
Amenmeses may be a bad enemy. Then if not our cousin Amenmeses who is
not hateful to me, there is Saptah."

"I thank you; I will not travel in a cage with a jackal."

"Jackal! I do not love Saptah, but one of the royal blood of Egypt a
jackal! Then there is Nehesi the Vizier, or the General of the escort
whose name I forget."

"Do you think, Userti, that I wish to talk about state economies with
that old money-sack, or to listen to boastings of deeds he never did in
war from a half-bred Nubian butcher?"

"I do not know, Husband. Yet of what will you talk with this Ana? Of
poems, I suppose, and silliness. Or will it be perchance of Merapi, Moon
of Israel, whom I gather both of you think so beautiful. Well, have your
way. You tell me that I am not to accompany you upon this journey, I
your new-made wife, and now I find that it is because you wish my place
to be filled by a writer of tales whom you picked up the other day--your