The pioneer bowed; he dimly perceived that he was entangled in invisible
toils. Up to the present moment he had been proud of his devotion to his
calling, of his duties as Mohar; and now he had discovered that the king,
whose chain of honor hung round his neck, undervalued him, and perhaps
only suffered him to fill his arduous and dangerous post for the sake of
his father, while he, notwithstanding the temptations offered him in
Thebes by his wealth, had accepted it willingly and disinterestedly.
He knew that his skill with the pen was small, but that was no reason why
he should be despised; often had he wished that he could reconstitute his
office exactly as Ani had suggested, but his petition to be allowed a
secretary had been rejected by Rameses. What he spied out, he was told
was to be kept secret, and no one could be responsible for the secrecy of
another.

As his brother Horus grew up, he had followed him as his obedient
assistant, even after he had married a wife, who, with her child,
remained in Thebes under the care of Setchem.

He was now filling Paaker's place in Syria during his absence; badly
enough, as the pioneer thought, and yet not without credit; for the
fellow knew how to write smooth words with a graceful pen.

Paaker, accustomed to solitude, became absorbed in thought, forgetting
everything that surrounded him; even the widow herself, who had sunk on
to a couch, and was observing him in silence.

He gazed into vacancy, while a crowd of sensations rushed confusedly
through his brain. He thought himself cruelly ill-used, and he felt too
that it was incumbent on him to become the instrument of a terrible fate