Meanwhile Kasana had poured some wine into a goblet, and when he came
back with the nurse she made him sit down on the giraffe skin at her feet
and asked how he had succeeded in evading the guards, and what he
expected from the future. She would tell him in advance that her father
had remained in Tanis, so he need not fear recognition and betrayal.

Her pleasure in this meeting was evident to both eyes and ears; nay,
when Ephraim commenced his story by saying that Prince Siptah's command
to remove the prisoners' chains, for which they were indebted solely to
her, had rendered his escape possible, she clapped her hands like a
child. Then her face clouded and, with a deep sigh, she added that ere
his arrival her heart had almost broken with grief and tears; but Hosea
should learn what a woman would sacrifice for the most ardent desire of
her heart.

She repaid with grateful words Ephraim's assurance that, before his
flight, he had offered to release his uncle from his bonds and, when she
learned that Joshua had refused to accept his nephew's aid, lest it might
endanger the success of the plan he had cleverly devised for him, she
cried out to her nurse, with tearful eyes, that Hosea alone would have
been capable of such a deed.

To the remainder of the fugitive's tale she listened intently, often
interrupting him with sympathizing questions.

The torturing days and nights of the past, which had reached such a happy
termination, seemed now like a blissful dream, a bewildering fairy-tale,
and the goblet she constantly replenished was not needed to lend fire to
his narrative.