they happen or not, my counsel to you both is that you say nothing of
them beforehand."

"What then shall we report to those who bid me seek the oracle of your
wisdom, O Tanofir?"

"You can tell them that my wisdom declared that the omens were mixed
with good and evil, but that time would show the truth. Hush now, the
maiden is about to awake and must not be frightened. Also it is time
for me to be led from this sepulchre to where I sleep, for I think
that Ra has set and I am weary. Oh! Shabaka, why do you seek to peer
into the future, which from day to day will unroll itself as does a
scroll? Be content with the present, man, and take what Fate gives you
of good or ill, not seeking to learn what offerings he hides beneath
his robe in the days and the years and the centuries to come."

"Yet you have sought to learn those things, O Tanofir, and not in
vain."

"Aye and what have they made of me? A blind old hermit weighed down
with the weight of years and holding in my fingers but some few
threads that with pain and grief I have plucked from the fringe of
Wisdom's robe. Be warned by me, Nephew. While you are a man, live the
life of a man, and when you become a spirit, live the life of a
spirit. But do not seek to mix the two together like oil and wine, and
thus spoil both. I am glad to learn, O Bes, that you are going to make
a king's, or a slave's wife, whichever it may be, of this maiden,
seeing that I love her well and hold this trade unwholesome for her.
She will be better bearing babes than reading visions in a diviner's
cup, and I will pray the gods that they may not be dwarfs as you are,