"A few days after I gave Assa's grandchild to the gardener, and told him the sixth toe had come off; I had made a little wound on his foot to take in the bumpkin. So Assa's grandchild, the son of the Mohar, grew up as the gardener's child, and received the name of Pentaur, and he was brought up in the temple here, and is wonderfully like Assa; but the gardener's monstrous brat is the pioneer Paaker. That is the whole secret."
Ani had listened in silence to the terrible old woman.
We are involuntarily committed to any one who can inform us of some absorbing fact, and who knows how to make the information valuable. It did not occur to the Regent to punish the witch for her crimes; he thought rather of his older friends' rapture when they talked of the singer Beki's songs and beauty. He looked at the woman, and a cold shiver ran through all his limbs.
"You may live in peace," he said at last; "and when you die I will see to your being embalmed; but give up your black arts. You must be rich, and, if you are not, say what you need. Indeed, I scarcely dare offer you gold--it excites your hatred, as I understand."
"I could take thine--but now let me go!"
She got up, and went towards the door, but the Regent called to her to stop, and asked: "Is Assa the father of your son, the little Nemu, the dwarf of the lady Katuti?"
The witch laughed loudly. "Is the little wretch like Assa or like Beki? I picked him up like many other children."
"But he is clever!" said Ani.
"Ay-that he is. He has planned many a shrewd stroke, and is devoted to his mistress. He will help thee to thy purpose, for he himself has one too."
"And that is--?"
"Katuti will rise to greatness with thee, and to riches through Paaker, who sets out to-morrow to make the woman he loves a widow."
"You know a great deal," said Ani meditatively, "and I would ask you one thing more; though indeed your story has supplied the answer--but perhaps you know more now than you did in your youth. Is there in truth any effectual love-philter?"
"I will not deceive thee, for I desire that thou should'st keep thy word to me," replied Hekt. "A love potion rarely has any effect, and never but on women who have never before loved. If it is given to a woman whose heart is filled with the image of another man her passion for him only will grow the stronger."