"Tahoser," said Poeri, "for that is your name, I think,--Tahoser, daughter of the high-priest Petamounoph?" The young girl nodded assent. "How is it that you, who live in Thebes in a rich palace, surrounded by slaves, and whom the handsomest among the Egyptians desire,--how is it you have chosen to love me, a son of a race reduced to slavery, a stranger who does not share your religious beliefs and who is separated from you by so great a distance?" Ra'hel and Tahoser smiled, and the high-priest's daughter replied,-- "That is the very reason." "Although I enjoy the favour of the Pharaoh, although I am the steward of his domains and wear gilded horns in the festivals of agriculture, I cannot rise to you. In the eyes of the Egyptians I am but a slave, and you belong to the priestly caste, the highest and most venerated. If you love me--and I cannot doubt that you do--you must give up your rank." "Have I not already become your servant? Hora kept nothing of Tahoser, not even the enamelled collars and the transparent gauze calasiris; that is why you thought me ugly." "You will have to give up your country and follow me to unknown regions, through the desert where burns the sun, where blows the fire-wind, where the moving sand tangles and effaces the paths, where no tree grows, where no well springs, through the lost valleys of death strewn with whitened bones that mark the way." "I shall go," said Tahoser, quietly. "That is not all," continued Poeri. "Your gods are not mine,--your gods of brass, basalt, and granite, fashioned by the hand of man, your monstrous idols with heads of eagle, monkey, ibis, cow, jackal, and lion, which assume the faces of beasts as if they were troubled by the human face on which rests the reflection of Jehovah. It is said, 'Thou shalt worship neither stone nor wood nor metal.' Within these temples cemented with the blood of oppressed races grin and crouch the hideous, foul demons which usurp the libations, the offerings, and the sacrifices. One only God, infinite, eternal, formless, colourless, fills the immensity of the heavens which you people with a multitude of phantoms. Our God has created us; you have created your gods."