Then she bend down, and lifted the body of the boy.
"Now, my lord," she said, "there has fallen on you that sorrow which Jabez my uncle warned you would come, if ever you had aught to do with me.

Now the curse of Israel has pierced my heart, and now our child, as Ki the evil prophesied, has grown too great for greetings, or even for farewells." Thus she spoke in a cold and quiet voice, as one might speak of something long expected or foreseen, then made her reverence to the Prince, and departed, bearing the body of the child.

Never, I think, did Merapi seem more beautiful to me than in this, her hour of bereavement, since now through her woman's loveliness shone out some shadow of the soul within.

Indeed, such were her eyes and such her movements that well might have been a spirit and not a woman who departed from us with that which had been her son.
Seti leaned on my shoulder looking at the empty bed, and at the scared nurse who still sat behind, and I felt a tear drop upon my hand.

Old Bakenkhonsu lifted his massive face, and looked at him.
"Grieve not over much, Prince," he said, "since, ere as many years as I have lived out have come and gone, this child will be forgotten and his mother will be forgotten, and even you, O Prince, will live but as a name that once was great in Egypt.