Let me go, and remember to whom you are speaking." But Paaker gripped her elbow the tighter, and urgently repeated his question.
"Shame upon you!" cried Katuti, "you are hurting me; let me go! You will not till you have heard what he said?
Have your own way then, but the words are forced from me! He said that if he did not know your mother Setchem for an honest woman, he never would have believed you were your father's son--for you were no more like him than an owl to an eagle." Paaker took his hand from Katuti's arm.

"And so--and so--" he muttered with pale lips.
"Nefert took your part, and I too, but in vain.

Do not take the words too hardly.

Your father was a man without an equal, and Rameses cannot forget that we are related to the old royal house.

His grandfather, his father, and himself are usurpers, and there is one now living who has a better right to the throne than he has." "The Regent Ani!" exclaimed Paaker decisively.