She knew Kaku's power which was famous throughout Egypt, and that it was said to be of the most evil sort, and she feared him.
"It seems that this is a dangerous affair," she replied uneasily, "and I think that I can guess your aim.

Now if I help you, Kaku, what am _I_ to get ?" "Me," he answered.
"I am flattered, but what else ?" "After Pharaoh the greatest place and the most power in Egypt, as the wife of Pharaoh's Vizier." "The wife?
Doubtless from what I have heard of you, Kaku, there would be other wives to share these honours." "No other wife--upon the oath, none, Merytra." She thought a moment, looking at the wizened but powerful-faced old magician, then answered: "I will take the oath and keep my share of it.

See that you keep yours, Kaku, or it will be the worse for you, for women have their own evil power." "I know it, Merytra, and from the beginning the wise have held that the spirit dwells, not in the heart or brain or liver, but in the female tongue.

Now stand up." She obeyed, and from some hidden place in the wall Kaku produced a book, or rather a roll of magical writings, that was encased in iron, the metal of the evil god, Typhon.
"There is no other such book as this," he said, "for it was written by the greatest of wizards who lived before Mena, when the god-kings ruled in Egypt, and I, myself, took it from among his bones, a terrible task for his Ka rose up in the grave and threatened me.

He who can read in that book, as I can, has much strength, and let him beware who breaks an oath taken on that book.