She looked frightened. Her voice rose in a shrill protest. "You suspect me, Esa.
I knew it!
You will make a case against me and how am I, a poor woman with no great wits, to defend myself?
I shall be condemned - condemned unheard."
"Not unheard," said Esa with irony, and saw Hori smile.
Henet went on, her voice growing more and more hysterical: "I have done nothing... I am innocent...
Imhotep, my dearest master, save me..." She flung herself down and clasped him round the knees.
Imhotep began to splutter indignantly, meanwhile patting Henet's head.
"Really, Esa, I protest - This is disgraceful..."
Esa cut him short. "I have made no accusation.
I do not accuse without proof.
I ask only that Henet shall explain to us here the meaning of certain things she has said."
"I have said nothing - nothing at all..."
"Oh, yes, you have," said Esa.
"These are words I heard with my own ears - and my ears are sharp even if my eyes are dim.
You said that you knew something about Hori.
Now what is it that you know about Hori?" Hori looked slightly surprised.
"Yes, Henet," he said. "What do you know about me!
Let us have it."
Henet sat back on her haunches and wiped her eyes.
She looked sullen and defiant.
"I know nothing," she said.
"What should I know?"
"That is what we are waiting for you to tell us," said Hori.
Henet shrugged her shoulders.
"I was just talking. I meant nothing."
Esa said: "I will repeat to you your own words.
You said that we all despised you, but that you knew a lot of what was going on in this house - and that you saw more than many clever people saw.
"And then you said this - that when Hori met you, he looked at you as though you didn't exist, as though he saw something behind you - something that wasn't there."
"He always looks like that," said Henet sullenly.
"I might be an insect, the way he looks at me - something that practically doesn't matter." Esa said slowly: "That phrase has remained in my mind - something behind - something - that wasn't there.
Henet said,
'He should have looked at me.'
And she went on to speak of Satipy - yes, of Satipy - and of how Satipy was clever, but where was Satipy now?..."
Esa looked around.
"Does that mean nothing to any of you?
Think of Satipy - Satipy who is dead... And remember one should look at a person - not at something that isn't there..."
There was a moment's dead silence and then Henet screamed.
It was a high, thin scream - a scream, it would seem, of sheer terror.
She cried out incoherently: "I didn't - save me - master.
Don't let her... I've said nothing - nothing."
Imhotep's pent-up rage burst out.
"This is unpardonable," he roared.
"I will not have this poor woman terrified and accused.
What have you against her?
By your own words, nothing at all."
Yahmose joined in without his usual timidity: "My father is right.
If you have a definite accusation to bring against Henet, bring it."
"I do not accuse her," said Esa slowly.
She leaned on her stick. Her figure seemed to have shrunk.