Was not the Benu bird sometimes depicted as a heron?
Jack looked at Emma. Had she noticed it?
But she was still gazing at Finn.
Jack was irritated with himself. It was a heron after all, an ordinary water bird, common in Egypt, going about its business of finding food for its family. Yet here he was, as bad as Emma, reading into it all kinds of symbolic significance for their journey. There was a faint splash as the heron dived, and this made Emma turn her attention to the river. She was in time to see the bird winging away with a shining silver fish struggling for life in its beak. She leapt up at once and ran to the waterside. ‘Did you see that!’ she cried excitedly. ‘A heron! A Benu! It is a sign!’
Jack, who had thought the very same thing, was irritated at how silly it sounded when
