your place I should say as much. But--what happened?"

"Your Majesty having become unconscious," explained Mermes, "her Majesty
the Queen Neter-Tua, Glorious in Ra, took command of affairs according
to her Oath of Crowning. She has sent an embassy of atonement of two
thousand picked soldiers to the King of Kesh, bearing with them the
embalmed body of the divine Amathel and many royal gifts."

"That is good enough in its way," said Pharaoh. "But why two thousand
men, whereof the cost will be very great, when a score would have
sufficed? It is an army, not an embassy, and when my royal brother of
Kesh sees it advancing, bearing with it the ill-omened gift of his only
son's body, he may take alarm."

Mermes respectfully agreed that he might do so.

"What general is in command of this embassy, as it pleases you to call
it?"

"The Count Rames, my son, is in command, your Majesty."

Now weak as he was still, Pharaoh nearly leapt from his chair:

"Rames! That young cut-throat who killed the Prince! Rames who is the
last of the old rightful dynasty of Kesh! Rames, a mere captain, in
command of two thousand of my veterans! Oh, I must still be mad! Who
gave him the command?"

"The Queen Neter-Tua, Star of Amen, she gave him the command, O Pharaoh.
Immediately after the fray in the hall she uttered her decree and caused
it to be recorded in the usual fashion."

"Send for the Queen," said Pharaoh with a groan.

So Tua was summoned, and presently swept in gloriously arrayed, and on
seeing her father sitting up and well, ran to him and embraced him and
for a long time refused to listen to his talk of matters of State. At
length, however, he made her sit by him still holding his hand, and
asked her why in the name of Amen she had sent that handsome young
firebrand, Rames, in command of the expedition to Kesh. Then she
answered very sweetly that she would tell him. And tell him she did, at
such length that before she had finished, Pharaoh, whose strength as yet
was small, had fallen into a doze.

"Now, you understand," she said as he woke up with a start. "The
responsibility was thrust upon me, and I had to act as I thought best.
To have slain this young Rames would have been impossible, for all
hearts were with him."

"But surely, Daughter, you might have got him out of the way."

"My father, that is what I have done. I have sent him to Napata, which
is very much out of the way--many months' journey, I am told."

"Bu