o
death, in the crystal, for I saw him there wrapped in his mummy clothes,
and caused dead Pharaoh to burst the crystal and stone me with its
fragments."

"Be silent, Woman," shouted Abi, "or I will have you beaten with rods,
till your feet hurt more than your mouth. What is this about the spirit
of Pharaoh, Kaku? Is he everywhere, for know, it is of Pharaoh, the
dweller in Osiris, that I came to speak to you."

"Most exalted Ruler of the North, Son of Royal Blood, Hereditary Count
who shall be King----"

"Cease your titles, Knave," exclaimed Abi, "and listen, for I need
counsel, and if you cannot give it I will find one who can. Just now I
lay on my bed asleep, and a dreadful vision came to me. I dreamed that I
woke up, and feeling a weight on the bed beside me turned to learn
what it was, and saw there the body of my brother, Pharaoh, in his
death-wrappings----"

"As I saw him in the ball," broke in Merytra. "Did he pelt you also, O
Abi?"

"Nay, Woman, he did worse, he spoke to me. He said--'You, my brother, to
whom I forgave all your sins, you and the woman-snake that I cherished
in my bosom, and your servant, the black-souled magician, her
accomplice, have done me miserably to death, and set the Queen of both
the Lands, Amen's royal child, to starve in yonder tower with the noble
lady Asti, until she dies or takes you to be her husband--you, her
uncle, who seek her beauty and my throne. Now I have a message for
you from the gods, who write down these things in their eternal books
against the day of judgment, when we all shall meet and plead our cause
before them, Osiris the Redeemer standing on the right hand, and the
Eater-up of Souls standing on the left.

"'This is the message, O Abi--Go to the Temple of Sekhet at the dawn.
There you shall find that Royal Loveliness which you desire. Take it to
be your wife as you desire, for it shall not say you nay. Be wedded to
that Loveliness with pomp before all the eyes of Egypt, and reign by
right of that Royalty, until you meet one Rames, son of Mermes, whom
you also murdered, and with him a certain Beggar-man who is charged with
another message for you, O Abi. Ascend the Nile to Thebes, and lay this
body of mine in the splendid tomb which I have made ready and sit in
my seat, and do those things which that Royal Loveliness you have wed,
commands to you, for It you shall obey. But hasten, hasten, Abi, to
hollow for yourself a grave, and let it be near to mine, for