lash up above him. Next Seti the Prince
appeared to mount the throne, led thither by a woman, of whom I could
only see the back. I saw him distinctly wearing the double crown and
holding a sceptre in his hand. He also melted away and others came
whom I did not know, though I thought that one of them was like to the
Princess Userti.

Now all were gone and I was telling Bakenkhonsu everything I had
witnessed like a man who speaks in his sleep, not by his own will.
Suddenly I woke up and laughed at my own foolishness. But the other two
did not laugh; they regarded me very gravely.

"I thought that you were something of a seer," said the old priest, "or
rather Ki thought it. I could not quite believe Ki, because he said that
the young person whom I should find with the Prince here this morning
would be one who loved him with all the heart, and it is only a woman
who loves with all the heart, is it not? Or so the world believes. Well,
I will talk the matter over with Ki. Hush! Pharaoh comes."

As he spoke from far away rose a cry of--

"Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!"

CHAPTER IV

THE COURT OF BETROTHAL

"Life! Blood! Strength!" echoed everyone in the great hall, falling to
their knees and bending their foreheads to the ground. Even the Prince
and the aged Bakenkhonsu prostrated themselves thus as though before the
presence of a god. And, indeed, Pharaoh Meneptah, passing through the
patch of sunlight at the head of the hall, wearing the double crown upon
his head and arrayed in royal robes and ornaments, looked like a god, no
less, as the multitude of the people of Egypt held him to be. He was an
old man with the face of one worn by years and care, but from his person
majesty seemed to flow.

With him, walking a step or two behind, went Nehesi his Vizier, a
shrivelled, parchment-faced officer whose cunning eyes rolled about the
place, and Roy the High-priest, and Hora the Chamberlain of the Table,
and Meranu the Washer of the King's Hands, and Yuy the private scribe,
and many others whom Bakenkhonsu named to me as they appeared. Then
there were fan-bearers and a gorgeous band of lords who were called
King's Companions and Head Butlers and I know not who besides, and
after these guards with spears and helms that shone like god, and black
swordsmen from the southern land of Kesh.

But one woman accompanied his Majesty, walking alone immediately behind
him in front of the Vizier and the High-p