e to the Palace and
passed through its halls towards his chamber. At the entrance of her own
place he met Meriamun the Queen. There she stood in the doorway like a
picture in its sculptured frame, nor could any sight be more beautiful
than she was, clad in her Royal robes, and crowned with the golden
snakes. Her black hair lay soft and deep on her, and her eyes looked
strangely forth from beneath the ivory of her brow.

He bowed low before her and would have passed on, but she stayed him.

"Whither goest thou, Rei?" she asked, "and why is thy face so sad?"

"I go about my business, Queen," he answered, "and I am sad because no
tidings come of Pharaoh, nor of how it has fared with him and the host
of the Apura."

"Perchance thou speakest truth, and yet not all the truth," she
answered. "Enter, I would have speech with thee."

So he entered, and at her command seated himself before her in the
very seat where the Wanderer had sat. Now, as he sat thus, of a sudden
Meriamun the Queen slid to her knees before him, and tears were in
her eyes and her breast was shaken with sobs. And while he wondered,
thinking that she wept at last for her son who was dead among the
firstborn, she hid her face in her hands upon his knees, and trembled.

"What ails thee, Queen, my fosterling?" he said. But she only took his
hand, and laid her own in it, and the old priest's eyes were dim with
tears. So she sat for awhile, and then she looked up, but still she did
not find words. And he caressed the beautiful Imperial head, that no
man had seen bowed before. "What is it, my daughter?" he said, and she
answered at last:

"Hear me, old friend, who art my only friend--for if I speak not my
heart will surely burst; or if it break not, my brain will burn and I
shall be no more a Queen but a living darkness, where vapours creep, and
wandering lights shine faintly on the ruin of my mind. Mindest thou that
hour--it was the night after the hateful night that saw me Pharaoh's
wife--when I crept to thee and told thee the vision that had come upon
my soul, had come to mock me even at Pharaoh's side?"

"I mind it well," said Rei; "it was a strange vision, nor might my
wisdom interpret it."

"And mindest thou what I told thee of the man of my vision--the glorious
man whom I must love, he who was clad in golden armour and wore a golden
helm wherein a spear-point of bronze stood fast?"

"Yes, I mind it," said Rei.

"And how is that man named?" she a