hom I must love."

"An ill deed, Meriamun, and a fearful," he answered, "for there shall my
Spirit meet them who watch the gates, and who knows what may chance when
the bodiless one that yet hath earthly life meets the bodiless ones who
live no more on earth?"

"Yet wilt thou dare it, Rei, for love of me, as being instructed thou
alone canst do," she pleaded.

"Never have I refused thee aught, Meriamun, nor will I say thee nay.
This only I ask of thee--that if my Spirit comes back no more, thou wilt
bury me in that tomb which I have made ready by Thebes, and if it may
be, by thy strength of magic wring me from the power of the strange
Wardens. I am prepared--thou knowest the spell--say it."

He sank back in the carven couch, and looked upwards. Then Meriamun drew
near to him, gazed into his eyes and whispered in his ear in that dead
tongue she knew. And as she whispered the face of Rei grew like the face
of one dead. She drew back and spoke aloud:

"Art thou loosed, Spirit of Rei?"

Then the lips of Rei answered her, saying: "I am loosed, Meriamun.
Whither shall I go?"

"To the court of the Temple of Hathor, that is before the shrine."

"It is done, Meriamun."

"What seest thou?"

"I see a man clad in golden armour. He stands with buckler raised before
the doorway of the shrine, and before him are the ghosts of heroes dead,
though he may not see them with the eyes of the flesh. From within the
shrine there comes a sound of singing, and he listens to the singing."

"What does he hear?"

Then the loosed Spirit of Rei the Priest told Meriamun the Queen all the
words of the song that Helen sang. And when she heard and knew that it
was Argive Helen who sat in the halls of Hathor, the heart of the Queen
grew faint within her, and her knees trembled. Yet more did she tremble
when she learned those words that rang like the words she herself had
heard in her vision long ago--telling of bliss that had been, of the
hate of the Gods, and of the unending Quest.

Now the song ended, and the Wanderer went up against the ghosts, and
the Spirit of Rei, speaking with the lips of Rei, told all that befell,
while Meriamun hearkened with open ears--ay, and cried aloud with joy
when the Wanderer forced his path through the invisible swords.

Then once more the sweet voice rang and the loosed Spirit of Rei told
the words she sang, and to Meriamun they seemed fateful. Then he told
her all the talk that passed between the Wande