rer and the ghosts.

Now the ghosts being gone she bade the Spirit of Rei follow the Wanderer
up the sanctuary, and from the loosed Spirit she heard how he rent the
web, and of all the words of Helen and of the craft of him who feigned
to be Paris. Then the web was torn and the eyes of the Spirit of Rei
looked on the beauty of her who was behind it.

"Tell me of the face of the False Hathor?" said the Queen.

And the Spirit of Rei answered: "Her face is that beauty which gathered
like a mask upon the face of dead Hataska, and upon the face of the Bai,
and the face of the Ka, when thou spakest with the spirit of her thou
hadst slain."

Now Meriamun groaned aloud, for she knew that doom was on her. Last of
all, she heard the telling of the loves of Odysseus and of Helen, her
undying foe, of their kiss, of their betrothal, and of that marriage
which should be on the morrow night. Meriamun the Queen said never a
word, but when all was done and the Wanderer had left the shrine again,
she whispered in the ear of Rei the Priest, and drew back his Spirit to
him so that he awoke as a man awakes from sleep.

He awoke and saw the Queen sitting over against him with a face white as
the face of the dead, and about her deep eyes were lines of black.

"Hast thou heard, Meriamun?" he asked.

"I have heard," she answered.

"What dreadful thing hast thou heard?" he asked again, for he knew
naught of that which his Spirit had seen.

"I have heard things that may not be told," she said, "but this I will
tell thee. He of whom we spoke hath passed the ghosts, he hath met with
the False Hathor--that accursed woman--and he returns here all unharmed.
Now go, Rei!"

IX

THE WAKING OF THE SLEEPER

Rei departed, wondering and heavy at heart, and Meriamun the Queen
passed into her bed-chamber, and there she bade the eunuchs suffer none
to enter, made fast the doors, and threw herself down upon the bed,
hiding her face in its woven cushions. Thus she lay for many hours as
one dead--till the darkness of the evening gathered in the chamber. But
though she moved not, yet in her heart there burned a fire, now white
with heat as the breath of her passion fanned it, and now waning black
and dull as the tears fell from her eyes. For now she knew all--that the
long foreboding, sometimes dreaded, sometimes desired, and again, like
a dream, half forgotten, was indeed being fulfilled. She knew of the
devouring love that must eat her life awa