es, shook out her shining hair, and clad
herself in white attire. Then she looked upon her beauty in the mirror
of silver, and cried in the bitterness of her heart to the Evil that lay
beside her like a snake asleep.

"Ah, am I not fair enow to win him whom I love? Say, thou Evil, must I
indeed steal the beauty of another to win him whom I love?"

"This must thou do," said the Evil, "or lose him in Helen's arms. For
though thou art fair, yet is she Beauty's self, and her gentleness
he loves, and not thy pride. Choose, choose swiftly for presently the
Wanderer goes forth to win the Golden Helen."

Then she doubted no more, but lifting the shining Evil, held it to her.
With a dreadful laugh it twined itself about her, and lo! it shrank to
the shape of a girdling, double-headed snake of gold, with eyes of ruby
flame. And as it shrank Meriamun the Queen thought on the beauty she had
seen upon the face of the dead Hataska, on the face of the Bai, and the
face of the Ka, and all the while she watched her beauty in the mirror.
And as she watched, behold, her face grew as the face of death, ashen
and hollow, then slowly burned into life again--but all her loveliness
was changed. Changed were her dark locks to locks of gold, changed were
her deep eyes to eyes of blue, changed was the glory of her pride to the
sweetness of the Helen's smile. Fairest among women had been her form,
now it was fairer yet, and now--now she was Beauty's self, and like to
swoon at the dream of her own loveliness.

"So, ah, so must the Hathor seem," she said, and lo! her voice rang
strangely in her ears. For the voice, too, was changed, it was more soft
than the whispering of wind-stirred reeds; it was more sweet than the
murmuring of bees at noon.

Now she must go forth, and fearful at her own loveliness and heavy with
her sin, yet glad with a strange joy, she passes from her chamber and
glides like a starbeam through the still halls of her Palace. The white
light of the moon creeps into them and falls upon the faces of the
dreadful Gods, on the awful smile of sphinxes, and the pictures of her
forefathers, kings and queens who long were dead. And as she goes she
seems to hear them whisper each to each of the dreadful sin that she
has sinned, and of the sorrow that shall be. But she does not heed, and
never stays her foot. For her heart is alight as with a flame, and she
will win the Wanderer to her arms--the Wanderer sought through many
lives, fou