is are upon you!" he cried. "I charge ye to fly!"

"This old crone is mad," quoth one. "We watch the Hathor, and, come all
the women of the world, we fly not."

"Ye are mad indeed," said Rei, and sped on.

He passed the gates, the gates clashed behind him. He won the outer
space, and hiding in the shadows of the Temple walls, looked forth.
The night was dark, but from every side a thousand lights poured down
towards the Shrine. On they came like lanterns on the waters of Sihor at
the night of the feast of lanterns. Now he could see their host. It was
the host of the women of Tanis, and every woman bore a lighted torch.
They came by tens, by hundreds, and by thousands, and before them was
Meriamun, seated in a golden chariot, and with them were asses, oxen,
and camels, laden with bitumen, wood, and reeds. Now they gained the
gates, and now they crashed them in with battering trees of palm. The
gates fell, the women poured through them. At their head went Meriamun
the Queen. Bidding certain of them stay by her chariot she passed
through, and standing at the inner gates called aloud to the priests to
throw them wide.

"Who art thou who darest come up with fire against the holy Temple of
the Hathor?" asked the guardian of the gates.

"I am Meriamun, the Queen of Khem," she answered, "come with the women
of Tanis to slay the Witch thou guardest. Throw the gates wide, or die
with the Witch."

"If indeed thou art the Queen," answered the priest, "here there sits a
greater Queen than thou. Go back! Go back, Meriamun, who art not afraid
to offer violence to the immortal Gods. Go back! lest the curse smite
thee."

"Draw on! draw on! ye women," cried Meriamun; "draw on, smite down the
gates, and tear these wicked ones limb from limb."

Then the women screamed aloud and battered on the gates with trees, so
that they fell. They fell and the women rushed in madly. They seized the
priests of Hathor and tore them limb from limb as dogs tear a wolf. Now
the Shrine stood before them.

"Touch not the doors," cried Meriamun. "Bring fire and burn the Shrine
with her who dwells therein. Touch not the doors, look not in the
Witch's face, but burn her where she is with fire."

Then the women brought the reeds and the wood, and piled them around
the Shrine to twice the height of a man. They brought ladders also, and
piled the fuel upon the roof of the Shrine till all was covered. And
they poured pitch over the fuel, and then at the