word of Meriamun they
cast torches on the pitch and drew back screaming. For a moment the
torches smouldered, then suddenly on every side great tongues of flame
leapt up to heaven. Now the Shrine was wrapped in fire, and yet they
cast fuel on it till none might draw near because of the heat. Now it
burned as a furnace burns, and now the fire reached the fuel on the
roof. It caught, and the Shrine was but a sheet of raging flame that
lit the white-walled city, and the broad face of the waters, as the sun
lights the lands. The alabaster walls of the Shrine turned whiter yet
with heat: they cracked and split till the fabric tottered to its fall.

"Now there is surely an end of the Witch," cried Meriamun, and the women
screamed an answer to her.

But even as they screamed a great tongue of flame shot out through the
molten doors, ten fathoms length and more, it shot like a spear of fire.
Full in its path stood a group of the burners. It struck them, it licked
them up, and lo! they fell in blackened heaps upon the ground.

Rei looked down the path of the flame. There, in the doorway whence it
had issued, stood the Golden Hathor, wrapped round with fire, and the
molten metal of the doors crept about her feet. There she stood in the
heart of the fire, but there was no stain of fire on her, nor on her
white robes, nor on her streaming hair; and even through the glow of the
furnace he saw the light of the Red Star at her breast. The flame licked
her form and face, it wrapped itself around her, and curled through
the masses of her hair. But still she stood unharmed, while the burners
shrank back amazed, all save Meriamun the Queen. And as she stood she
sang wild and sweet, and the sound of her singing came through the roar
of the flames and reached the ears of the women, who, forgetting their
rage, clung to one another in fear. Thus she sang--of that Beauty which
men seek in all women, and never find, and of the eternal war for her
sake between the women and the men, which is the great war of the world.
And thus her song ended:

"Will ye bring flame to burn my Shrine
Who am myself a flame,
Bring death to tame this charm of mine
That death can never tame?
Will ye bring fire to harm my head
Who am myself a fire,
Bring vengeance for your Lovers dead
Upon the World's Desire?

Nay, women while the earth endures,
Your loves are not your own.
They love you no