ds, and not so ill--which, Prince, never was your
lot. Answer me! Is all wisdom centred in your breast? Answer me! Do you
alone know the mysteries of Life and Death? Answer me! Did your god Amen
teach you that vengeance went before mercy? Answer me! Did he teach
you that men should be judged unheard? That they should be hurried by
violence to Osiris ere their time, and thereby separated from the dead
ones whom they loved and forced to return to live again upon this evil
Earth?

"Listen: when the last moon was near her full my spirit sat in my tomb
in the burying-place of queens. My spirit saw this man enter into my
tomb, and what he did there. With bowed head he looked upon my bones
that a thief of the priesthood had robbed and burnt within twenty years
of their burial, in which he himself had taken part. And what did this
man with those bones, he who was once Horu? I tell you that he hid them
away there in the tomb where he thought they could not be found again.
Who, then, was the thief and the violator? He who robbed and burnt my
bones, or he who buried them with reverence? Again, he found the jewels
that the priest of your brotherhood had dropped in his flight, when the
smoke of the burning flesh and spices overpowered him, and with them the
hand which that wicked one had broken off from the body of my Majesty.
What did this man then? He took the jewels. Would you have had him leave
them to be stolen by some peasant? And the hand? I tell you that he
kissed that poor dead hand which once had been part of the body of my
Majesty, and that now he treasures it as a holy relic. My spirit saw
him do these things and made report thereof to me. I ask you, therefore,
Prince, I ask you all, Royalties of Egypt--whether for such deeds this
man should die?"

Now Khaemuas, the advocate of vengeance, shrugged his shoulders and
smiled meaningly, but the congregation of kings and queens thundered an
answer, and it was:--

"_No!_"

Ma-Mee looked to Menes to give judgment. Before he could speak the
dark-browed Pharaoh who had named her wife strode forward and addressed
them.

"Her Majesty, Heiress of Egypt, Royal Wife, Lady of the Two Lands, has
spoken," he cried. "Now let me speak who was the husband of her Majesty.
Whether this man was once Horu the sculptor I know not. If so he was
also an evil-doer who, by my decree, died in banishment in the land
of Kush. Whatever be the truth as to that matter, he admits that he
violated th