xclaimed, starting back. "Have not the
Paraschites done their work on his body? Is not his mummy even now
resting in the City of the Dead? How can it be? Surely, Nitocris, thou
art dreaming."

"And hast thou, a priest and sage, standing on the threshold of the Holy
Mysteries, hast thou not learned the law which tells thee how, with the
permission of the Divine Assessors, the souls of the dead may come back
from the halls of Amenti to do their bidding in other mortal shapes? And
what if they should have ordained that his soul should have thus
returned?

"Thou, who art so like him that while he was yet alive mortal eyes could
scarce distinguish the one from the other. May it not be that the gods,
who foresee all things, made thee in the same image, perchance to this
very end?"

"No, the riddle is too deep for me, even as that other riddle which I
read in thy eyes, O Queen!"

"Let thy love help thee to read it, then!" she replied, coming to him
and putting her hands on his shoulders again. "Tell me now, Ma-Rim[=o]n,
what wouldst thou do if thy soul were now waiting in the land of Aalu
and the soul of Nefer was listening to me with thine ears, and looking
at me with thine eyes?"

"And if thou----"

"Yes, and if I too believed that this were so?"

He saw the sweet, red, smiling lips coming nearer to him, and felt the
soft breath on his bare throat. He saw the deep eyes melting into
tenderness as the moonlight shone upon them, and in the pale olive
cheeks a faint flush swiftly deepened.

"Nefer or Ma-Rim[=o]n, I am mortal," he said, swiftly catching her
wrists and drawing her towards him. "I am flesh and blood. I am man, and
thou art woman--and I love thee! I love thee! Ah, how sweet thy kisses
are! Now let the gods bless or curse, for never could they take away
what thou hast given--and for it I will give thee all. All that has
been, and is, and might have been! Priest and sage, Initiate of the
Mysteries, what are they to me now! O Nitocris, my queen and my love!
Sooner would I live through one year of bliss with thee than an
eternity in the Peace of the Gods itself!"

The words of blasphemy came hot and fast between his kisses, and she
heard them unresisting in his arms, giving him back kiss for kiss, and
looking into his eyes under the dark lashes which half-hid hers; and so
Ma-Rim[=o]n, the youthful Initiate of the Holy Mysteries, became in that
moment a man, and so he began to learn the long lesson which teac