poor, and banquets of royal lavishness for
those who could claim right of entry into the sacred circle which
enclosed the Throne, the Temple, and the camp of the victorious warrior.

For days he had heard the name of Menkau-Ra the Conqueror shouted up to
the heavens by the crowds that had thronged the streets and the
market-places, and, mingled with it, he had also heard the name of the
girl-queen whose arms had been about his neck, and whose lips he had
kissed the night before, and he knew that even now the people were
asking why the Conqueror should not wed the daughter of Rameses, and
become the father of a line of even greater and yet mightier Pharaohs.

He had heard their cries calmly and without anger, for he knew that that
one stolen hour of sweet intercourse with her meant much more than the
Conqueror himself could win--something that could not be taken by force,
or even through the will of the dead king. Her soul was his, and he knew
well that the man to whom she had not given her soul would never be
permitted to lay a loving hand on her body.

"Ah yes, there he comes, I suppose," he went on, still talking aloud to
himself, as a shrill musical peal of silver trumpets broke out from the
direction of the barracks to the north of the palace. "Alas! were I but
truly Nefer! That golden-crowned murderer--for sure I am that he killed
him--he would not now be making ready for his triumph at the head of
his victorious troops through the streets and squares of Memphis. If
that were so, how glad a day this would be for Egypt and for us!"

But, as the Divine Assessors willed it, there was no triumph that day in
Memphis. The sun had hardly risen to a level with the topmost wall of
the Rameseum before messengers were sent out from the palace bearing the
tidings that Nitocris the Queen had been stricken with a sudden malady,
and that all festivities were to be deferred till the next day at the
earliest.

That night, when the moon was sinking low down in the west towards the
dark hills of the Libyan Desert, and the Isis Star was glowing palely
like an expiring lamp hung high above the brightening eastern
earth-line, he saw her muffled form gliding ghost-like towards him as he
stood waiting for her on the terrace. She was clad like the meanest of
her serving-maids, just as a common slave-wench who had stolen out to
meet a lover of her own sort might have been. When she came within a
pace of him, he held his arms out. She p