mustn't do, either. Lock the door, and put the sofa across it. You will
find that something is going to happen to-night. Is everything ready for
us to go away?"

"Yes, Your Highness," replied Jenny, wondering what was going to happen
next.

"You must not call me Highness, Jenny," said her mistress, with a laugh.
"I did not marry the Prince to-day. It was some one else he knew a long
time ago. I have put her to bed in that splendid bridal chamber of his.
She is waiting for him now."

"But I don't understand, Miss--I----"

"There is no need for you to understand, Jenny. Just be a good girl, and
do as you're told. When we get back to England I will explain matters as
far as I can."

Miss Jenny wisely decided to keep her thoughts to herself, and went on
with her packing. Nitocris changed her bridal dress for her yachting
costume, and lay down on the couch to await the progress of events.

Oscarovitch left the company in the dining-hall to their revel in about
an hour's time, and went up to his fate in the bridal chamber. He
knocked and opened the door softly: locked it, and went toward the bed.
He leaned over it for a moment, and then a hoarse shriek of mingled rage
and terror rang through the room. He flung the clothes off the bed.
Where was the lovely bride he had wedded only a few hours before? What
was this horrible thing lying where _she_ should have been? Not
Nitocris--and yet, it _was_ Nitocris. Like a flash of lightning rending
the darkness of the midnight heavens, the gap of oblivion between his
lives was rent, and the light flamed into his soul. Phadrig had lied to
him. The daughter of Rameses had not died that night in the banqueting
chamber of the Palace of Pepi. She had lived and reigned virgin queen of
the Sacred Land. Her body had been submitted to the hands of the
paraschites and buried in the City of the Dead over against Memphis, on
the eastward side of the river. And here was her mummy lying in his
bridal bed, mocking him with its hideous, stony rigidity.

For a few terrible moments he stood staring at it, his clenched fists
raised above his head. Then with another scream he cast himself upon it.

When they broke the door open, they found the man who in a few days
would have been Emperor of the Russias and the East lying across the bed
mowing and gibbering like a mad monkey, and scraping up handfuls of
brown dust from the stained sheets.

* * * * *

Twenty-four