her voice
sounded sweetly as she spoke and said:

"O my guests--ye who are the holiest and the bravest in the Land of
Khem, though our hearts are joyful, and our souls refreshed with wine
and good cheer, let us not forget the pious customs and wise ways of our
ancestors, for it is fitting that in such hours as this our hearts
should be turned from pride by the remembrance that we live ever in the
presence of death, and that this world is but the threshold of the next.
Ill, too, would it become me to forget, in the midst of my present
happiness, to pay the honour due to him who might have shared this crown
with me; wherefore let the noble dead be brought into our midst, so
that the soul of Nefer, looking down from the flowery fields of Aalu,
may see that in the hour of our joy we do not forget the sorrow of his
untimely death."

Then she clapped her hands, and Menkau-Ra and Anemen-Ha shifted in their
seats, and looked at each other with eyes of evil meaning as six slaves
appeared at the lower end of the hall, bearing upon their shoulders the
mummy-case of Nefer, the dead Prince, beloved of Nitocris. Now low, sad
music sounded from a hidden source, and to the cadence of this the
slaves marched slowly round the tables, followed by the eyes of the
silenced and sobered guests. Then they stopped in front of the Queen's
seat, and she said:

"Let the case be set up against the central pillar yonder, and let the
face of the Prince be uncovered, that I may look upon him who was to
have been my lord."

"But if I may speak, Royal Egypt," said Anemen-Ha, the chief of the
House of Ptah, leaning towards her, "that would be beyond the law of the
gods and the customs of the land. To look on the face of the dead were
defilement for thee and us."

"Yet this once it shall be done, O Priest of the Father of the Gods,"
answered Nitocris, turning and looking into his eyes, "for last night I
had a vision, and I saw the soul of Nefer come back to his mummy, here
in this hall, at my bridal feast, and his eyes opened, and his lips
spoke, and made plain to me many things that I greatly longed to know.
But why shouldst thou turn pale and tremble, thou the holiest man in the
land? What hast thou to fear, even if my vision came true? And thou,
too, Menkau-Ra the Mighty, hast thou slain thy thousands, and yet
fearest to look upon the face of one dead man? See, see!" and she
pointed her finger at the face of the mummy. "By the power of the just