ious about it.

"Oh, Ra'hel, my beloved Ra'hel!" repeated Poeri often.

Tahoser remembered having heard him whisper that name while she was
fanning him in his sleep.

"He thought of her even in his dreams. No doubt Ra'hel is her name." And
the poor child felt in her breast a sharp pang as if all the uraeus
snakes of the entablatures, all the royal asps of the Pharaonic crowns,
had struck their venomous fangs in her heart.

Ra'hel bowed her head on Poeri's shoulder like a flower overladen with
sunshine and love; the lips of the young man touched the hair of the
lovely Jewess, who fell back slowly, yielding her brow and half-closed
eyes to his earnest and timid caress. Their hands, which had sought each
other, were now clasped and feverishly pressed together.

"Oh, why did I not surprise him in some impious and mysterious ceremony,
slaying with his own hands a human victim, drinking its blood in a cup
of black ware, rubbing his face with it? It seems to me that I should
have suffered less than at the sight of that lovely woman whom he
embraces so timidly," murmured Tahoser in a faint voice as she sank on
the ground in a corner by the hut.

Twice she strove to rise, but she fell back on her knees. Darkness came
over her, her limbs gave way, and she fell in a swoon.

Meanwhile Poeri issued from the hut, giving a last kiss to Ra'hel.

X

The Pharaoh, raging and anxious on hearing of the disappearance of
Tahoser, had given way to that desire for change which possesses a heart
tormented by an unsatisfied passion. To the deep grief of Amense,
Hont-Reche, and Twea, his favourites, who had endeavoured to retain him
in the Summer Palace by all the resources of feminine coquetry, he now
inhabited the Northern Palace on the other side of the Nile. His fierce
preoccupation was irritated by the presence and the chatter of his
women; they displeased him because they were not Tahoser. He now thought
ugly those beauties who had seemed to him formerly so fair; their young,
slender, graceful bodies, their voluptuous attitudes, their long eyes
brightened by antimony and flashing with desire, their purple lips,
white teeth, and languishing smiles,--everything in them, even the
perfume of their cool skin, as delicate as a bouquet of flowers or a box
of scent, had become odious to him. He seemed to be angry with them for
having loved them, and to be unable to understand how he could have
been smitten by such vulgar charms. Wh