his hollow eyes
around him as though in fear. "Oh, Kaku, would that I had never beheld
the Queen. I tell you that she is not a woman, as indeed you know well,
but a fiend with a heart of ice, and the venomous cunning of a snake. I
am called Pharaoh, yet am but her puppet to carry out her decrees. I am
called her husband, yet she is still no wife to me, or to any, although
all men love her, and by that love are ofttimes brought to doom. Last
night again she vanished from my side as I sat listening to her orders,
and after a while, lo! there she was as before, only, as it seemed to
me, somewhat weary. I asked her where she had been and she answered:
'Further than I could travel in a year to visit one she loved as much as
she hated me. Now who can that be, Kaku?'"

"Rames, I think, Lord, he who has made himself King of Kesh," replied
Kaku in an awed whisper. "Without a doubt she loved the man when she was
a woman, though whom she loves now the evil gods know alone. We are in
her power, and must work her will, for, Lord, if we do not we shall die,
and I think that neither of us desires to die, since beyond that gate
dead Pharaoh waits for us."

At these words Abi groaned aloud, wiping the sweat from his blanched
face with the corner of his robe, and saying:

"There you speak truly. Go, call the scribes, and let us get on with the
Queen's business."

Kaku turned to obey, when suddenly heralds entered the empty hall,
crying:

"Her Majesty the Queen waits without with a great company, and humbly
craves audience of her good lord, the divine Pharaoh of the Upper and
the Lower Land."

Abi and Kaku looked at each other, and despair was in their eyes.

"Let her Majesty enter," said the King in a low voice.

The heralds retired, and presently through the cedar doors appeared
the Queen in state. She was splendid to behold, splendid in her proud
beauty, splendid in her dress, and in her royal ornaments. On she swept
up the hall, attended by Merytra, who bore her fan and cushion, for
it was her pleasure that this woman should wait upon her day and night
without pause or rest, although she who had once been so handsome now
was worn almost to nothingness with toil and terror. Behind Merytra came
guards and high-priests, and after them the great lords of the Council,
who were called the King's Companions and the generals of the army.

On she swept up the hall till reaching the foot of the throne whereon
Abi sat, she motioned t