ew the great knife and rushed upon the veiled woman. But as he
came, Helen lifted her veil so that her eyes fell upon his eyes, and
the brightness of their beauty was revealed to him; and when he saw her
loveliness he stopped suddenly as one who is transfixed of a spear. Then
madness came upon him, and with a cry he lifted the knife, and plunging
it, not into her heart, but into his own, fell down dead.

This then was the miserable end of Kurri the Sidonian, slain by the
sight of the Beauty.

"Thou seest, Lady," said Helen, turning from the dead Sidonian, "no man
may harm me."

For a moment the Queen stood astonished, while Rei the Priest muttered
prayers to the protecting Gods. Then she cried:

"Begone, thou living curse, begone! Wherefore art thou come here to work
more woe in this house of woe and death?"

"Fear not," answered the Helen, "presently I will begone and trouble
thee no more. Thou askest why I am come hither. I came to see him who
was my love, and whom but last night I should have wed, but whom the
Gods have brought to shame unspeakable, Odysseus of Ithaca, Odysseus,
Laertes' son. For this cause I came, and I have stayed to look upon the
face of her whose beauty had power to drive the thought of me from the
heart of Odysseus, and bring him, who of all men was the greatest hero
and the foremost left alive, to do a dastard deed and make his mighty
name a byword and a scorn. Knowest thou, Meriamun, that I find the
matter strange, since if all else be false, yet is this true, that among
women the fairest are the most strong. Thou art fair indeed, Meriamun,
but judge if thou art more fair than Argive Helen," and she drew the
veil from her face so that the splendour of her beauty shone out upon
the Queen's dark loveliness. Thus for awhile they stood each facing
each, and to Rei it seemed as though the spirits of Death and Life
looked one on another, as though the darkness and the daylight stood in
woman's shape before him.

"Thou art fair indeed," said the Queen, "but in this, witch, has thy
beauty failed to hold him whom thou wouldst wed from the most shameless
sin. Little methinks can that man have loved thee who crept upon me like
a thief to snatch my honour from me."

Then Helen bethought her of what Rei had said, that Meriamun loved the
Wanderer, and she spoke again:

"Now it comes into my heart, Egyptian, that true and false are mixed in
this tale of thine. Hard it is to believe that Odysseus of