e divine Rameses,
the ever-living Pharaoh, child of the Sun, who dwelleth in Osiris."

"Thou meanest that he is dead?" asked the Wanderer.

"He dwelleth with Osiris," said the Priest, "and the Queen Meriamun was
his daughter by another bed."

"A brother wed a sister!" exclaimed the Wanderer.

"It is the custom of our Royal House, from the days of the Timeless
Kings, the children of Horus. An old custom."

"The ways of his hosts are good in the eyes of a stranger," said the
Wanderer, courteously.

"It is an old custom, and a sacred," said Rei, "but women, the
custom-makers, are often custom-breakers. And of all women, Meriamun
least loves to be obedient, even to the dead. And yet she has obeyed,
and it came about thus. Her brother Meneptah--who now is Pharaoh--the
Prince of Kush while her divine father lived, had many half-sisters, but
Meriamun was the fairest of them all. She is beautiful, a Moon-child the
common people called her, and wise, and she does not know the face of
fear. And thus it chanced that she learned, what even our Royal women
rarely learn, all the ancient secret wisdom of this ancient land. Except
Queen Taia of old, no woman has known what Meriamun knows, what I have
taught her--I and another counsellor."

He paused here, and his mind seemed to turn on unhappy things.

"I have taught her from childhood," he went on--"would that I had been
her only familiar--and, after her divine father and mother, she loved me
more than any, for she loved few. But of all whom she did not love she
loved her Royal brother least. He is slow of speech, and she is quick.
She is fearless and he has no heart for war. From her childhood she
scorned him, mocked him, and mastered him with her tongue. She even
learned to excel him in the chariot races--therefore it was that the
King his father made him but a General of the Foot Soldiers--and in
guessing riddles, which our people love, she delighted to conquer him.
The victory was easy enough, for the divine Prince is heavy-witted; but
Meriamun was never tired of girding at him. Plainly, even as a little
child she grudged that he should come to wield the scourge of power, and
wear the double crown, while she should live in idleness, and hunger for
command."

"It is strange, then, that of all his sisters, if one must be Queen, he
should have chosen her," said the Wanderer.

"Strange, and it happened strangely. The Prince's father, the divine
Rameses, had willed the marr