them through the passage which led
to the palace-stables.

The queen sank fainting on her knees by the window, and, through the
gathering shades of her swoon her dulled senses still were conscious
of the trampling of horses, of a shrill trumpet-blast, and at last of a
swelling and echoing shout of triumph with cries of, "Hail: hail to the
son of the Sun--Hail to the uniter of the two kingdoms; Hail to the King
of Upper and Lower Egypt, to Euergetes the god."

But at the last words she recovered consciousness entirely and started
up. She looked down into the court again, and there saw her brother
borne along on her husband's throne-litter by dignitaries and nobles.
Side by side with the traitor's body-guard marched her own and
Philometor's Philobasilistes and Diadoches.

The magnificent train went out of the great court of the palace, and
then--as she heard the chanting of priests--she realized that she had
lost her crown, and knew whither her faithless brother was proceeding.

She ground her teeth as her fancy painted all that was now about to
happen. Euergetes was being borne to the temple of Ptah, and proclaimed
by its astonished chief-priests, as King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and
successor to Philometor. Four pigeons would be let fly in his presence
to announce to the four quarters of the heavens that a new sovereign
had mounted the throne of his fathers, and amid prayer and sacrifice a
golden sickle would be presented to him with which, according to ancient
custom, he would cut an ear of corn.

Betrayed by her brother, abandoned by her husband, parted from her
children, scorned by the man she had loved, dethroned and powerless,
too weak and too utterly crushed to dream of revenge--she spent two
interminably long hours in the keenest anguish of mind, shut up in her
prison which was overloaded with splendor and with gifts. If poison had
been within her reach, in that hour she would unhesitatingly have put
an end to her ruined life. Now she walked restlessly up and down, asking
herself what her fate would be, and now she flung herself on the couch
and gave herself up to dull despair.

There lay the lyre she had given to her brother; her eye fell on the
relievo of the marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia, and on the figure of a
woman who was offering a jewel to the bride. The bearer of the gift
was the goddess of love, and the ornament she gave--so ran the
legend--brought misfortune on those who inherited it. All the