icked herself up and went cautiously to the
end of the passage to reconnoiter.

The prince stood under the single lamp in the great corridor, between
her and the refuge of her chamber. Another was close to him, her hands
upon his shoulders.

Masanath retired into the dusk and waited. When she looked again the
hands were clasped about the prince's neck. Back into the shadows she
shrank, pressing her tiny palms together in a wild prayer for Ta-user's
triumph. After an interval she looked again in time to see Rameses
undo the arms about his knees and fling the princess from him. Cold
with dismay and shaking with her sudden descent from hope to despair,
Masanath watched him disappear into the dark.

"O most ill-timed, iron continence!" she wailed under her breath. But
the change which had come over Ta-user interested her immediately.
Fascinated, she forgot to hide again, but the light of the single lamp
did not penetrate to her position.

The princess kept the posture of abandoned humiliation, into which
Rameses had flung her, until the heir's footsteps died away up the
corridor. Then she raised herself and faced the direction the prince
had taken. Her lithe body bent a little, her rigid arms were thrust
back of her, and the hands were clenched hard. Her head was forced
forward, the long neck curved sinuously like a vulture's. She began to
speak in a whisper that hissed as though she breathed through her
words. Masanath felt her flesh crawl and her soft hair take on life.
Not all the words of the sorceress were intelligible. At first only
her ejaculations were distinct.

"Puny knave!" Masanath heard. "Well for thee I do not love thee, else
thou shouldst sleep this night in the reeking cave of a paraschite,
with the whine of feeding flies about thee for dreams. Well for me
that I do not love thee, for thine instant death would rob me of the
long revenge that I would liefer have! Share thy crown with me! When
Ta-user hath done with thee thou shalt have no crown to share! Turned
from Siptah for thee! How thou wilt marvel when thou learnest that I
never turned from Siptah nor wooed thee with a single glance but for
Siptah's sake. Go on! Sleep well! Have no regrets, for thy doom was
spoken long before this night's haughty work. Rather do I thank thee
for thy scorn. It robs me of qualms and adds instead a dark delight in
that which I shall do!"

She turned toward Masanath, walking swiftly. The fan-b