the thoughts that filled her mind during that
mad rush? She thought as little as thinks a dove, fluttering in the
talons of a hawk which is carrying it away to its eyrie. Mute terror
stupefied her, made her blood run cold and dulled her feelings. Her
limbs hung limp; her will was relaxed like her muscles, and, had she not
been held firmly in the arms of the Pharaoh, she would have slipped and
fallen in a heap on the bottom of the chariot like a piece of stuff
which is let drop. Twice she thought she felt upon her cheek a burning
breath and two lips of fire; she did not attempt to turn away her head,
terror had killed modesty in her. When the chariot struck violently
against a stone, a dim instinct of self-preservation made her cling with
her hands to the shoulder of the King and press closer to him; then she
let herself go again and leaned with her whole weight, light though it
was, upon those arms which held her.

The chariot entered the avenue of sphinxes, at the end of which rose a
giant pylon crowned with a cornice on which the symbolic globe displayed
its wings; the lessening darkness allowed the priest's daughter to
recognise the King's palace. Then despair filled her heart; she
struggled, she strove to free herself from the embrace which held her
close; she pressed her frail hands against the stony breast of the
Pharaoh, stiffened out her arms, throwing herself back over the edge of
the chariot. Her efforts were useless, her struggles were vain. Her
ravisher brought her back to his breast with an irresistible, slow
pressure, as if he would have driven her into it. She tried to scream;
her lips were closed with a kiss.

Meanwhile the horses in three or four strides reached the pylon, under
which they passed at full gallop, glad to return to the stable, and the
chariot rolled into the vast court. The servants hastened up and sprang
to the heads of the horses, whose bits were white with foam.

Tahoser cast a terrified glance around her. High brick walls formed a
vast square enclosure in which rose on the east a palace, on the west a
temple, between two great pools, the piscinae of the sacred crocodiles.
The first rays of the sun, the orb of which was already rising behind
the Arabian mountains, flushed with rosy light the top of the buildings,
the lower portions of which were still plunged in bluish shadows.

There was no hope of flight. The buildings, though in no wise gloomy,
had a look of irresistible strengt