h, of absolute will, of eternal
persistence: a world catastrophe alone could have opened an issue
through these thick walls, through these piles of hard sandstone. To
overthrow the pylons built of fragments of mountains, the earth itself
would have had to quake; even a conflagration could only have licked
with its fiery tongues those indestructible blocks.

Poor Tahoser did not have at her command such violent means, and she was
compelled to allow herself to be carried like a child by the Pharaoh,
who had sprung from his chariot.

Four high columns with palm-leaf capitals formed the propylaeum of the
palace into which the king entered, still pressing to his breast the
daughter of Petamounoph. When he had passed through the door, he gently
placed his burden on the ground, and seeing Tahoser stagger, he said to
her: "Be reassured. You rule the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh rules the
world."

These were the first words he had spoken to her.

If love followed the dictates of reason, Tahoser would certainly have
preferred the Pharaoh to Poeri. The King was endowed with supreme
beauty. His great, clean, regular features seemed to be chiselled, and
not the slightest imperfection could be detected in them. The habit of
command had given to his glance that penetrating gleam which makes
divinities and kings so easily recognisable. His lips, one word from
which would have changed the face of the world and the fate of nations,
were of a purple red, like fresh blood upon the blade of a sword, and
when he smiled, they possessed that grace of terrible things which
nothing can resist. His tall, well proportioned, majestic figure
presented the nobility of form admired in the temple statues; and when
he appeared solemn and radiant, covered with gold, enamels, and gems, in
the midst of the bluish vapour of the censers, he did not seem to belong
to that frail race which from generation to generation falls like
leaves, and is stretched, sticky with bitumen, in the dark depths of the
mummy pits.

What was poor Poeri by the side of this demigod? Nevertheless, Tahoser
loved him.

The wise have long since given up attempting to explain the heart of
woman. They are masters of astronomy, astrology, and arithmetic; they
know the origin of the world, and can tell where were the planets at the
very moment of creation; they are sure that the moon was then in the
constellation of Cancer, the sun in that of the Lion, Mercury in that of
the Virgin, V