shoulder, I saw the painted or enamelled eyes in the
gilded mask staring at me. The thing filled me with fear, I knew not
of what. Not of death, surely, for that I had faced a score of times of
late and thought nothing of it. Indeed I am not sure that it was fear I
felt, but rather a deep sense of the vanity of all things. It seemed
to come home to me--Shabaka or Allan Quatermain, for in my dream the
inspiration or whatever it might be, struck through the spirit that
animated both of us--as it had never done before, that everything is
_nothing_, that victory and love and even life itself have no meaning;
that naught really exists save the soul of man and God, of whom
perchance that soul is a part sent forth for a while to do His work
through good and ill. The thought lifted me up and yet crushed me,
since for a moment all that makes a man passed away, and I felt myself
standing in utter loneliness, naked before the glory of God, watched
only by the flaming stars that light his throne. Yes, and at that moment
suddenly I learned that all the gods are but one God, having many shapes
and called by many names.

Then I heard the priests saying,

"Pharaoh the Osiris greets Pharaoh the living on the Earth and sends to
him this message--'As I am, so shalt thou be, and where I am, there thou
shalt dwell through all the ages of Eternity.'"

Then Pharaoh the living rose and bowed to Pharaoh the dead and Pharaoh
the dead was taken away back to his Eternal House and I wondered whether
his Ka or his spirit, or whatever is the part of him that lives on, were
watching us and remembering the feasts whereof he had partaken in his
pomp in this pillared hall, as his forefathers had done before him for
hundreds or thousands of years.

Not until the mummy had gone and the last sound of the chanting of the
priests had died, did the hearts of the feasters grow light again. But
soon they forgot, as men alive always forget death and those whom Time
has devoured, for the wine was good and strong and the eyes of the women
were bright and victory had crowned our spears, and for a while Egypt
was once more free.

So it went on till Pharaoh rose and departed, the great gold earrings
in his ears jingling as he walked, and the trumpets sounding before and
after him. I too rose to go with my mother when a messenger came and
bade me wait upon Pharaoh, and with me the dwarf Bes. So we went,
leaving an officer to conduct my mother to our home. As I pa