“It will be satisfied presently, old chap, when all these pageants, processions and welcomes are over and I can set to work to guide the destinies of these picturesque people, and gradually teach them the mysteries of an outer world. And when they have begun to understand, and my influence over them is absolutely established, then I can begin to destroy and pierce through those insurmountable barriers which divide them from Europe and modern civilisation. Then gradually we shall see my picturesque subjects take to wearing top hats and patent leather boots, and Queen Maat-kha look superb in a Paris gown. We shall build railways from Men-ne-fer to Tanis, and steamboats will ply the canals. There is plenty to dream of, old friend, never fear. My life will lack no excitement from now till its close, and there will be no room in it for sentiment or happiness.”
We had reached one end of the terrace, and close to us we saw the daïs, where I had left the Pharaoh asleep an hour before, with his young cousin softly cooing to him like a pigeon, and fanning his forehead gently with a large palm leaf. They neither of them heard our footsteps, and we both stopped with the same instinct of curiosity watching the strangely ill-assorted pair. The Pharaoh was awake and speaking, but some inward emotion had made his deepset eyes glow with unnatural brilliancy and taken every drop of blood from out his cheeks and lips. His mouth seemed parched, and his throat half choked as he spoke, while she, a radiant picture of youth and beauty, with fresh colour in her cheeks, a wondering look in her blue eyes, looked like a nymph beside a satyr.
“I do not often dream, Neit-akrit,” the Pharaoh was saying, “when thou sittest by my side. I think Anubis chases dreams away and renders my sleep as refreshing as death. But just now I had a dream.”
“Wilt tell me, cousin?”
“I dreamt, Neit-akrit, that I stood within the sacred temple of Isis, at Tanis. All round me the incense rose in great and dense clouds, so that I could not distinguish my people, but only dimly saw Ur-tasen, the high priest, with his shaven crown, robed in his most gorgeous garments, standing before me, with arms outstretched, as if pronouncing a blessing.”
“He blessed thee, Pharaoh, no doubt, for some great good thou hadst done to thy people, now that health is once again restored to thee.”
“So I thought at first, Neit-akrit, in my dream,” he replied, bending his head closer to her, “but soon Ur-tasen came up to me and whispered something which made my pulses thrill with a joy that almost made me faint. Ur-tasen had whispered that I should take thy hand.”
She turned her head away from him, and from where I stood I could see that every vestige of colour had left her cheeks, and that her lips were trembling and absolutely bloodless. I thought that we had no right to stand where we did, or to listen any longer to a conversation which was evidently drifting into very intimate channels, and I had just turned to go, when something in Hugh’s face made me stop. He, too, was gazing at the picture before us of the young girl and the sick, almost dying man, but in his eyes there was an expression I could not define.
“At first,” resumed the Pharaoh, in the same harsh, trembling voice, “I hardly dared to obey Ur-tasen. That I should take thy hand, at the foot of the throne of Isis, before all my people assembled there, seemed to me a joy so great that death would be easier to bear than the agony of so wild a happiness. But Ur-tasen waited, and I turned my head, and thou, Neit-akrit, wert standing by my side. Thy head, with its ruddy tresses, was hidden beneath the diadem which belongs to the rulers of Kamt, and from it down to thy tiny feet thou wast covered with a golden veil, through which I, in my dream, could see gleaming visions of thy blue eyes, which made me swoon with delight. Then Ur-tasen whispered again, and I took thy hand in mine, at the foot of the throne of Isis, before all my people assembled there… for they had come to see the mighty Pharaoh take Neit-akrit… as his wife.”
His voice broke almost into a sob, he had glided down from the couch on to his knees, and was lying half-fainting with the emotion which, weak as he was, was overmastering him, while his arms tremblingly sought to clasp the young girl. She was as pale as death. Her blue eyes stared at him, strangely terrified, with a look which, to me, seemed almost like loathing. But he could not see. His eyes were half closed. I am sure he was not conscious of his acts: his hands, trembling and clawlike, wandered round her shoulders and her waist, while he murmured more and more inarticulately: