“Not quite,” he replied with sudden vehemence, coming a step or two closer to her, “not quite, for that evil hand which, with arrogant pride, will snatch the kingdom of Kamt from my dying grasp hath already taken from me the priceless treasure which was the only joy of my life.”
“I do not understand.”
“He came,” hissed the sick man close to her ear, “and with one look, one word, won that which I would have given my double crown, my life, my honour to possess.”
“Dost mean the love of thy people?”
“No! the love of Neit-akrit.”
Queen Maat-kha shrugged her shoulders and laughed a low, derisive laugh.
“ ’Twere better thou didst go back to thy sick-bed, oh, mighty Pharaoh! and didst take some of the soothing potions thy medicine men do order thee. Thy mind doth indeed begin to wander. Love! and Neit-akrit!… was there ever a more impossible union? Why, ’twere easier to credit the jackals of the wilderness with pity for the corpses they devour than Neit-akrit with human love!”
“Were it easier too,” sneered the Pharaoh, “to credit the son of Ra with love for Neit-akrit?”
But Maat-kha turned upon her son as if she had been stung.
“Beware, oh, most holy Pharaoh!” she whispered between her clenched teeth, “beware of the might of the gods, and rouse not the dormant passions in a woman’s heart.”