"You must not call me Highness, Jenny," said her mistress, with a laugh. "I did not marry the Prince to-day. It was some one else he knew a long time ago. I have put her to bed in that splendid bridal chamber of his. She is waiting for him now."
"But I don't understand, Miss—I——"
"There is no need for you to understand, Jenny. Just be a good girl, and do as you're told. When we get back to England I will explain matters as far as I can."
Miss Jenny wisely decided to keep her thoughts to herself, and went on with her packing. Nitocris changed her bridal dress for her yachting costume, and lay down on the couch to await the progress of events.
Oscarovitch left the company in the dining-hall to their revel in about an hour's time, and went up to his fate in the bridal chamber. He knocked and opened the door softly: locked it, and went toward the bed. He leaned over it for a moment, and then a hoarse shriek of mingled rage and terror rang through the room. He flung the clothes off the bed. Where was the lovely bride he had wedded only a few hours before? What was this horrible thing lying where she should have been? Not Nitocris—and yet, it was Nitocris. Like a flash of lightning rending the darkness of the midnight heavens, the gap of oblivion between his lives was rent, and the light flamed into his soul. Phadrig had lied to him. The daughter of Rameses had not died that night in the banqueting chamber of the Palace of Pepi. She had lived and reigned virgin queen of the Sacred Land. Her body had been submitted to the hands of the paraschites and buried in the City of the Dead over against Memphis, on the eastward side of the river. And here was her mummy lying in his bridal bed, mocking him with its hideous, stony rigidity.
For a few terrible moments he stood staring at it, his clenched fists raised above his head. Then with another scream he cast himself upon it.
When they broke the door open, they found the man who in a few days would have been Emperor of the Russias and the East lying across the bed mowing and gibbering like a mad monkey, and scraping up handfuls of brown dust from the stained sheets.
Twenty-four hours later the Admiral in command of the British Special Squadron off Kronstadt saw the private signal flashed from the north-east. He was a very angry Admiral, for he had lost a brand-new cruiser and one of the smartest captains in the Service. But the signal spelt "Nitocris. All well. Coming alongside."
"All well, and be damned to you, Captain Merrill!" muttered the Admiral under his breath, when the signal was read to him. "This is a nice way to begin a new command. I've half a mind to put him under arrest: but he's a good man. I'd better hear what he has to say for himself first. I wonder what the deuce he's been doing with that cruiser since he took her away without leave? Well, here she is, I suppose."