“‘Nay, Rei, I will none of him—the dull clod, who is called the son of Pharaoh. Moreover, he is my half-brother, and it is not meet that I should wed my brother. For nature cries aloud against the custom of the land.’
“‘Nevertheless, Lady, it is the custom of thy Royal house, and thy father’s will. Thus the Gods, thine ancestors, were wed; Isis to Osiris. Thus great Thothmes and Amenemhat did and decreed, and all their forefathers and all their seed. Oh, bethink thee—I speak it for thine ear, for I love thee as mine own daughter—bethink thee, for thou canst not escape, that Pharaoh’s bed is the step to Pharaoh’s throne. Thou lovest power; here is the gate of power, and mayhap upon a time the master of the gate shall be gone and thou shalt sit in the gate alone.’
“‘Ah, Rei, now thou speakest like the counsellor of those who would be kings. Oh, did I not hate him with this hatred! And yet can I rule him. Why, ’twas no chance game that we played this night: the future lay upon the board. See, his diadem is upon my brow! At first he won, for I chose that he should win. Well, so mayhap it shall be; mayhap I shall give myself to him—hating him the while. And then the next game; that shall be for life and love and all things dear, and I shall win it, and mine shall be the uraeus crest, and mine shall be the double crown of ancient Khem, and I shall rule like Hatshepu, the great Queen of old, for I am strong, and to the strong is victory.’
“‘Yes,’ I made answer, ‘but, Lady, see thou that the Gods turn not thy strength to weakness; thou art too passionate to be all strength, and in a woman’s heart passion is the door by which King Folly enters. To-day thou hatest, beware, lest to-morrow thou should’st love.’
“‘Love,’ she said, gazing scornfully; ‘Meriamun loves not till she find a man worthy of her love.’
“‘Ay, and then——?’
“‘And then she loves to all destruction, and woe to them who cross her path. Rei, farewell.’
“Then suddenly she spoke to me in another tongue, that few know save her and me, and that none can read save her and me, a dead tongue of a dead people, the people of that ancient City of the Rock, whence all our fathers came.[*]
[*] Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. “The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.” A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another indecipherable ancient writing. “Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.” Birch, Zeitschrift, 1871, pp. 61-64. Papyrus Anastasi I, pl. X. 1. 8, pl. X. 1. 4. Maspero, Hist. Anc., pp. 66-67.
“‘I go,’ she said, and I trembled as she spoke, for no man speaks in this language when he has any good thought in his heart. ‘I go to seek the counsel of That thou knowest,’ and she touched the golden snake which she had won.