“Whither goest thou, Rei?” she asked, “and why is thy face so sad?”
“I go about my business, Queen,” he answered, “and I am sad because no tidings come of Pharaoh, nor of how it has fared with him and the host of the Apura.”
“Perchance thou speakest truth, and yet not all the truth,” she answered. “Enter, I would have speech with thee.”
So he entered, and at her command seated himself before her in the very seat where the Wanderer had sat. Now, as he sat thus, of a sudden Meriamun the Queen slid to her knees before him, and tears were in her eyes and her breast was shaken with sobs. And while he wondered, thinking that she wept at last for her son who was dead among the firstborn, she hid her face in her hands upon his knees, and trembled.
“What ails thee, Queen, my fosterling?” he said. But she only took his hand, and laid her own in it, and the old priest’s eyes were dim with tears. So she sat for awhile, and then she looked up, but still she did not find words. And he caressed the beautiful Imperial head, that no man had seen bowed before. “What is it, my daughter?” he said, and she answered at last:
“Hear me, old friend, who art my only friend—for if I speak not my heart will surely burst; or if it break not, my brain will burn and I shall be no more a Queen but a living darkness, where vapours creep, and wandering lights shine faintly on the ruin of my mind. Mindest thou that hour—it was the night after the hateful night that saw me Pharaoh’s wife—when I crept to thee and told thee the vision that had come upon my soul, had come to mock me even at Pharaoh’s side?”
“I mind it well,” said Rei; “it was a strange vision, nor might my wisdom interpret it.”
“And mindest thou what I told thee of the man of my vision—the glorious man whom I must love, he who was clad in golden armour and wore a golden helm wherein a spear-point of bronze stood fast?”
“Yes, I mind it,” said Rei.
“And how is that man named?” she asked, whispering and staring on him with wide eyes. “Is he not named Eperitus, the Wanderer? And hath he not come hither, the spear-point in his helm? And is not the hand of Fate upon me, Meriamun? Hearken, Rei, hearken! I love him as it was fated I should love. When first I looked on him as he came up the Hall of Audience in his glory, I knew him. I knew him for that man who shares the curse laid aforetime on him, and on the woman, and on me, when, in an unknown place, twain became three and were doomed to strive from life to life and work each other’s woe upon the earth. I knew him, Rei, though he knew me not, and I say that my soul shook at the echo of his step, and my heart blossomed as the black earth blossoms when after flood Sihor seeks his banks again. A glory came upon me, Rei, and I looked back through all the mists of time and knew him for my love, and I looked forward into the depths of time to be and knew him for my love. Then I looked on the present hour, and naught could I see but darkness, and naught could I hear but the groans of dying men, and a shrill sound as of a woman singing.”