“An ill tale, Queen,” said Rei.
“Ay, an ill tale, Rei, but half untold. Hearken again, I will tell thee all. Madness hath entered into me from the Hathor of Atarhechis, the Queen of Desire. I am mad with love, even I who never loved. Oh, Rei! Rei! I would win this man. Nay, look not so sternly on me, it is Fate that drives me on. Last night I spoke to him and discovered to him the name he hides from us, his own name, Odysseus, Laertes’ son, Odysseus of Ithaca. Ay, thou startest, but so it is. I learned it by my magic, and wrung the truth even from the guile of the most crafty of men. But it seemed to me that he turned from me, though this much I won from him, that he had journeyed from far to seek me, the Bride that the Gods have promised him.”
The priest leaped up from his seat. “Lady!” he cried, “Lady! whom I serve and whom I have loved from a child, thy brain is sick, and not thy heart. Thou canst not love him. Dost thou not remember that thou art Queen of Khem and Pharaoh’s wife? Wilt thou throw thy honour in the mire to be trampled by a wandering stranger?”
“Ay,” she answered, “I am Queen of Khem and Pharaoh’s wife, but never Pharaoh’s love. Honour! Why dost thou prate to me of honour? Like Nile in flood, my love hath burst the bulwark of my honour, and I mark not where custom set it. For all around the waters seethe and foam, and on them, like a broken lily, floats the wreck of my lost honour. Talk not to me of honour, Rei, teach me rather how I may win my hero to my arms.”
“Thou art mad indeed,” he groaned; “nevertheless—I had forgotten—this must needs end in words and tears. Meriamun, I bring thee tidings. He whom thou desireth is lost to thee for ever—to thee and all the world.”
She heard, then sprang from the couch and stood over him like a lioness over a smitten stag, her fierce and lovely face alive with rage and fear.
“Is he dead?” she hissed in his ear. “Dead! and I knew it not? Then thou hast murdered him, and thus I avenge his murder.”
With the word she snatched a dagger from her girdle—that same dagger with which she had once struck at Meneptah her brother, when he would have kissed her—and high it flashed above Rei the Priest.
“Nay,” she went on, letting the knife fall; “after another fashion shalt thou die—more slowly, Rei, yes, more slowly. Thou knowest the torment of the palm-tree? By that thou shalt die!” She paused, and stood above him with quivering limbs, and breast that heaved, and eyes that flashed like stars.
“Stay! stay!” he cried. “It is not I who have slain this Wanderer, if he indeed is dead, but his own folly. For he is gone up to look upon the Strange Hathor, and those who look upon the Hathor do battle with the Unseen Swords, and those who do battle with the Unseen Swords must lie in the baths of bronze and seek the Under World.”