The face of Meriamun grew white at this word, as the alabaster of the walls, and she cried aloud with a great cry. Then she sank upon the couch, pressing her hand to her brow and moaning:
“How may I save him? How may I save him from that accursed witch? Alas! It is too late—but at least I will know his end, ay, and hear of the beauty of her who slays him. Rei,” she whispered, not in the speech of Khem, but in the dead tongue of a dead people, “be not wrath with me. Oh, have pity on my weakness. Thou knowest of the Putting-forth of the Spirit—is it not so?”
“I am instructed,” he answered, in the same speech; “’twas I who taught thee this art, I, and that Ancient Evil which is thine.”
“True—it was thou, Rei. Thou hast ever loved me, so thou swearest, and many a deed of dread have we dared together. Lend me thy Spirit, Rei, that I may send it forth to the Temple of the False Hathor, and learn what passes in the temple, and of the death of him—whom I must love.”
“An ill deed, Meriamun, and a fearful,” he answered, “for there shall my Spirit meet them who watch the gates, and who knows what may chance when the bodiless one that yet hath earthly life meets the bodiless ones who live no more on earth?”
“Yet wilt thou dare it, Rei, for love of me, as being instructed thou alone canst do,” she pleaded.
“Never have I refused thee aught, Meriamun, nor will I say thee nay. This only I ask of thee—that if my Spirit comes back no more, thou wilt bury me in that tomb which I have made ready by Thebes, and if it may be, by thy strength of magic wring me from the power of the strange Wardens. I am prepared—thou knowest the spell—say it.”
He sank back in the carven couch, and looked upwards. Then Meriamun drew near to him, gazed into his eyes and whispered in his ear in that dead tongue she knew. And as she whispered the face of Rei grew like the face of one dead. She drew back and spoke aloud:
“Art thou loosed, Spirit of Rei?”
Then the lips of Rei answered her, saying: “I am loosed, Meriamun. Whither shall I go?”