“I pray you, my Uncle,” interrupted Tua, “correct your words, which should begin ‘A burning love of your most excellent Majesty’s throne and power move me,’ and so on.”
Now Abi frowned while everyone else smiled, not excepting Pharaoh and the astrologer, Kaku. Again he began his speech, but so confusedly that presently Tua stopped him for the second time, saying:
“I am not deaf, most noble prince, my Uncle. I heard the words you used to Pharaoh, and even understood their import. In fact, I have already consulted our councillor here, a learned master of the law, as to the legality of such an alliance as you propose, and he gives his judgment against it.”
Now Abi glared at the Councillor, a humble, dusty old man who spent all his life among rolls and chronicles.
“May it please your Majesty,” this lawyer exclaimed in a thin agitated voice, “I only said there was no record of such a marriage that I can remember, though once I think a queen adopted a nephew, who afterwards became Pharaoh.”
“It is the same thing, Friend,” replied Tua sweetly, “for that of which there is no record in the long history of Egypt must of necessity be illegal. Still, if my uncle here wishes to adopt me, I thank him, though his lawful heirs may not, and the matter is one that can be considered.”
Now, guessing that he was being played with, Abi grew angry.
“I have put a plain question to your Majesty,” he said, “and perhaps I am worthy of a plain answer. As all men know, O Queen, it is time that you should be wed, and I offer myself as your husband. It is true that I am somewhat older than you are——”
“In what year was the Prince Abi born, the same as yourself, did you say?” asked Tua in an audible aside of the aged and learned Councillor, who thereon vanished behind the throne, and was seen no more.
“But,” went on Abi, taking no notice of this interruption, “on the other hand I have much to offer. I rule here, your Majesties, who am also of the royal blood, and there is some disaffection in the North, especially among the great Bedouin tribes of the Desert who watch the frontier of the Kingdom. Now if this alliance comes about, and in days to be I sit upon the double throne as King-Consort of Egypt, they will be loyal, and north and south will be united more closely than they ever were before. Whereas if it does not come about——” Here Kaku, pretending to brush a fly from his face, caught his hand in Abi’s robe, a signal at which his master paused.