“Aye, Prince, and the King her father’s ring before her, that which was taken from his finger by the embalmers after the battle, and his father’s before him, and so on back and back for ages. Look, on it is cut the name of Khafra whose tomb I think you saw the other night, though if he ever wore it I cannot tell. At least it has descended through countless generations from Pharaoh to Pharaoh, and now it seems must pass as a love gift to one who is not Pharaoh but yet is charged to wear it as though he were.”
“As perchance he may be yet, by right of another, Lady Kemmah, though the matter does not trouble him overmuch,” answered Khian, smiling.
Then he took the ancient hallowed thing and, having touched it with his lips, set it on a finger of his right hand that it fitted well, removing thence, to make place for it, another ring on which was engraved a crowned and lion-headed sphinx, the symbol of his house.
“A gift for a gift,” he said. “Take this to the Lady Nefra and bid her wear it in token that all I have is hers, as I will wear that she sends to me. Say to her also that on the day when we are wed each shall return to the other that ring which belonged to each and with it all of which it is the symbol.”
So Kemmah took the ring and as she hid it away there came that Captain of the Guard who had accompanied him from Tanis.
“Welcome, my Lord Rasa, who I rejoice to see have not fallen a victim to the Spirit of the Pyramids of which we talked when we parted here some five and thirty days ago, or was it more? for time passes quickly in yonder gay city of Memphis. You seem to have found strange company in this holy haunted land,” and he glanced with awe at the ebon form of the giant Ru who stood by leaning on his great axe, and at the white-veiled, stately Lady Kemmah who stood near him. “You look thin and changed, too, as though you had been keeping company with ghosts. Well, the steersman says that if you are ready, my Lord Rasa, he desires to sail before the wind changes, or because the sailors are afraid of this place, or for both reasons. So if it pleases you, come.”
“I am ready,” answered Khian, and while Kemmah bowed to him and Ru saluted him with the axe in farewell, he turned and went to the river bank where the sailors bore him through the shallow water to the ship. Presently he was far out upon the Nile, watching the palm-grove, where first he had met Nefra, fade in the gathering gloom. Still there he sat upon the deck till the great moon rose shining upon the pyramids, and thinking of all the wondrous things that had befallen him in their shadow, until these at last grew dim and vanished, leaving him wondering, like one who awakens from a dream.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Sentence of Pharaoh
Khian came to Tanis safely, landing at dawn. Having reached the palace, he went to his private chambers and, putting off his scribe’s attire, clothed himself in the robes of his rank. As soon as men began to stir he reported his arrival through an officer to the Vizier, and waited.
From the window-place of his chamber he saw that troops were moving on the plain beneath, also that many vessels flying the royal banner were unmooring from the quays and sailing away up Nile. While he marvelled what this might mean, the cunning-faced old Vizier, Anath, came and welcomed him with bows.