So it happened that soon, had there been any to look over the wall of a certain courtyard of the palace, a strange sight might have been seen of a lissom maid clad in silver mail cutting and thrusting at a huge black giant, who often enough cried out beneath the smart of her blows, and once, stung beyond endurance, smote her so shrewdly on the helm with the flat of a wooden sword that she fell headlong to the ground, only to spring up again, while he stood dismayed, and deal him such a thrust beneath the breast bone, that his breath left him and he did likewise. Yes, there he lay, grunting out between his gasps:
“The gods help Apepi if this lion’s whelp gets him in her claws!” while she bade him be silent because by all the laws of swordsmanship he was dead.
At other times she would practise shooting with a bow, an art in which she had no small skill, or when she wearied of this, at the driving of chariots in the private circus of the palace, taking with her one of the slave women, a bold, desert-bred girl, for passenger, because Ru was too heavy and Kemmah said that she was mad and refused to come.
“So you thought when I began to climb the pyramids, yet they served me my turn, Nurse,” she answered, and went on driving more furiously than ever woman drove before.
Now when her grandsire, the old King Ditanah, heard of these things, he was amazed, and caused himself to be hidden in places whence he could watch her secretly at her warlike exercises. Having done so and listened to the tale of her conquest of the pyramids, he sent for Tau and said to him with a curious smile upon his puckered face:
“I think, Son Abeshu, that I should have given the command of my great army, not to you who, if once a great warrior, have become a priest, but to this granddaughter of mine who, if once a priestess, has become a goddess of war.”
“Nay, Sire,” answered Tau, “for if you gave her that army, you would never get it back again. Every man in it would learn to love her and she would use it to conquer the world.”
“Well, why not?” asked Ditanah, and hobbled away, thinking in his heart that if it had truly pleased the gods to take the Prince Khian to their bosom, so that Mir-bel might be recalled to Court, his tears would be hard to weep. For with such a beauteous and royal-hearted lady for its queen and that of Egypt, surely the glory of Babylon would fill earth and Heaven. Indeed—was it too late? Then he remembered that on this matter he had passed his royal word, sighed, and hobbled on.
These martial exercises served Nefra in two ways: they gave her back her health which she had begun to lose in the soft life of the Babylonian palace and they held her mind from brooding upon its fears—that is, while she was engaged in them. Yet at night these returned to her, nor indeed were they ever quite absent from her thoughts. She importuned Tau, and even her grandsire the King, who caused search to be made all along the Egyptian frontier of his empire. Messages came back from the searchers that no traces of fugitives could be found. But among them was another message, namely, that certain hills could not be approached because they were watched by horsemen of the army of Apepi. Inquiry was made as to these hills, and it was found that in a camp among them were stationed a company of Babylonian troops from which no reports had been received of late. Therefore, as often happened in so vast an empire, for a while this outpost had been forgotten by that general in whose command it lay, or if remembered at all, it was supposed to have been overwhelmed by rebellious, desert-dwelling tribes.
When Tau heard this news he went to the King his father and gained leave from him to send a hundred picked horsemen to disperse the outposts of Apepi and search those hills; also he set spies to work. But of this business he said nothing to Nefra, fearing lest he should fill her with false hope.