Queen of the Dawn: A Love Tale of Old Egypt

by H. Rider Haggard

“Had it not been for you, it might have been worse,” answered Nefra. “Still, I have learned my lesson. Set me down now, O most dear Ru, for my breath has returned to me.”

When presently all this tale was told to Kemmah and to the Council of the Order, fear and dismay took hold of them; even Tau the Wise was dismayed. Only Roy the Prophet remained undisturbed.

“The maid will take no harm,” he said. “I know it from those who cannot lie, and therefore it is that I have permitted her to follow her fancy as to the climbing of the pyramids, for it is ill to cross or to coop up such a one as she, as it is good that she should learn to look upon the face of dangers and to overcome them. Still, doubtless this is the beginning of perils and henceforward we must be upon our guard.”

Then he sent out men to bring in the dead whom Ru had slain and to search for the wounded man and, if he could be found, to capture him alive. This, however, did not happen, for when the light came again of that man there remained only certain bloodstains upon the sand which after a while were lost, showing that he had been able to staunch his hurt, and, by walking upon stones, to leave no tracks behind him.

The dead, however, told their own story, for they were of the Shepherd race and two of them wore garments such as were used in the Court of King Apepi. The third, it would seem, was a guide, though of what people could not be known, seeing that it was on his head that the axe of Ru had fallen, and who could tell aught of whence he came upon whose head the axe of Ru had fallen?

So the bodies of those woman-thieves were thrown to the jackals and the vultures, that their Kas might find nothing to inhabit, and their souls with all solemnity were accursed by Roy in a Chapter of the Order, that from age to age they might find no rest because of their double crime. For had they not violated the pact of generations and entered the Holy Ground which was the home of the consecrated Order of the Dawn, and there striven to steal away or perchance to murder a certain lady who in the world without was not known by any name?

There the matter ended for a space, except that at dawn or sunset Nefra was no longer seen standing upon the crests of pyramids.

Yet some while later a sick and sorry man with a bandaged back, who from time to time coughed up blood as though from a pierced lung, staggered into the Court at Tanis, where his face was known, and being admitted, told his tale to a great officer, who listened to it wrathfully and commanded a scribe to write it down word for word. When it was finished that officer cursed this man because he had failed in his mission.

“Is that my fault?” asked the man. “Was it right to send those who are born of women to capture a spirit or a witch?—since no maid in whom warm blood flows can run up and down pyramids faced with smooth and shining stone, as flies run up and down a wall, which we saw this one do. Is it right to expect them to fight and overcome a black devil from the Underworld, larger than any who walks the earth, whose voice is the voice of a lion and whose hands can crush skulls as though they were pomegranates? Is it right to command them to enter a haunted place peopled by gods and wizards and the ghosts of the dead? A fool was I to listen to you and your promises of great reward, and fools were my companions, as doubtless they think in the Underworld to-day, for who is there in Egypt that does not know that to violate the Holy Ground of the Order of the Dawn is to court death and damnation? Now give me my price that I may divide it among my children.”

“Your price!” gasped the high officer. “Were you not wounded, it should be rods. Go, dog, go!”