The physician did so, and said:
“It beats more strongly. Trouble not, Lady. I believe that he will recover.”
“Pray that he does, all of you,” went on the woman’s voice, in which now was hope mingled with anger. “Ill did you pyramid-climbers guard him who tangled the rope about his feet. As for you, Ru, was not your great strength enough to hold so light a weight falling from but a little height?”
“It seems not, Lady,” answered the deep voice of Ru, “seeing that this light weight of his knocked me down and the Sheik with me, and almost tore my arm out of its socket. Full forty feet he came like a stone from a sling.”
At this moment Khian opened his lips and very faintly asked for water. It was brought to him. A soft hand lifted his head, a vase was held to his lips. He drank, sighed, and swooned again.
Once more he awoke or was awakened by the sharp pain that seemed to stab his head from side to side. Now he could open his eyes and, looking about him, saw that he was back in his chamber at the temple, for upon a stool lay possessions of his own. At the foot of the couch a curtain had been drawn and beyond the curtain he heard two women talking.
“How goes he, Kemmah? Has he awakened?” asked a sweet voice that he knew again, for it was the voice of the guide who had led him from the palm grove, the voice, too, of her whom he had seen crowned as Queen of Egypt.
Khian strove to lift his head, to look past the end of the curtain, but could not because his neck was stiff as a stone; so he lay still and listened, his heart beating for joy because this fair, royal lady had been at the pains to visit him that she might learn his state.
“Not yet, child,” answered the Lady Kemmah, “though it is true that it is time he did. The learned leech, our brother, said that he can find no great hurt and that he should wake within twelve hours, but twenty have gone by and still he sleeps—or swoons.”
“Oh! Kemmah, do you think that he will die?” asked Nefra in tones that were full of fear.