“One must talk to one’s relations,” replied the Pharaoh.
“Quite so. But, you see, I have no relations—at least, none whom I know well. My parents, you will remember, died when I was young, leaving me Egypt’s heiress, and they are still vexed at the marriage which I made on the advice of my counsellors. But, is it not annoying? I have lost one of my rings, that which had the god Bes on it. Some dweller on the earth must be wearing it to-day, and that is why I cannot get it back from him.”
“Him! Why ‘him’? Hush; the business is about to begin.”
“What business, my lord?”
“Oh, the question of the violation of our tombs, I believe.”
“Indeed! That is a large subject, and not a very profitable one, I should say. Tell me, who is that?” And she pointed to a lady who had stepped forward, a very splendid person, magnificently arrayed.
“Cleopatra the Greek,” he answered, “the last of Egypt’s Sovereigns, one of the Ptolemys. You can always know her by that Roman who walks about after her.”
“Which?” asked Ma-Mee. “I see several—also other men. She was the wretch who rolled Egypt in the dirt and betrayed her. Oh, if it were not for the law of peace by which we must abide when we meet thus!”
“You mean that she would be torn to shreds, Ma-Mee, and her very soul scattered like the limbs of Osiris? Well, if it were not for that law of peace, so perhaps would many of us, for never have I heard a single king among these hundreds speak altogether well of those who went before or followed after him.”
“Especially of those who went before if they happen to have hammered out their cartouches and usurped their monuments,” said the queen, dryly, and looking him in the eyes.