“Why is it wise, Rames?”
“Because, Lady, I can protect you. You know the sentence that goes out against those who break the rule of Isis. I say that it is already uttered against you. I say that those bigots seek to murder you. But if you take me as husband, then we will be beforehand with them and kill or drive them away. Yea, now that you are lonely and deserted, I shall be your sure shield.”
I heard and laughed aloud, and I think that this madman interpreted that laugh in a strange fashion. At least he threw himself upon me. He seized my hand and lifted it toward his lips, though by those lips it was never touched. For now rage took hold of me, such rage as had possessed my soul in the cave of the Fire of Life; rage and the desire of destruction, that with other evil gifts had come to me in the breath of the Fire.
“Accursed one!” I cried, “vile and insolent thief! Do you dare to touch me with your hand? Away with you to Set! Let the world know you no more!”
As the words passed my lips it seemed to me that from some strength within a withering flame leapt out of me and smote that man as the lightning smites. At the least he lifted his hands to his head; he reeled back, he fell, he groaned—he died.
Looking at him lying there in the moonlight, still and bereft of life, at the last I came to know full surely that henceforward I could slay with a thought, that I was the Lady of Death, and that such wrath as others express in words went forth from me with all the might of Heaven; moreover, that now this wrath rose suddenly and swiftly in me, easy to unchain, hard to hold. Yea, I was both a fury and a terror whom no man might cross or vex if he would continue to look upon the sun.
Philo came. He stared at me and at the dead Rames, then questioned me with his eyes.
“He would have laid hands on me, Philo, and I slew him,” I said.
“Then what he has earned, he has been paid,” answered Philo. “Yet, Queen, how did you slay him? I see no bruise or wound.”
“By a power that has come to me, Philo. I desired him dead and he died. That is all the tale.”