"Yes, Ana, though were she to wed my cousin, Amenmeses, the son of Pharaoh's elder brother Khaemuas, she might still be a queen, if I chose to stand aside as I would not be loth to do."

"Would Egypt suffer this, Prince?"

"I do not know, nor does it matter since she hates Amenmeses, who is strong-willed and ambitious, and will have none of him. Also he is already married."

"Is there no other royal one whom she might take, Prince?"

"None. Moreover she wishes me alone."

"Why, Prince?"

"Because of ancient custom which she worships. Also because she knows me well and in her fashion is fond of me, whom she believes to be a gentle-minded dreamer that she can rule. Lastly, because I am the lawful heir to the Crown and without me to share it, she thinks that she would never be safe upon the Throne, especially if I should marry some other woman, of whom she would be jealous. It is the Throne she desires and would wed, not the Prince Seti, her half-brother, whom she takes with it to be in name her husband, as Pharaoh commands that she should do.

Love plays no part in Userti's breast, Ana, which makes her the more dangerous, since what she seeks with a cold heart of policy, that she will surely find."

"Then it would seem, Prince, that the cage is built about you. After all it is a very splendid cage and made of gold."

"Yes, Ana, yet not one in which I would live. Still, except by death how can I escape from the threefold chain of the will of Pharaoh, of Egypt, and of Userti? Oh!" he went on in a new voice, one that had in it both sorrow and pa.s.sion, "this is a matter in which I would have chosen for myself who in all others must be a servant. And I may not choose!"

"Is there perchance some other lady, Prince?"

"None! By Hathor, none--at least I think not. Yet I would have been free to search for such a one and take her when I found her, if she were but a fishergirl."

"The Kings of Egypt can have large households, Prince."

"I know it. Are there not still scores whom I should call aunt and uncle? I think that my grandsire, Rameses, blessed Egypt with quite three hundred children, and in so doing in a way was wise, since thus he might be sure that, while the world endures, in it will flow some the blood that once was his."

"Yet in life or death how will that help him, Prince? Some must beget the mult.i.tudes of the earth, what does it matter who these may have been?"

"Nothing at all, Ana, since by good or evil fortune they are born.

Therefore, why talk of large households? Though, like any man who can pay for it, Pharaoh may have a large household, I seek a queen who shall reign in my heart as well as on my throne, not a 'large household,' Ana.

Oh! I am weary. Pambasa, come hither and conduct my secretary, Ana, to the empty room that is next to my own, the painted chamber which looks toward the north, and bid my slaves attend to all his wants as they would to mine."

"Why did you tell me you were a scribe, my lord Ana?" asked Pambasa, as he led me to my beautiful sleeping-place.

"Because that is my trade, Chamberlain."

He looked at me, shaking his great head till the long white beard waved across his breast like a temple banner in the faint evening breeze, and answered:

"You are no scribe, you are a magician who can win the love and favour of his Highness in an hour which others cannot do between two risings of the Nile. Had you said so at once, you would have been differently treated yonder in the hall of waiting. Forgive me therefore what I did in ignorance, and, my lord, I pray it may please you not to melt away in the night, lest my feet should answer for it beneath the sticks."

It was the fourth hour from sunrise of the following day that, for the first time in my life I found myself in the Court of Pharaoh standing with other members of his household in the train of his Highness, the Prince Seti. It was a very great place, for Pharaoh sat in the judgment hall, whereof the roof is upheld by round and sculptured columns, between which were set statues of Pharaohs who had been. Save at the throne end of the hall, where the light flowed down through clerestories, the vast chamber was dim almost to darkness; at least so it seemed to me entering there out of the brilliant sunshine. Through this gloom many folk moved like shadows; captains, n.o.bles, and state officers who had been summoned to the Court, and among them white-robed and shaven priests. Also there were others of whom I took no count, such as Arab headmen from the desert, traders with jewels and other wares to sell, farmers and even peasants with pet.i.tions to present, lawyers and their clients, and I know not who besides, through which of all these none were suffered to advance beyond a certain mark where the light began to fall. Speaking in whispers all of these folk flitted to and fro like bats in a tomb.

We waited between two Hathor-headed pillars in one of the vestibules of the hall, the Prince Seti, who was clad in purple-broidered garments and wore upon his brow a fillet of gold from which rose the uraeus or hooded snake, also of gold, that royal ones alone might wear, leaning against the base of a statue, while the rest of us stood silent behind him.

For a time he was silent also, as a man might be whose thoughts were otherwhere. At length he turned and said to me:

"This is weary work. Would I had asked you to bring that new tale of yours, Scribe Ana, that we might have read it together."

"Shall I tell you the plot of it, Prince?"

"Yes. I mean, not now, lest I should forget my manners listening to you.

Look," and he pointed to a dark-browed, fierce-eyed man of middle age who pa.s.sed up the hall as though he did not see us, "there goes my cousin, Amenmeses. You know him, do you not?"

I shook my head.

"Then tell me what you think of him, at once before the first judgment fades."

"I think he is a royal-looking lord, obstinate in mind and strong in body, handsome too in his way."

"All can see that, Ana. What else?"

"I think," I said in a low voice so that none might overhear, "that his heart is as black as his brow; that he has grown wicked with jealousy and hate and will do you evil."

"Can a man grow wicked, Ana? Is he not as he was born till the end? I do not know, nor do you. Still you are right, he is jealous and will do me evil if it brings him good. But tell me, which of us will triumph at the last?"

While I hesitated what to answer I became aware that someone had joined us. Looking round I perceived a very ancient man clad in a white robe.

He was broad-faced and bald-headed, and his eyes burned beneath his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows like two coals in ashes. He supported himself on a staff of cedar-wood, gripping it with both hands that for thinness were like to those of a mummy. For a while he considered us both as though he were reading our souls, then said in a full and jovial voice:

"Greeting, Prince."

Seti turned, looked at him, and answered:

"Greeting, Bakenkhonsu. How comes it that you are still alive? When we parted at Thebes I made sure----"

"That on your return you would find me in my tomb. Not so, Prince, it is I who shall live to look upon you in your tomb, yes, and on others who are yet to sit in the seat of Pharaoh. Why not? Ho! ho! Why not, seeing that I am but a hundred and seven, I who remember the first Rameses and have played with his grandson, your grandsire, as a boy? Why should I not live, Prince, to nurse your grandson--if the G.o.ds should grant you one who as yet have neither wife nor child?"

"Because you will get tired of life, Bakenkhonsu, as I am already, and the G.o.ds will not be able to spare you much longer."

"The G.o.ds can endure yet a while without me, Prince, when so many are flocking to their table. Indeed it is their desire that one good priest should be left in Egypt. Ki the Magician told me so only this morning.

He had it straight from Heaven in a dream last night."

"Why have you been to visit Ki?" asked Seti, looking at him sharply. "I should have thought that being both of a trade you would have hated each other."

"Not so, Prince. On the contrary we add up each other's account; I mean, check and interpret each other's visions, with which we are both of us much troubled just now. Is that young man a scribe from Memphis?"

"Yes, and my friend. His grandsire was Pentaur the poet."

"Indeed. I knew Pentaur well. Often has he read me to sleep with his long poems, rank stuff that grew like coa.r.s.e gra.s.s upon a deep but half-drained soil. Are you sure, young man, that Pentaur was your grandfather? You are not like him. Quite a different kind of herbage, and you know that it is a matter upon which we must take a woman's word."

Seti burst out laughing and I looked at the old priest angrily, though now that I came to think of it my father always said that his mother was one of the biggest liars in Egypt.

"Well, let it be," went on Bakenkhonsu, "till we find out the truth before Thoth. Ki was speaking of you, young man. I did not pay much attention to him, but it was something about a sudden vow of friendship between you and the Prince here. There was a cup in the story too, an alabaster cup that seemed familiar to me. Ki said it was broken."

Seti started and I began angrily:

"What do you know of that cup? Where were you hid, O Priest?"