Then the curtain fell behind him.

Crushed and stunned with despair and horror, she made her way to her apartments in a mist of tears.

There was no help for the beloved Rachel or for the young lover. All whom she might ask to approach the king in their favor were helpless or prejudiced. Seti was disgraced; the queen, useless; Hotep, already too imminently imperiled; Rameses, Har-hat, against the lovers; and the king--the poor, feeble king, hopelessly beyond any appeal that she might direct to him.

A sorry resolve shaped itself in her mind. To-morrow at dawn she also would put forth searchers, and finding Rachel, send her out of Egypt, and Kenkenes after her.

CHAPTER XL

THE FIRST-BORN

At the door of her apartments Masanath was met by the faithful Nari, who drew her within and showed her triumphantly that the usurping ladies-in-waiting had departed. The unhappy girl was grateful for the change. The relief for her sorrow was its expression, and she dreaded the restraint put upon her by the presence of discerning and unfamiliar eyes.

All desire for sleep had left her. Nari, weary and heavy-headed, begged her to retire, but she would not. So at last the waiting woman, at her mistress' command, lay down and slept.

The apartment consisted of two chambers running the width of the palace. The outer chamber had a window opening on the streets of Tanis, the inner looked into the palace courtyard.

Masanath wrapped a woolen mantle about her and sat at the window overlooking the park.

Without was the wide hollow, walled by the many-galleried stories of the king's house. Below a fountain of running water, issuing from an ibis-bill of bronze, and falling into a pool, purled and splashed and talked on and on to itself.

Above, the mighty constellations were dropping slowly down the west.

The wild north wind from the sea strove against her cheek. The G.o.ds were too absorbed in great things, the shifting of the heavens, the flight of the wind and the rocking of the waters, to care for her great burden of trouble. Or, indeed, were they not prejudiced against her as all the world was? They had heard every prayer but hers. They had harkened to Rameses when he asked for her at their hands; they had harkened to her father and yielded him power at her sacrifice; they had even pitied Rachel; they had returned her love from Amenti, and yet had not Rachel reviled them? Nay, there was conspiracy laid against her by the Pantheon, and what had she done to deserve it?

In some one of the many windows that looked into the court another dragged at his chestnut locks and execrated G.o.ds and men because of their hardness of heart.

So the night wore on to its noon.

Masanath was becoming drowsy in spite of her determination to keep a sleepless vigil until dawn, when she was aroused by a commotion in the vicinity of the palace. There were indoor cries and shouts for help.

"A brawl," she thought. But the noise seemed to emerge into the street, and there came the sound of flying footsteps and frantic knocks upon doors without. The sound seemed to swell and spread abroad, widening and heightening. Wild shrieks and husky broken shouts swept up from all quarters of the town, and the whole air was full of a vast murmur of many voices, calling and wailing, excited, tremulous and full of fear.

Masanath pa.s.sed into the outer room to the window that looked upon the city.

Every house had a light, which flickered and appeared at this window and that, and the streets were full of flying messengers, who cried out as they ran. Now and then a chariot, drawn at full speed, dashed past, and by the fluttering robes of the occupants Masanath guessed them to be physicians. All Tanis was in uproar, and its alarm possessed her at once.

She turned to awaken Nari, when she heard inside the palace excited words and hurrying feet. Some one ran, barefoot, past her door, calling under his breath upon the G.o.ds. At that moment an incisive shriek cut the increasing murmur in the palace and died away in a long shuddering wail of grief.

"Awake, awake, Nari!" Masanath cried, shaking the sleeping woman.

"Something has befallen the city. It is in the palace and everywhere."

Meanwhile a chorus of screams smote upon her ears and the wild outcries of men filled the great palace with terrifying clamor.

Masanath, shaking with dread, wrung her hands and wept. Nari, stupid with fear, sat up and listened.

Presently some one came running and beat, with frenzied hands, upon the door.

"Open! Open! In the name of Osiris!" cried a voice which, though it quaked with consternation, Masanath recognized as her father's.

She flew to the door and wrenched it open. Har-hat, half-dressed, stood before it.

"Father, what manner of sending is this?" she cried.

"Death!" he panted. "Come with me!" He caught her arm and ran, dragging her after him down the corridor, half-lighted, but murmurous with sound.

"What is it, father?" she begged as he hurried her on.

"The G.o.ds only know. Rameses hath been smitten and is dying, or even now is dead!"

"Rameses!" she breathed in a terrified whisper. "Rameses! And an hour ago I talked with him--so strong, so resolute, so full of life--O Holy Isis!"

"It is a pestilence sent by Mesu. The whole city is afflicted. Ptah shield us!"

The hangings that covered the entrance to each suite of chambers had been thrown aside and the interiors were vacant. But the farther end of the hall was filled with terrified courtiers in all att.i.tudes and degrees of extravagant demonstration of grief. Men and women were fallen here and there on the pavement or supporting themselves by pillar and wall, wailing, tearing their hair, wounding their faces, rending their garments.

All the dwellers of the palace were flocked about the apartments of Rameses. From the entrance into these chambers issued sounds of the wildest nature. Masanath heard and attempted to draw away from the fan-bearer.

"Take me not into that awful place!" she pleaded. "How canst thou force me, my father!"

But Har-hat did not seem to hear and pushed his way, still dragging her through the crush of shaking attendants that crowded into the outer chambers.

The sleeping-room of the heir was the focal spot of violent sorrow.

The royal pair, the king's ministers, the immediate companions of Rameses, the high priest from the Rameside temple to Set at Tanis and a corps of leeches were present. The couch was surrounded.

Seti was not present, for only in the last moment had some one realized that the young prince should be brought. Hotep had gone to conduct him to the chamber.

The queen, inert and lifeless, lay on the floor at the foot of the prince's bed. Most of the physicians bent over her. Her women, chiefly the wives of the ministers, were hysterical and helpless.

But it was Meneptah who froze the hearts of his courtiers with horror.

Because of his obstinacy Egypt had gone down into famine, pestilence and destruction. Without more than ordinary concern he had watched the hand of the scourge pursue it into ruin till what time he should relent, and he had not relented.

But now that dread Hand had entered within the boundaries of his loves and had smitten Rameses, his heir, his idol!

The effect upon him was terrible. The death chamber rang like a torture dungeon. Nechutes and Menes, by united efforts, barely prevented him from doing self-murder. The earnest attempts of the priest to quiet him were totally useless. Nothing could have been more shocking.

The violent scene wrought Masanath's already over-strained nerves to the highest pitch of distress. The blood congealed in her veins and her steps lagged, but Har-hat, for some purpose not apparent to any who looked upon his daughter's anguish, drew her to the very side of the couch. The leeches, who had been vainly seeking for some flicker of life, stepped aside and the eyes of the cowering girl fell on the prince.

Rameses had seen the Hand that smote him.

The look on the frozen features completed the undoing of Masanath's self-control and she collapsed beside the bed, utterly prostrated.

Hotep entered with Seti. The boy prince's face was inflamed with much weeping, and he flung himself upon the cold clay of Rameses, forgetting wholly that the older brother had urged the pa.s.sage of a harsh sentence upon his young head.