“You will not leave me when they break, Asti?”

“I may not if I would.  The Fates have bound us together till the end, and that I think is far away.  I am yours as once you were mine when you lay upon my breast, but bid me no more to summon Amen from his throne.”

CHAPTER V

HOW RAMES FOUGHT THE PRINCE OF KESH

Now for a whole moon there were great festivals in Thebes, and in all of these Neter-Tua, “Glorious in Ra, Hathor Strong in Beauty, Morning Star of Amen,” must take her part as new-crowned Queen of Egypt.  Feast followed feast, and at each of them one of the suitors of her hand was the guest of honour.

Then after it was done, Pharaoh her father and his councillors would wait upon her and ask if this man was pleasing to her.  Being wise, Tua would give no direct answer, only of most of them she was rid in this way.

She demanded that the writing of the dream of her mother, Ahura, should be brought and read before her, and when it had been read she pointed out that Amen promised to her a royal lover, and that these chiefs and generals were not royal, therefore it was not of them that Amen spoke, nor did she dare to turn her eyes on one whom the god had forbidden to her.

Of others who declared that they were kings, but who, being unable to leave their countries, were represented by ambassadors, she said that not having seen them she could say nothing.  When they appeared at the Court of Egypt, she would consider them.

So at length only one suitor was left, the man whom she knew well Pharaoh and his councillors desired that she should take as husband.  This was Amathel, the Prince of Kesh, whose father, an aged king, ruled at Napata, a great city far to the south, situated in a land that was called an island because the river Nile embraced it in its two arms.  It was said that after Egypt this country was the richest in the whole world, for there gold was so plentiful that men thought it of less value than copper and iron; also there were mines in which beautiful stones were found, and the soil grew corn in abundance.

Moreover, once in the far past, a race of Pharaohs sprung from this city of Napata, had sat on the throne of Egypt, until at length the people of Egypt, headed by the priests, had risen and overthrown them because they were foreigners and had introduced Nubian customs into the land.  Therefore it was decreed by an unalterable law that none of their race should ever again wear the Double Crown.  Of the descendants of these Pharaohs, Rames, Tua’s playmate, was the last lawful child.

But although the Egyptians had cast them down, at heart they always grieved over the rich territory of Napata, which was lost to them, for when those Pharaohs fell Kesh declared itself independent and set up another dynasty to rule over it, of which dynasty Amathel Prince of Kesh was the heir.