After the first spasm of terror, Masanath set her teeth and prepared to endure.  She was borne to the doors of the throne-room and two nobles gorgeously habited set the carved steps beside the litter for her feet.

Without hesitation she descended.

The great hall was ablaze with light and lined with courtiers.  The Pharaoh, with the queen by his side again, was in his place under the canopy.

How tiny the little bride seemed to those gathered to greet her!  In that vast chamber, with its remote ceiling, its majestic pillars, its distances and sonorous echoes, her littleness was pathetically accentuated.

Outside the shelter of her litter, she felt stripped of all protection.  She dared not look at the ranks of courtiers, lest her gaze fall on the fair face of the royal scribe.  She reminded Isis of her threat and moved into the open space, which extended down the center of the hall.

Har-hat, glittering with gems, and rustling in snow-white robes, approached with triumph in his face to embrace her.  But within three steps he paused as suddenly as though he had been commanded.  Masanath had not spoken, but her pretty chin had risen, her mouth curved haughtily, and the gaze she fixed upon him from under her lashes was cold and forbidding.

She extended the tips of her fingers to him.  The action clamored its meaning.  Not in the face of that assembly dared he disregard it, but his black eyes hardened and flashed threateningly.  The warning given, he bent his knee and kissed the proffered hand.  He had become the subject of his daughter.

She suffered him to lead her to the royal dais where she knelt.  The queen descended, raised her and led her to the throne.  Meneptah met them, kissed Masanath’s forehead, and blessed her.  The queen embraced her and returned to her place beside the Pharaoh.

Masanath turned to the right of the royal dais and faced the prince.  Thus far, her greetings had not been hard.  Now was the supreme test.  Har-hat conducted her within a few paces of the prince and stepped aside.  What followed was to prove Masanath’s willingness.

Rameses stood in the center of a slightly raised platform, which was carpeted with gold-edged purple.  Behind him was his great chair.  But for the badge of princehood, the fringed ribbon dependent from a gem-crusted annulet over each temple, his habiliments were the same as the Pharaoh’s.

Masanath gave him a single comprehensive glance.  She was to wed against her will, but she noted philosophically that she was to wed with no puppet, but a kingly king.  With all that, admitting herself a peer to this man, it wrenched her sorely to acknowledge subserviency to him.

Hope dead—­the hour of her trial at hand—­nothing was left to uphold her but the memory of the good she might do for Hotep.  Her face fell and she approached the prince with slow steps.  Within three paces of the platform she paused and sank to her knees.