Glorious she looked indeed, a figure of flame set in the midst of darkness.  The royal robe she wore glittered in the sunlight, glittered her sceptre, her jewels, and the uraei on her Double Crown, but more than all of them glittered her fierce and splendid eyes.  Indeed, there was something so terrible in those eyes that the beholders who discovered them thus suddenly, shrank back, whispering to each other that here sat a goddess, not a woman.  For in her calmness, her proud beauty and her silence, she seemed like an immortal, one victorious who had triumphed over death, not a woman who for seven days had starved within a tower.

They shrank back, they huddled themselves together in the doorway, and there remained whispering till the growing light fell on them also.  But the figure on the throne took no heed, only stared over their heads as though it were lost in mystery and thought.

At length Kaku, gathering courage, said to Abi: 

“O Prince, there is your bride, such a bride as never man had before.  Go now and take her,” and all the others echoed: 

“Go now, O Prince, and take her.”

Thus adjured for very shame’s sake Abi advanced, looking often behind him, till he came to the foot of the throne, and stood there bowing.

For a long while he stood bowing thus, till he grew weary indeed, for he knew not what to say.  Then suddenly a clear and silvery voice spoke above him, asking: 

“What do you here, Lord of Memphis?  Why are you not in the cell where Pharaoh bound you?  Oh!  I remember—­the footstool-bearer, Merytra, your paid spy, let you out, did she not?  Why is she not here with Kaku the Sorcerer, who fashioned the enchanted image that did Pharaoh to death?  Is it because she stays to doctor those false lips of hers that were cut last night before you went to ask yonder Kaku to interpret a certain dream which came to you?”

“How did you learn these things?  Have you spies in my palace, O Queen?”

“Yes, my uncle, I have spies in your palace and everywhere.  What Amen sees his daughter knows.  Now you have come to lead me away to be your wife, have you not?  Well, I await you, I am ready.  Do it if you dare!”

“If I dare?  Why should I not dare, O Queen?” asked Abi in a doubtful voice.

“Surely that question is one for you to answer, Count of Memphis and its subject nomes.  Yet tell me this—­why did the magic crystal burst asunder without cause in the chamber of Kaku last night, and why do you suppose that Kaku interpreted to you all the meaning of your dream—­he who will never tell the truth unless it be beneath the rods?”

“I do not know, Queen,” answered Abi, “but with Kaku I can speak later, if need be after the fashion you suggest,” and he glanced at the magician wrathfully.