THE ANCIENT WORLD SERIES - Complete Haggard Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

proposal which I could not help. Afterwards, as a private person I chanced to become attached to a certain lady who, if I had not lived, for reasons of her own would never have listened to the offer of your Majesty. That is all the tale."

      "That perhaps we shall know when you have ceased to live, Khian. Learn now how I will deal with these tomb rats of the pyramids who have defied and insulted me. I will send an army--already it is on its road --to knock them on the head, all of them. Only one will I spare--the Lady Nefra; not because she is born of a royal House, but because I have looked upon her and seen that she is beautiful, for, Khian, you are not the only man who can worship beauty. Therefore I will bring her here and make her mine, and for a marriage gift I will give her your head, Khian; yes, you, the traitor, shall die before her eyes."

      Now when they heard this decree the high officers who were named Companions of the King stared at each other dismayed, for never before had such a thing been told of, as that a Pharaoh of Egypt should kill his own son because both of them loved the same woman. Even Anath the Vizier started and paled; yet all that came from his lips was the ancient salutation:

      "Life! Health! Strength! Pharaoh's word is spoken, let Pharaoh's will be done!"

      As this hideous sentence fell upon his ears and a vision of all it meant rose before his eyes, for a moment Khian felt his heart stop and his knees tremble beneath him. He saw his Brethren of the Dawn slaughtered and lying in their blood wherever they were trapped in their hiding places. He saw the giant Nubian, Ru, overcome at last and falling dead upon a mat of foes that he had slain. He saw the Lady Kemmah butchered and Nefra seized and dragged a prisoner to Tanis, there to be wed by force to a man she loathed. He saw himself led out to death before her eyes and his gory head laid at her feet as an offering. All these things and others he saw with the eye of his mind and was afraid.

      Yet of a sudden that fear passed. It was as though a spirit spoke to his soul, the spirit of Roy, or so he thought, because for an instant he seemed to appear before him seated where Apepi sat, venerable, calm, and holy. Then he was gone, and with him went the terrors of Khian. Moreover, now he knew what to answer; the words welled up within him like water welling in a spring.

      "Pharaoh and my Father," he said in a bold, clear voice, "speak not so madly, for I say that you cannot do these things which you have decreed. Did not the Prophet of the Dawn repeat to you in his letter his answer to your threat? Did he not say that he had no fear of you and that should you attempt harm against the Brotherhood, every stone of the pyramids would lie lighter on your head than will the curse of Heaven which you would earn as a butcher and one forsworn? Did he not tell you that the Order of the Dawn marshalled hosts unseen and that with it goes the Strength of God? If not, I, your son, who am to-day a Brother of the Dawn and its consecrated priest, deliver to you this, his message. Try to do the wickedness that you have decreed, O Pharaoh, and speaking with the voice of the Order of the Dawn, as I am taught by the Spirit which it worships, I warn you that you will draw down upon yourself disaster and death on earth, and after you have left the earth, woe untold in the Underworld. Thus say I, speaking not with my own voice but with that of the Spirit within me."

      When Apepi heard these dreadful words, he bowed his head and with trembling hands drew the coloured robe more tightly about him, like to one who in the midst of great heat is struck suddenly by a blast of icy wind. Then again his rage possessed him and he answered:

      "Now, Khian, I am minded to send you, the traitor, to your gods, your king, your father, and your blood, down to that Underworld of which you speak, there to discover whether this wizard Roy is or is not a liar. Yes, I am minded to do this instantly here in the presence of the Court. And yet I will not, since to you I appoint a punishment more worthy of your crime. You shall live to see your fellow knaves dead, every one of them; to see this maiden whom you have beguiled, not yours but mine. Then, Khian, you shall die and not before."

      "Pharaoh has spoken, and I, an ordained Brother and Priest of the Order of the Dawn, have spoken also," answered Khian in the same clear and quiet voice. "Now let the Spirit judge between us and show to all who have heard our words, and to the whole world, in which of us shines the light of Truth."

      Thus said Khian, then bowed to Apepi and was silent.

      Pharaoh stared at him awhile, for he was amazed, wondering whence came the strength that gave his son power to utter such words upon the edge of doom. Then he turned to Anath and said:

      "Vizier, take this evildoer who is no longer Prince of the North or son of mine, and make him fast in the dungeons of the palace. Let him be well fed that life may remain in him till all things are accomplished."

      Anath prostrated himself, rose, and clapped his hands. There appeared soldiers. Khian was set in the midst of them and led away, Anath walking before them.

      CHAPTER XV

       BROTHER TEMU

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      Through long passages and down flights of steps, at the head of which stood guards, the melancholy procession descended almost to the foundations of the vast building of the palace. As they went Khian remembered that, when he was a child, some captain of the guard had led him by this path to certain cells where, through a grating in the door, he had looked upon three men who were condemned to die upon the morrow for the crime of having conspired to murder Pharaoh. These men, whom he expected to see groaning and in tears, he recalled, were talking together cheerfully, because, they said, for he heard it through the grating, their troubles would soon be over and either they would be justified in the Underworld or fast asleep for ever.

      The three of them took different views upon this matter; one of them believed in the Underworld and redemption through Osiris, one rejected the gods as fables and expected nothing save eternal sleep, while the third held that he would be re-born upon the earth and rewarded for all he had endured by a new and happier life.

      The next day Khian heard that all three of them had been hanged and awhile after he learned from his friend, the captain of the guard, that they had been proved to be innocent of the offence with which they were charged. It seemed that a woman of the House of Pharaoh, having been rejected by one of them, had avenged herself by a false accusation and for certain reasons had denounced two other men, whom she hated, as partners in a plot against Pharaoh. Afterwards, when at the point of death from a sudden sickness, she had revealed all, though this did not help her victims who were already dead.

      The sight of these men and the learning of their story, Khian recollected as once more he trod those gloomy stairs, had bred in his mind doubts as to the gods which the Shepherds worshipped and of the justice decreed by kings and governors, with the result that in the end he turned his back upon his people's faith and became one of those who desired to reform the world and to replace that which is bad if ancient, by that which is good if new. So indeed he had remained until fate brought him to the Temple of the Dawn, where he found all he sought, a pure faith in which he could believe and doctrines of peace, mercy, and justice such as he desired.

      Now, as innocent as those forgotten men, he, the proud Prince of the North, disgraced and doomed, was about to be cast into the same prison that had hid their sufferings and those of a thousand others before and after them. He recalled it all--the stone-vaulted place lit only by a high-set grating of bronze to which none could climb because of the curve of the walls; the paved floor damp from the overflowings of the Nile which, in seasons of flood, rose high above the foundations of the palace; the stools and table, also of stone; the bronze rings to which the officer had told him prisoners were tied if they became violent or went mad; the damp heaps of straw whereon they slept, and the worn skin rugs that they used for covering against the cold; yes, even the places where each of the three victims lay or stood and the very aspect of their faces, especially that of the young and comely man upon whom the rejected woman had avenged herself. Though to this hour it had never been re-visited by him, his mind pictured that horrid hole with all its details.

      Now they had trodden the last flight. There was the massive door and in it the grating through which he had looked and listened. The bolts were drawn by the jailer who had