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

sat down without a word, then he asked, who should first take the field.

      “‘Wait,’ she said, ‘first let us set the stakes,’ and lifting from her brow the golden snake of royalty, she shook her soft hair loose, and gave the coronet to me. ‘If I lose,’ she said, ‘never may I wear the uraeus crown.’

      “‘That shalt thou never while I draw breath,’ answered the Prince, as he too lifted the symbol of his royalty from his head and gave it to me. There was a difference between the circlets, the coronet of Meriamun was crowned with one crested snake, that of the divine Prince was crowned with twain.

      “‘Ay, Meneptah,’ she said, ‘but perchance Osiris, God of the Dead, waits thee, for surely he loves those too great and good for earth. Take thou the field and to the play.’ At her words of evil omen, he frowned. But he took the field and readily, for he knew the game well.

      “She moved in answer heedlessly enough, and afterwards she played at random and carelessly, pushing the pieces about with little skill. And so he won this first game quickly, and crying, ‘Pharaoh is dead,’ swept the pieces from the board. ‘See how I better thee,’ he went on in mockery. ‘Thine is a woman’s game; all attack and no defence.’

      “‘Boast not yet, Meneptah,’ she said. ‘There are still two sets to play. See, the board is set and I take the field.’

      “This time the game went differently, for the Prince could scarce make a prisoner of a single piece save of one temple and two bowmen only, and presently it was the turn of Meriamun to cry ‘Pharaoh is dead,’ and to sweep the pieces from the board. This time Meneptah did not boast but scowled, while I set the board and the scribe wrote down the game upon his tablets. Now it was the Prince’s turn to take the field.

      “‘In the name of holy Thoth,’ he cried, ‘to whom I vow great gifts of victory.’

      “‘In the name of holy Pasht,’ she made answer, ‘to whom I make daily prayer.’ For, being a maid, she swore by the Goddess of Chastity, and being Meriamun, by the Goddess of Vengeance.

      “”Tis fitting thou should’st vow by her of the Cat’s Head,’ he said, sneering.

      “‘Yes; very fitting,’ she answered, ‘for perchance she’ll lend me her claws. Play thou, Prince Meneptah.’

      “And he played, and so well that for a while the game went against her. But at length, when they had struggled long, and Meriamun had lost the most of her pieces, a light came into her face as though she had found what she sought. And while the Prince called for wine and drank, she lay back in her chair and looked upon the board. Then she moved so shrewdly and upon so deep a plan that he fell into the trap that she had laid for him, and could never escape. In vain he vowed gifts to the holy Thoth, and promised such a temple as there was none in Khem.

      “‘Thoth hears thee not; he is the God of lettered men,’ said Meriamun, mocking him. Then he cursed and drank more wine.

      “‘Fools seek wit in wine, but only wise men find it,’ quoth she again. ‘Behold, Royal brother, Pharaoh is dead, and I have won the match, and beaten thee at thine own game. Rei, my servant, give me that circlet; nay, not my own, the double one, which the divine Prince wagered. So set it on my brow, for it is mine, Meneptah. In this, as in all things else, I have conquered thee.’

      “And she rose, and standing full in the light of the lamps, the Royal uraeus on her brow, she mocked him, bidding him come do homage to her who had won his crown, and stretching forth her small hand for him to kiss it. And so wondrous was her beauty that the divine Prince of Kush ceased to call upon the evil Gods because of his ill fortune, and stood gazing on her.

      “‘By Ptah, but thou art fair,’ he cried, ‘and I pardon my father at last for willing thee to be my Queen!’

      “‘But I will never pardon him,’ said Meriamun.

      “Now the Prince had drunk much wine.

      “‘Thou shalt be my Queen,’ he said, ‘and for earnest I will kiss thee. This, at the least, being the strongest, I can do.’ And ere she could escape him, he passed his arm about her and seized her by the girdle, and kissed her on the lips and let her go.

      “Meriamun grew white as the dead. By her side there hung a dagger. Swiftly she drew it, and swiftly struck at his heart, so that had he not shrunk from the steel surely he had been slain; and she cried as she struck, ‘Thus, Prince, I pay thy kisses back.’

      “But as it chanced, she only pierced his arm, and before she could strike again I had seized her by the hand.

      “‘Thou serpent,’ said the Prince, pale with rage and fear. ‘I tell thee I will kiss thee yet, whether thou wilt or not, and thou shalt pay for this.’

      “But she laughed softly now that her anger was spent, and I led him forth to seek a physician, who should bind up his wound. And when he was gone, I returned, and spoke to her, wringing my hands.

      “‘Oh, Royal Lady, what hast thou done? Thou knowest well that thy divine father destines thee to wed the Prince of Kush whom but now thou didst smite so fiercely.’

      “‘Nay, Rei, I will none of him—the dull clod, who is called the son of Pharaoh. Moreover, he is my half-brother, and it is not meet that I should wed my brother. For nature cries aloud against the custom of the land.’

      “‘Nevertheless, Lady, it is the custom of thy Royal house, and thy father’s will. Thus the Gods, thine ancestors, were wed; Isis to Osiris. Thus great Thothmes and Amenemhat did and decreed, and all their forefathers and all their seed. Oh, bethink thee—I speak it for thine ear, for I love thee as mine own daughter—bethink thee, for thou canst not escape, that Pharaoh’s bed is the step to Pharaoh’s throne. Thou lovest power; here is the gate of power, and mayhap upon a time the master of the gate shall be gone and thou shalt sit in the gate alone.’

      “‘Ah, Rei, now thou speakest like the counsellor of those who would be kings. Oh, did I not hate him with this hatred! And yet can I rule him. Why, ‘twas no chance game that we played this night: the future lay upon the board. See, his diadem is upon my brow! At first he won, for I chose that he should win. Well, so mayhap it shall be; mayhap I shall give myself to him— hating him the while. And then the next game; that shall be for life and love and all things dear, and I shall win it, and mine shall be the uraeus crest, and mine shall be the double crown of ancient Khem, and I shall rule like Hatshepu, the great Queen of old, for I am strong, and to the strong is victory.’

      “‘Yes,’ I made answer, ‘but, Lady, see thou that the Gods turn not thy strength to weakness; thou art too passionate to be all strength, and in a woman’s heart passion is the door by which King Folly enters. To-day thou hatest, beware, lest to-morrow thou should’st love.’

      “‘Love,’ she said, gazing scornfully; ‘Meriamun loves not till she find a man worthy of her love.’

      “‘Ay, and then -?’

      “‘And then she loves to all destruction, and woe to them who cross her path. Rei, farewell.’

      “Then suddenly she spoke to me in another tongue, that few know save her and me, and that none can read save her and me, a dead tongue of a dead people, the people of that ancient City of the Rock, whence all our fathers came.

      “‘I go,’ she said, and I trembled as she spoke, for no man speaks in this language when he has any good thought in his heart. ‘I go to seek the counsel of That thou knowest,’ and she touched the golden snake which she had won.

      “Then I threw myself on the earth at her feet, and clasped her knees, crying, ‘My daughter, my daughter, sin not this great sin. Nay, for all the kingdom of the world, wake not That which sleepeth, nor warm again into life That which is a-cold.’

      “But she only nodded, and put me from her,”—and the old man’s face grew pale as he spoke.

      “What meant she?” said the Wanderer.