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

you understand that you who should be the greatest king in all the world, in some few hours if indeed you are allowed to live, will be nothing but a private citizen of Egypt, one at whom the very beggars may spit and take no harm?"

      "Surely, Wife. Moreover, there is little virtue in what I do, since on the whole I prefer that prospect and am willing to take the risk of being hurried from an evil world. Hearken," he added, with a change of tone and gesture. "You think me a fool and a weakling; a dreamer also, you, the clear-eyed, hard-brained stateswoman who look to the glittering gain of the moment for which you are ready to pay in blood, and guess nothing of what lies beyond. I am none of these things, except, perchance, the last. I am only a man who strives to be just and to do right, as right seems to me, and if I dream, it is of good, not evil, as I understand good and evil. You are sure that this dreaming of mine will lead me to worldly loss and shame. Even of that I am not sure. The thought comes to me that it may lead me to those very baubles on which you set your heart, but by a path strewn with spices and with flowers, not by one paved with the bones of men and reeking with their gore. Crowns that are bought with the promise of blood and held with cruelty are apt to be lost in blood, Userti."

      She waved her hand. "I pray you keep the rest, Seti, till I have more time to listen. Moreover if I need prophecies, I think it better to turn to Ki and those who make them their life-study. For me this is a day of deeds, not dreams, and since you refuse my help, and behave as a sick girl lost in fancies, I must see to myself. As while you live I cannot reign alone or wage war in my own name only, I go to make terms with Amenmeses, who will pay me high for peace."

      "You go—and do you return, Userti?"

      She drew herself to her full height, looking very royal, and answered slowly:

      "I do not return. I, the Princess of Egypt, cannot live as the wife of a common man who falls from a throne to set himself upon the earth, and smears his own brow with mud for a uræus crown. When your prophecies come true, Seti, and you crawl from your dust, then perhaps we may speak again."

      "Aye, Userti, but the question is, what shall we say?"

      "Meanwhile," she added, as she turned, "I leave you to your chosen counsellors—yonder scribe, whom foolishness, not wisdom, has whitened before his time, and perchance the Hebrew sorceress, who can give you moonbeams to drink from those false lips of hers. Farewell, Seti, once a prince and my husband."

      "Farewell, Userti, who, I fear, must still remain my sister."

      Then he watched her go, and turning to me, said:

      "To-day, Ana, I have lost both a crown and a wife, yet strange to tell I do not know which of these calamities grieves me least. Yet it is time that fortune turned. Or mayhap all the evils are not done. Would you not go also, Ana? Although she gibes at you in her anger, the Princess thinks well of you, and would keep you in her service. Remember, whoever falls in Egypt, she will be great till the last."

      "Oh! Prince," I answered, "have I not borne enough to-day that you must add insult to my load, you with whom I broke the cup and swore the oath?"

      "What!" he laughed. "Is there one in Egypt who remembers oaths to his own loss? I thank you, Ana," and taking my hand he pressed it.

      At that moment the door opened, and old Pambasa entered, saying:

      "The Hebrew woman, Merapi, would see you; also two Hebrew men."

      "Admit them," said Seti. "Note, Ana, how yonder old time-server turns his face from the setting sun. This morning even it would have been 'to see your Highness,' uttered with bows so low that his beard swept the floor. Now it is 'to see you' and not so much as an inclination of the head in common courtesy. This, moreover, from one who has robbed me year by year and grown fat on bribes. It is the first of many bitter lessons, or rather the second—that of her Highness was the first; I pray that I may learn them with humility."

      While he mused thus and, having no comfort to offer, I listened sad at heart, Merapi entered, and a moment after her the wide-eyed messenger whom we had seen in Pharaoh's Court, and her uncle Jabez the cunning merchant. She bowed low to Seti, and smiled at me. Then the other two appeared, and with small salutation the messenger began to speak.

      "You know my demand, Prince," he said. "It is that this woman should be returned to her people. Jabez, her uncle, will lead her away."

      "And you know my answer, Israelite," answered Seti. "It is that I have no power over the coming or the going of the lady Merapi, or at least wish to claim none. Address yourself to her."

      "What is it you wish with me, Priest?" asked Merapi quickly.

      "That you should return to the town of Goshen, daughter of Nathan. Have you no ears to hear?"

      "I hear, but if I return, what will you of me?"

      "That you who have proved yourself a prophetess by your deeds in yonder temple should dedicate your powers to the service of your people, receiving in return full forgiveness for the evils you have wrought against them, which we swear to you in the name of God."

      "I am no prophetess, and I have wrought no evils against my people, Priest. I have only saved them from the evil of murdering one who has shown himself their friend, even as I hear to the laying down of his crown for their sake."

      "That is for the Fathers of Israel and not for you to judge, woman. Your answer?"

      "It is neither for them nor for me, but for God only." She paused, then added, "Is this all you ask of me?"

      "It is all the Fathers ask, but Laban asks his affianced wife."

      "And am I to be given in marriage to—this assassin?"

      "Without doubt you are to be given to this brave soldier, being already his."

      "And if I refuse?"

      "Then, Daughter of Nathan, it is my part to curse you in the name of God, and to declare you cut off and outcast from the people of God. It is my part to announce to you further that your life is forfeit, and that any Hebrew may kill you when and how he can, and take no blame."

      Merapi paled a little, then turning to Jabez, asked:

      "You have heard, my uncle. What say you?"

      Jabez looked round shiftily, and said in his unctuous voice:

      "My niece, surely you must obey the commands of the Elders of Israel who speak the will of Heaven, as you obeyed them when you matched yourself against the might of Amon."

      "You gave me a different counsel yesterday, my uncle. Then you said I had better bide where I was."

      The messenger turned and glared at him.

      "There is a great difference between yesterday and to-day," went on Jabez hurriedly. "Yesterday you were protected by one who would soon be Pharaoh, and might have been able to move his mind in favour of your folk. To-day his greatness is stripped from him, and his will has no more weight in Egypt. A dead lion is not to be feared, my niece."

      Seti smiled at this insult, but Merapi's face, like my own, grew red, as though with anger.

      "Sleeping lions have been taken for dead ere now, my uncle, as those who would spurn them have discovered to their cost. Prince Seti, have you no word to help me in this strait?"

      "What is the strait, Lady? If you wish to go to your people and—to Laban, who, I understand, is recovered from his hurts, there is naught between you and me save my gratitude to you which gives me the right to say you shall not go. If, however, you wish to stay, then perhaps I am still not so powerless to shield or smite as this worthy Jabez thinks, who still remain the greatest lord in Egypt and one with those that love him. Therefore should you desire to remain, I think that you may do so unmolested of any, and least of all by that friend in whose shadow it pleases you to sojourn."

      "Those are very gentle words," murmured Merapi, "words that few would speak to a maid from whom naught is asked and who has naught to give."

      "A truce to this talk," snarled the messenger. "Do you obey or do you rebel? Your answer."