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

she added, "are filled with wine, oil, grain, dried flesh, corn, and other sorts of food; also, nearer to the entrance, as I will show you, are more jars of water which from time to time is renewed, so that here a man, or indeed several men, might live for months and yet not starve."

      "The gods defend me from such a fate!" he said, dismayed.

      "Aye, Khian, yet who knows? That jackal is safest which has a hole to run to when its hunters are afoot."

      "Sooner would I be killed in the open than go mad here in the darkness with the dead for fellowship," he answered doubtfully.

      "Nay, Khian, you must not be killed; now you must live on--for me and Egypt."

      She set down the lamp in its place and moved to the foot of the tomb. He did likewise, so that there they met and stood a little while, gazing at each other in the midst of a silence that was so deep that they could hear the beating of their hearts. Speech had left them, as though they had no more words to say, yet their eyes spoke in a language of their own. They bent towards each other like wind-swayed palms, nearer and nearer yet, till of a sudden she lay in his arms and her lips were pressed upon his own.

      "Beloved," he said presently, "swear that while I live you will wed no man but me."

      She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him with her large and beautiful eyes that were aswim with tears.

      "Is it needful?" she asked in a new voice, a deep, rich voice. "You have little faith, Khian, and I ask no such oath from you."

      "Because it would be foolish, Nefra, for who, having loved you, could turn to others? Yet there are many who will seek the fairest lady on the earth and Egypt's Queen. Indeed, has not one sought her already? Therefore, I pray you, swear."

      "So be it. I swear by the Spirit that we worship, both of us; I swear by Egypt which, if Roy be right, we shall rule in the days to come; and I swear by the bones of my forefather who sleeps within this tomb that I will wed none but you, Khian. While you live I will be faithful to you, and if you die then swiftly I will follow you, that what we have lost on earth, we may find in the Underworld. If I break this, my oath, then may I become as is he who sleeps beneath my hand to-day," and she touched the tomb with her fingers. "Aye, may my name be blotted from the roll of Egypt's royal ones and may Set take my spirit as his slave. Is it enough, O faithless Khian?"

      "Enough and more than enough. Oh! how shall I thank you who have given life to my heart? How shall I serve you whom I adore?"

      She shook her head, making no answer, but he, loosing her from his arms, sank to his knees before her. He abased himself as a slave; he lifted the hem of her robe and kissed it, saying:

      "Queen of my heart and rightful Queen of Egypt, I, Khian, worship you and do you homage. Whatever I have or may have, I set beneath your feet, acknowledging your Majesty. Henceforth I, your lover who hope to be your husband, am the humblest of your subjects."

      She bent down and raised him.

      "Nay," she said, smiling, when once more he stood upon his feet, "you are greater than I and it is the woman who serves the man, not the man the woman. Well, we will serve each other and thus be equal. But, Khian, what of Apepi who is your father?"

      "I do not know," he answered. "Yet, father or not, I pray that he may not try to come between us."

      "I pray so also, Khian. To-night is happy, never was there so happy a night; but to-morrow--oh! what of to-morrow?"

      "It is in the Hands of God, Nefra, therefore let us fear nothing."

      "Aye, Khian, but often the paths of God are steep and rough, or so my father and my mother found. Like us they loved each other well, yet this Apepi was their doom. Come, we must go, for alas! all sweet things have their end."

      So once more they clung and kissed, and then hand in hand went down the darksome ways of that House of Death to the moonlit world without.

      When they had climbed the steep ascent and were come to the mouth of the passage, Nefra stopped and by the light of the last lamp, for she had extinguished the others as they went, taught Khian how, by pressing a certain stone which swung upon a pivot, the place could be closed at will and, if need were, made fast from within by the aid of a bar and pins of granite, which the builders of the pyramid had used to shut out the curious while they went about their work upon the secret burial chambers at its heart. Also she showed him a great hanging door of granite that those who brought the Pharaoh to his burial a thousand years before had forgotten or neglected to let fall as they departed, leaving him to his eternal rest.

      "See," she said, "if that wedge of stone were knocked away the great door would fall. Therefore touch it not, lest we should be shut into this Pyramid of Ur and lay our bones with those of the mighty Khafra, its architect. Look, yonder in that niche, where perhaps once stood the priest or soldier who was guardian of the door, are the jars of water of which I spoke, and by them oil and lamps and wicks of reed and fuel and means of raising fire, with other needful things."

      Having shown him all and made sure that he understood, Nefra quenched the last lamp and set it in the niche. Then they crept out on to the side of the pyramid where thrice she made Khian close and open the swinging stone, until he had mastered the trick of it, after which, with a wedge of marble that fitted in a socket hollowed to receive it and yet could be withdrawn in a moment, she made the stone fast, so that now none could tell it from those around unless they had the secret and knew in which course of the casing blocks it lay. This done, they descended to the ground just by a fallen block that marked where the seeker for the swinging stone must mount. Crossing the paving that surrounds the pyramid, they reached the temple of the Worship of Khafra to the east and kept in its shadow lest they should be seen by some night wanderer. Here, too, they parted with sweet murmured words of farewell, Nefra taking one path homewards and Khian another.

      Slowly he made his way through the vast, moonlit wilderness of tombs, his heart filled with a great joy, for had he not won all that he desired? Yet with this joy was mingled fear of what the morrow might bring forth. Then would be handed to him, the ambassador, the written answer of Nefra to the demand of Apepi, his father, that she should give herself to him in marriage. Now he knew well what that answer would be, but what he did not know was how Apepi would receive him when, as duty demanded, he delivered it to him. There was but one hope --that he might prove content that his son should wed this queen without a throne instead of himself, seeing that the reason of such a marriage was political and nothing else, and he, Khian, was his father's heir. Had Apepi seen Nefra, almost certainly things would befall otherwise, for he knew his father's nature and that he would desire to possess himself of beauty such as hers. Happily, however, he had not seen her and therefore might be content to let her go, who was naught to him if he could secure her heritage for the House of the Shepherd kings.

      Yet Khian doubted whether events would thus shape themselves. It well might be that when he learned, as learn he would certainly through his spies or otherwise, that his son was betrothed to the high lady whom he had sought for himself, that he would hold that his son, who was also his ambassador, had played the traitor to him, which in a sense was true. If so, he might be very wrath and terrible in his rage, who was cruel-hearted. Moreover, he might desire vengeance. What vengeance? Perhaps the death of the traitor, no less, and if still she would not marry him, the death of Nefra also. For was she not Egypt's lawful Queen and, while she lived, could he sit safe upon his stolen throne?

      As he picked his way among the tombs by the moonlight Khian knew in his heart that he and Death were face to face. Dark imaginations possessed him. Almost could he see that grisly shape stalking ahead of him while, wrapped in the long, hooded cloak that he used as a disguise, his shadow, cast by the moonlight on the sand, to his sight took the very shape of Osiris in his mummy wrappings--yes, of Osiris the god of death. Yet if so, was not Osiris also the god of resurrection and the king of life eternal? If indeed doom awaited him and Nefra, at least beyond the grave lay joy and peace for thousands of thousands of years.

      So Roy taught and so he believed. Still, coming fresh from the lips of his love, those warm and human lips with her sweet words echoing in his ears, he shivered at these sad and solemn thoughts. For who could be sure of what lay