Morning Star Part 18

"There is no prison that will hold him, Asti, save the grave. Oh! why did not my Father command him to be slain, as I would have done? Then, at least, we should be free of him, and he could never marry me."

"Because it was otherwise decreed, O Neter-Tua, and Pharaoh must fulfil his fate and ours, for though he is so gentle, none can turn him."

As she spoke the words, somewhere, far beneath them, arose a cry, a voice of one in dread or woe, and with it the sound of feet upon the stairs.

"What pa.s.ses?" said Asti, leaping to the door.

"Pharaoh is dead or dying," answered the terrified voice without. "Let her Majesty come to Pharaoh."

They threw on their garments, they ran down the narrow stair and across the halls till they came to the chamber of Pharaoh. There upon his bed he lay and about him were the physicians of his Court. He was speechless, but his eyes were open, and he knew his daughter, for, raising his hand feebly, he beckoned to her, and pointed at his feet.

"What is it, man?" she asked of the head physician, who, by way of answer, lifted the linen on the bed, and showed her Pharaoh's legs and feet, white and withered as though with fire.

"What sickness is this?" asked Tua again.

"We know not, O Queen," answered the physician, "for in all our lives we have never seen its like. The flesh is suddenly wasted, and the limbs are paralysed."

"But I know," broke in Asti. "This is not sickness, it is sorcery.

Pharaoh has been smitten by some foul spell of the Prince Abi, or of his wizards. Say, who was with him last?"

"It seems that the Lady of the Footstool, Merytra, sang him to sleep, as was her custom," answered the physician, "and left him about two hours ago, so say the guard. When I came in to see how his Majesty rested but now, I found him thus."

Now Tua lifted up her head and spoke, saying:

"My divine Father is helpless, and therefore again I rule alone in Egypt. Hear me and obey. Let the Prince Abi be brought from his prison to the inner hall, for I would question him at once. Let the waiting-woman, Merytra, be brought also under guard with drawn swords."

The officer of the watch bowed and departed to do the bidding of her Majesty, while others went to light the hall.

Soon he returned to an outer chamber whither Tua had withdrawn herself while the physicians examined Pharaoh.

"O Queen," he said, with a frightened face, "be not wrath, but the Prince Abi has gone. He has escaped out of his prison, and the waiting-woman, Merytra, is gone also."

"How came this about?" asked Tua in a cold voice.

"O Queen, the small gate was open, for people pa.s.sed in and out of it continually, making preparation for to-morrow's march, it seems that about an hour ago the lady Merytra came to the gate and showed Pharaoh's signet to the officer, saying that she was on Pharaoh's business. With her went a fat man dressed in the robe of a master of camels that in the darkness the officer thought was a certain Arab of the Desert who has been to and fro about the camels. It is believed that this man was none other than the Prince Abi, dressed in the Arab's robe, and that he escaped from his cell by some secret pa.s.sage which was known to him, a pa.s.sage of the old priests. The Arab, whose robes he wore, cannot be found, but perhaps he is asleep in some corner."

"Bar the gates," said Tua, "and let none pa.s.s in or out. Asti, take men with you, and go search the room where Merytra slept. Perchance she has returned again."

So Asti went, and a while after re-appeared carrying something enveloped in a cloth.

"Merytra has gone, O Queen," she said in an ominous voice, "leaving this behind hidden beneath her bed," and she placed the object on a table.

"What is it? The mummy of a child?" asked Tua, shrinking back.

"Nay, Queen, the image of a man."

Then throwing aside the cloth Asti revealed the waxen figure shaped to the exact likeness of Pharaoh, or rather what remained of it, for the legs were molten and twisted, and in them could be seen the bones of ivory and the sinews of thin wire, about which they had been moulded.

Also beneath the chin where the tongue would be, sharp thorns had been thrust up to the root of the mouth. The thing was life-like and horrible, and as it was, so was the dumb and stricken Pharaoh on his bed.

Neter-Tua hid her eyes for a while, and leaned against the wall, then she drew herself up and said:

"Call the physicians and the members of the Council, and those who can be spared of the officers of the guard, that everyone of them may see and bear witness to the hideous crime which has been worked against Pharaoh by his brother, the Prince Abi, and the wizard Kaku, and their accomplice, the woman Merytra."

So they were called, and came, and when they saw the dreadful thing lying in its waxen whiteness before them, they wailed and cursed those who had wrought this abominable sorcery.

"Curse them not," said Neter-Tua, "who are already accursed, and given over to the Devourer of Souls when their time shall come. Make a record of this deed, O Scribes, and do it swiftly."

So the scribes wrote the matter down, and the Queen and others who were present signed the writings as witnesses. Then Neter-Tua commanded that they should take the image and destroy it before it worked more evil, and a priest of Osiris who was present seized it and departed.

But Neter-Tua went to Pharaoh's room and knelt by his bed, watching him, for he seemed to be asleep. Presently he awoke, and looked round him wildly, moving his lips. For a while he could not speak, then of a sudden his voice burst from him in a hoa.r.s.e, unnatural cry.

"They have bewitched me! I burn, I burn!" he screamed, rolling himself to and fro upon the bed. "Avenge me, my daughter, and fear nothing, for the G.o.ds are about you. I see their awful eyes. Oh! I burn, I burn!"

Then his head fell back, and the peace of death descended on his tortured brow.

Tua kissed his dead brow, and knelt at his side in prayer. After a little while she rose and said:

"It has pleased Pharaoh, the just and perfect, to depart to his everlasting habitation in Osiris. Make it known that this G.o.d is dead, and that I rule alone in Egypt. Send hither the priest of Osiris, that he may repeat the Ritual of Departing, and you, physicians, do your office."

So the priest came, but at the door Asti caught him by the hand and asked:

"How did you destroy the image of wax?"

"I burned it upon the altar in the old sanctuary of this temple," he answered.

"O, Fool!" said Asti, "you should have buried it. Know that with the enchanted thing you have burned away the life of Pharaoh also."

Then that priest fell swooning to the ground, and another had to be summoned to utter the Ritual of Departing.

CHAPTER X

THE COMING OF THE KA

Now it was morning, and while the physicians embalmed the body of Pharaoh as best they could, Tua consulted with her officers. Long and earnest was that council, for all of them felt that their danger was very great. Abi had escaped, and if he were re-taken, none knew better than he that his death and that of all his House would be the reward of his crimes and sorceries which could only be covered up in one way--by marriage with the Queen of Egypt. Moreover, he had thousands of soldiers in the city and around it, all of them sworn to his service, whereas the royal guard was but five companies, each of a hundred men, trapped in a snare of streets and stone.

One of them suggested that they should break a way through the wall of the temple, and escape to the royal barges that lay moored on the Nile beneath them, and this plan was approved. But when they went to set about the work it was seen that these barges had been seized and were already sailing away up the river. So but two alternatives remained--to bide within the fortifications of the old temple, and send out messengers for help, or to march through the city boldly, break down the gates if these were shut against them, seize boats, and sail up the Nile for some loyal town, or if that could not be done, to take their chance in the open lands.

Now some favoured one scheme, and some the other, so that at last the decision was left with her Majesty. She thought awhile, then said:

"Here I will not stay, to be starved out as we must ere ever an army could be gathered to rescue us, and be given into the power of that vile and wicked man, the murderer of the good G.o.d, my father. Better that I should die fighting in the streets, for then at least I shall pa.s.s undefiled to join him in his eternal habitation beyond the sun. We march at midnight."

So they bowed beneath her word, and made ready while the women of his household raised a death-wail for Pharaoh, and criers standing on the high towers proclaimed the accession of Neter-Tua, Morning-Star of Amen, Glorious in Ra, Hathor, Strong in Beauty, as sole Lord and Sovereign of the North and South, and of Egypt's subject lands. Again and again they proclaimed it, and of the mult.i.tudes who listened some cheered, but the most remained silent, fearing the vengeance of their Prince, whom the heralds summoned to do homage, but who made no sign.

Night came at last. At a signal the gates were opened, and through them, borne upon the shoulders of his Councillors, preceded by a small body of guards, and followed by his women and household, went the remains of Pharaoh, in a coffin roughly fas.h.i.+oned from the sycamore timbers of the temple. With solemn step and slow, they went as though they feared no harm, the priests and singers chanting some ancient, funeral hymn. Next followed the baggage bearers, and after these the royal bodyguard in the midst of whom the Queen, clad in mail, as a man, rode in a chariot, and with her the waiting-lady, Asti, wife of Mermes.

At first all went well, for the great square in front of the temple was empty. The procession of the body of Pharaoh pa.s.sed it, and vanished down the street that led to the main gate, a mile away. Now the guard formed into line to enter this street also, when suddenly, barring the mouth of it, appeared great companies of men who had been hidden in other streets.