The Ka motioned to them to stand together in the narrow winding-place, and this they did, their arms about each other. Next she lifted her sceptre and spoke some word.
Then fire flashed before their eyes, a rush of wind beat upon their brows, and they knew no more.
CHAPTER XI
THE DREAM OF ABI
On the night of the drawing-forth of the Ka of Neter-Tua, Kaku the wizard, and Merytra the spy, she who had been Lady of the Footstool to Pharaoh, sat together in that high chamber where Merytra had vowed her vow, and received the magic image.
"Why do you look so disturbed?" asked the astrologer of his accomplice who glanced continually over her shoulder, and seemed very ill at ease.
"All has gone well. If Set himself had fashioned that image, it could not have done its work more thoroughly."
"Thoroughly, indeed," broke in Merytra in an angry voice. "You have tricked me, Wizard, I promised to help you to lame Pharaoh, not to murder him!"
"Hush! Beloved," said Kaku nervously, "murder is an ugly word, and murderers come to ugly ends--sometimes. Is it your fault if an accursed fool of a priest chose to burn the mannikin upon an altar, and thus bring this G.o.d to his lamented end?"
"No," answered Merytra, "not mine, or the priest"s, but yours, and that hog, Abi"s; and Set"s the master of both of you. But I shall get the blame of it, for the Queen and Asti know the truth, and soon or late it will come out, and they will burn me as a sorceress, sending me to the Underworld with the blood of Pharaoh upon my hands. Pharaoh who never did me aught but good. And then, what will happen to me?"
Evidently Kaku did not know, for he rose and stood opposite to her, scratching his lean chin and smiling in a sickly, indeterminate fashion that enraged Merytra.
"Cease grinning at me like an ape of the rocks," she said, "and tell me, what is to be the end of this evil business?"
"Why trouble about ends, Fair One?" he asked. "They are always a long way off; indeed, the best philosophers hold that there is no such thing as an end. You know the sacred symbol of a snake with its tail in its mouth that surrounds the whole world, but begins where it ends, and ends where it begins. It may be seen in any tomb----"
"Cease your talk of snakes and tombs," burst in Merytra. "The thought of them makes me shudder."
"By all means, Beloved. I have always held that we Egyptians dwell too much on tombs, and--whatever it may be that lies beyond them, which after all remains a matter of doubt--fortunately. So let us turn from tombs and corpses to palaces and life. As I said just now, although we grieve over the accident of Pharaoh"s death, and that of all his guard --and I may add, of Abi"s four legitimate sons, things have gone well for us. To-day I have received from the Prince, in writing, my appointment as Vizier, and first King"s companion, to come into force when he mounts the throne as he must do, and to-day you have received from me, with all the usual public rites and ceremonies, the name of wife, as I promised that you should. Merytra, you are the wife of the great Vizier, the pre-eminent lord, the sole Companion of the King of Egypt, a high position for one who after all during the late reign was but Pharaoh"s favourite, and Lady of the Footstool."
"A footstool of silk is more comfortable to sit on than a state chair fashioned of blood-stained swords. Hearken you, Kaku! I am afraid. You say that you are the greatest of seers, and can read the future. Well, I desire to know the future, so if you are not a charlatan, show it to me."
"A charlatan! How can you suggest it, Merytra, remembering the adventure of the image?"
"That may have been an accident. Pharaoh was sickly for years, and had a stroke before. If you are not a cheat show me the future in that magic crystal. I would learn the worst, so that I may know how to meet it when it comes."
"Well, Wife, we will try, though to see such high visions the spirit should be calm, which I fear yours is not--nay, be not angry. We will try, we will try. Sit here now, and gaze, and above all be silent while I say the appropriate spells."
So the ball of crystal having been set upon the table, the pair stared into it as Kaku muttered his charms and invocations. For a long while Merytra saw nothing, till suddenly a shadow gathered in the ball, which slowly cleared away, revealing the image of dead Pharaoh clothed in his mummy wrappings. As she started back to scream the image seemed to loose its hands from the cloths that bound them, and strike outwards, whereon the crystal suddenly shattered, so that the pieces of it flew about the room, one of which struck her on the mouth, knocking out two of her front teeth, and gashing her lips.
Merytra uttered a cry, and fell backwards to the floor, while Kaku sprang from his chair as though to run away, then thought better of it, and stood still, shivering with fear.
"What was that?" said Merytra, rising from the ground, and wiping the blood from her cut mouth.
"I do not know," answered Kaku, in a quavering voice. "It would seem that the G.o.ds deny to us that knowledge of the future which you sought.
Be content with the present, Merytra."
"Content with the present," she screamed, infuriated. "Look at what the present has given me--a mouthful of blood and teeth. I, who was beautiful, am spoiled for ever; I am become an old hag. Pharaoh burst the ball with his hand, and threw the pieces at me. I saw him do it, and you set him there. Wretch, I will pay you back for this evil trick," and springing at Kaku, she tore of his astrologer"s cap, and the wig beneath it, and beat his bald head with them till he cried for mercy.
It was at this moment that the door opened, and through it, breathless, white with terror, half-clothed, appeared none other than the Prince Abi.
"What pa.s.ses here?" he gasped, sinking into a chair. "Is this the way you conduct your midnight studies, Kaku?"
"Certainly not, most high Lord," replied the astrologer, trying to bow with his eye fixed on Merytra, who stood by him, the torn wig in her hand, in the act of striking. "Certainly not, exalted Prince. A domestic difference, that is all. This wild cat of a woman whom I have married having met with an accident, gave way to her devilish temper."
"Repeat that," exclaimed Merytra, "and I will throw you from the window-place to find out whether your sorceries can make paving-stones as soft as air. See, Lord, what he has done to me by his accursed wizardry," and she exhibited her two front teeth in her shaking hand.
"I say that he set the spirit of Pharaoh whom he beguiled me to do to death, in the crystal, for I saw him there wrapped in his mummy clothes, and caused dead Pharaoh to burst the crystal and stone me with its fragments."
"Be silent, Woman," shouted Abi, "or I will have you beaten with rods, till your feet hurt more than your mouth. What is this about the spirit of Pharaoh, Kaku? Is he everywhere, for know, it is of Pharaoh, the dweller in Osiris, that I came to speak to you."
"Most exalted Ruler of the North, Son of Royal Blood, Hereditary Count who shall be King----"
"Cease your t.i.tles, Knave," exclaimed Abi, "and listen, for I need counsel, and if you cannot give it I will find one who can. Just now I lay on my bed asleep, and a dreadful vision came to me. I dreamed that I woke up, and feeling a weight on the bed beside me turned to learn what it was, and saw there the body of my brother, Pharaoh, in his death-wrappings----"
"As I saw him in the ball," broke in Merytra. "Did he pelt you also, O Abi?"
"Nay, Woman, he did worse, he spoke to me. He said--"You, my brother, to whom I forgave all your sins, you and the woman-snake that I cherished in my bosom, and your servant, the black-souled magician, her accomplice, have done me miserably to death, and set the Queen of both the Lands, Amen"s royal child, to starve in yonder tower with the n.o.ble lady Asti, until she dies or takes you to be her husband--you, her uncle, who seek her beauty and my throne. Now I have a message for you from the G.o.ds, who write down these things in their eternal books against the day of judgment, when we all shall meet and plead our cause before them, Osiris the Redeemer standing on the right hand, and the Eater-up of Souls standing on the left.
""This is the message, O Abi--Go to the Temple of Sekhet at the dawn.
There you shall find that Royal Loveliness which you desire. Take it to be your wife as you desire, for it shall not say you nay. Be wedded to that Loveliness with pomp before all the eyes of Egypt, and reign by right of that Royalty, until you meet one Rames, son of Mermes, whom you also murdered, and with him a certain Beggar-man who is charged with another message for you, O Abi. Ascend the Nile to Thebes, and lay this body of mine in the splendid tomb which I have made ready and sit in my seat, and do those things which that Royal Loveliness you have wed, commands to you, for It you shall obey. But hasten, hasten, Abi, to hollow for yourself a grave, and let it be near to mine, for when you are dead this my Ka would come to visit you, as it does to-night."
"Then the Ka or the body of Pharaoh--I know not which it was--ceased from speaking, and lay there a while staring at me with its cold eyes, till at length the spirits of my four sons who are dead entered the chamber and, lifting up the shape, carried it away. I awoke, shaking like a reed in the wind, and ran hither up a thousand steps to find you brawling with this low-born s.l.u.t, dead Pharaoh"s worn-out shoe that in bygone years I kicked from off my foot."
Now Merytra would have answered, for she loved not such names, but the two men looked at her so fiercely that her rage died, and she was silent.
"Read me this vision, Man, and be swift, for the torment of it haunts me," went on Abi. "If you cannot I strip you of your offices, and give your carcase to the rods until you find wisdom. It was you who set me on this path, and by the G.o.ds you shall keep me safe in it or die by inches."
Now, seeing his great danger, Kaku grew cold and cunning.
"It is true, O Prince," he said, "that I set you on this path, this high and splendid path, and it is true also that from the beginning I have kept you safe in it. Had it not been for me and my counsel, long ago you would have become but a forgotten traitor. Remember that night at Thebes, when in your pride you desired to smite at the heart of Pharaoh, and how I held your hand, and remember how, many a time, my wisdom has been your guide, when left to your own rash folly you must have failed or perished. It is true also, Prince, that in the future as in the past, with me and by me you stand or fall. Yet if you think otherwise, find some wiser man to lead you, and wait the end. All the rods in Egypt cannot be broken on my back, O Abi. Now shall I speak who alone have knowledge, or will you seek another counsellor?"
"Speak on," answered Abi sullenly, "we are fish in the same net, and share each other"s fortune to the end, whether it be Set"s gridiron or fat Egypt"s pleasure pond. Fear not, what I have promised you shall have while it is mine to give."
"Just now you promised rods," remarked Kaku, making a wry face and replacing the remains of his wig upon his bald head, "but let that pa.s.s.
Now as to this dream of yours, I find its meaning good. How did Pharaoh come to you? Not as a living spirit, but in the fashion of a dead man, and who cares for dead men?"
"I do, for one, when they cut my mouth with broken crystals,"
interrupted Merytra, who was bathing her wounds in a basin of water.
"Would that they had cut your tongue instead of your lips, Woman,"
snarled Abi. "Continue, Kaku, and heed her not."
"And what was his message?" went on the magician. "Why, that you shall marry the Majesty of Egypt, and rule in her right and sit in the seat of kings. Are not these the very things that you desire, and have worked for years to win?"
"Yes, Kaku, but you forget all that about one Rames, and the tomb that I must hollow, and the rest."
"Rames? Merytra here can tell you of him, Prince. He is the madcap young Count who killed the Prince of Kesh, and was sent by Neter-Tua far to the South-lands, that the barbarians there might make an end of him without scandal. If ever he should come back with the Beggar-man and his message, which is not likely, you can answer him with the halter he deserves."