Morning Star | Page 9

all the secret of my
heart, and with a whisper could bring doom upon me."
Now the pair looked at each other with frightened eyes, and, like his
master, the captain began to play with his sword.
"Life is sweet to all men, Prince," he said significantly, "and we have
never given you cause to doubt us."
"No," answered Abi, "had it been otherwise I should have struck first
and spoken afterwards. Only you must swear by the oath which may
not be broken that in life or death no word of this shall pass your lips."
So they swore, both of them, by the holy name of Osiris, the judge and
the redeemer.
"Captain," said Abi, "you have served me well. Your pay is doubled,
and I confirm the promise that I made to you--should I ever rule yonder
you shall be my general."
While the soldier bowed his thanks, the prince said to Kaku,
"Master of the stars, my gold cup is yours. Is there aught else of mine
that you desire?"

"That slave," answered the learned man, "Merytra, whose ears you
boxed just now----"
"How do you know that I boxed her ears?" asked Abi quickly. "Did the
stars tell you that also? Well, I am tired of the sly hussy--take her. Soon
I think she will box yours."
But when Kaku sought Merytra to tell her the glad tidings that she was
his, he could not find her.
Merytra had disappeared.
CHAPTER II
THE PROMISE OF THE GOD
It was morning at Thebes, and the great city glowed in the rays of the
new-risen sun. In a royal barge sat Abi the prince, splendidly apparelled,
and with him Kaku, his astrologer, his captain of the guard and three
other of his officers, while in a second barge followed slaves who
escorted two chiefs and some fair women captured in war, also the
chests of salted heads and hands, offerings to Pharaoh.
The white-robed rowers bent to their oars, and the swift boat shot
forward up the Nile through a double line of ships of war, all of them
crowded with soldiers. Abi looked at these ships which Pharaoh had
gathered there to meet him, and thought to himself that Kaku had given
wise counsel when he prayed him to attempt no rash deed, for against
such surprises clearly Pharaoh was well prepared. He thought it again
when on reaching the quay of cut stones he saw foot and horse-men
marshalled there in companies and squadrons, and on the walls above
hundreds of other men, all armed, for now he saw what would have
happened to him, if with his little desperate band he had tried to pierce
that iron ring of watching soldiers.
At the steps generals met him in their mail and priests in their full robes,
bowing and doing him honour. Thus royally escorted, Abi passed
through the open gates and the pylons of the splendid temple dedicated

to the Trinity of Thebes, "the House of Amen in the Southern Apt,"
where gay banners fluttered from the pointed masts, up the long street
bordered with tall houses set in their gardens, till he came to the palace
wall. Here more guards rolled back the brazen gates which in his folly
of a few hours gone he had thought that he could force, and through the
avenues of blooming trees he was led to the great pillared hall of
audience.
After the brightness without, that hall seemed almost dark, only a ray of
sunshine flowing from an unshuttered space in the clerestory above, fell
full on the end of it, and revealed the crowned Pharaoh and his queen
seated in state upon their thrones of ivory and gold. Gathered round and
about him also were scribes and councillors and captains, and beyond
these other queens in their carved chairs and attended, each of them, by
beautiful women of the household in their gala dress. Moreover, behind
the thrones, and at intervals between the columns, stood the famous
Nubian guard of two hundred men, the servants of the body of Pharaoh
as they were called, each of them chosen for faithfulness and courage.
The centre of all this magnificence was Pharaoh, on him the sunlight
beat, to him every eye was turned, and where his glance fell there heads
bowed and knees were bent. A small thin man of about forty years of
age with a puckered, kindly and anxious face, and a brow that seemed
to sink beneath the weight of the double crown that, save for its royal
snake-crest of hollow gold, was after all but of linen, a man with thin,
nervous hands which played amongst the embroideries of his golden
robe--such was Pharaoh, the mightiest monarch in the world, the ruler
whom millions that