Once more Khian walked across the stretch of desert that lay between the Sphinx and the palm grove by the bank of the Nile, but this time his companion was no hooded youth with the voice and the hands of a woman, but the Ethiopian Ru who, as he went, addressed him in a kind of soliloquy, after this sort:
"So, Lord, you really are the Prince Khian, as rumour said and the Lady Kemmah and I guessed from the first, and now you are affianced to my Queen, for which I hate you because ever since you came she has hardly had a look or a word for me. Yet to be honest, as such things must happen, I would rather it was to you than to any one else, because you are a soldier and I like you, also a man of courage, as you showed when you learned to climb those pyramids which I should never have dared to do. So I shall be glad to serve you when you are married, though if you do not treat my Queen well, beware of this axe, for then, if you were fifty Pharaohs and a hundred gods, with it I would still cleave you to the chin. No doubt you think that you are very clever to win her love, as certainly you have done, but there you are mistaken. You did not win her love and she did not win yours. It was those old priests of the Dawn who arranged everything and by their magic threw a spell upon both of you because they wished to bring all this about for purposes of their own. Believe me, that as they have joined you together, so they can separate you if they choose, and by their incantations, make you hate each other. Only I don't think they will as that would not suit them, and you see you are both of you members of the Order of the Dawn, and therefore will be supported by them in all things that you may desire."
"I am glad to hear that," interrupted Khian, when at length Ru paused to take breath.
"Yes, yes. Lord, it is a very good thing to be one of the Order, or even its servant as I am, because then everywhere you have a friend. Therefore never be afraid, however desperate your case may be, even if the hangman is putting his rope about your neck; for certainly Roy, or another far away, will utter one of the spells, or speak a word of power, and someone will appear to help you. That is why I am quite sure that in the end you will marry my Queen if both of you continue to want each other, and that all of us will escape from the jaws of that roaring lion, your father the King Apepi, although he does think that he has our heads in his mouth."
"How will you all escape, Ru?"
"Why, Lord, by finding friends who are stronger than Apepi. There is the King of Babylon, for instance, our Lady's grandfather who can put two spearmen in the field for every one of Apepi's, to say nothing of a multitude of chariots drawn by horses, which Apepi has not got. The Order has plenty of brothers at the Court of the King of Babylon; some of them were here on the night of the Crowning, and I know that messages have been going to them almost every day. Never mind how they went--that's a secret. I should not wonder if we went, too, before long, and then perhaps I may see some more fighting before I grow too old and fat to use my axe. As you are affianced to our Queen, I do not mind talking of these things to you."
"No, of course you don't," answered Khian.
"Talking of messages reminds me of messengers," went on Ru, "or rather of one messenger. I mean that fellow who came from Apepi this morning and slipped away afterwards, which he would never have done had I been guarding him instead of those silly priests."
"What of him?" asked Khian.
"Oh! only that he was a queer sort of fellow, and more, I think, than he seemed to be. Did you see his eye, Lord? It was like that of a hawk, very proud, too, such an eye as a great noble might have, and when he heard the Queen's answer, it grew full of rage and all his body shook beneath those shawls. More--there were other strange things. Thus, when he came to the hall he limped as though he were very lame, but some people who were working in the fields told me that they saw him running down to the Nile like a hunted jackal.
"Now how can a lame man run like a jackal? Also I hear that when he came to the boat which was waiting for him, those who were in the boat or watching on the shore, prostrated themselves as though he were some Great One, but he leapt aboard and cursed them, calling them slaves-- as a Great One does. That is why I think he was more than he seemed to be, just like yourself, Lord, who were announced as the Scribe Rasa and yet are really the Prince Khian. But here we are at the palm grove where more than a month ago I stole your baggage while you were asleep, as the Queen, who was only a princess then, put it into my head to do, for from childhood she has loved such jests. And look, there is your ship, the same that brought you hither, and there are the priests with your packages."
"Yes, Ru, there they all are who I wish were somewhere else. And now here is a present for you, Ru, a chain of fine gold that I have worn myself. Keep it in memory of me and hang it about your neck when you attend upon the Queen, that it may make her think of one who is absent."
"I thank you, Lord, though it seems that you seek to kill two birds with this stone of a gift, which I may show but may not sell. Well, lovers will think of themselves first, and I hope that one day if we should stand together in war---- Why, look! Here comes the Lady Kemmah, walking faster than I have seen her do for years. I think she must have some words for you."
As he spoke Kemmah arrived.
"So I have caught you, Prince," she said, puffing. "A pretty task for an old woman to toil across that sand in the heat like a cow after a lost calf, just to please a maiden's fancy."
"What is it, Kemmah?" asked Khian anxiously.
"Oh! little enough. To give you this which a certain one might as well have done herself, had she thought of it, and to pray you to wear it always for her sake, remembering that thereby she acknowledges you as her king as well as her lover, which of course she has no right to do, any more than she has a right to send you what she does. I told her so but she flew into a rage and said that if I would not take it, she would bring it herself as she could trust it to no one else. A pretty sight indeed that a Queen should be seen tearing across the desert after a departing scribe, for so the common people still believe you to be. Therefore come I must or bear her wrath."
"I understand, Lady Kemmah, but what do you bring? You have given me nothing save words."
"Have I not? Well, here it is," and she produced from her robe some small object wrapped in papyrus on which was written, "The gift of a Queen to her King and Lover."
Khian undid the papyrus. There within lay the royal signet of Nefra, the same which he had seen set upon her hand on the night of Coronation.
"This is the Queen's ring," said Khian, astonished.
"Aye, Prince, and the King her father's ring before her, that which was taken from his finger by the embalmers after the battle, and his father's before him, and so on back and back for ages. Look, on it is cut the name of Khafra whose tomb I think you saw the other night, though if he ever wore it I cannot tell. At least it has descended through countless generations from Pharaoh to Pharaoh, and now it seems must pass as a love gift to one who is not Pharaoh but yet is charged to wear it as though he were."
"As perchance he may be yet, by right of another, Lady Kemmah, though the matter does not trouble him overmuch," answered Khian, smiling.
Then he took the ancient hallowed thing and, having touched it with his lips, set it on a finger of his right hand that it fitted well, removing thence, to make place for it, another ring on which was engraved a crowned and lion-headed sphinx, the symbol of his house.
"A gift for a gift," he said. "Take this to the Lady Nefra and bid her wear it in token that all I have is hers, as I will wear that she sends to me. Say to her also that on the day when we are wed each shall return to the other that ring which belonged to each and with it all of which it is the symbol."
So Kemmah took the ring and as she hid it away there came that Captain of the Guard who had accompanied him from Tanis.
"Welcome, my Lord Rasa, who I rejoice to see have not fallen a victim to the Spirit of the Pyramids of which we talked when we parted here some five and thirty days ago, or was it more? for time passes quickly in yonder gay city of Memphis. You seem to have found strange company in this holy haunted land," and he glanced with awe at the ebon form of the giant Ru who stood by leaning