“I hear the command, and it shall be done,” answered the Ka in its cold, passionless voice.  “Only, Lady of the Secrets, Doer of the Will Divine, delay not, lest, outworn, I should break back like a flame to yonder breast that is my home, slaying as I come, and leaving wreck behind me.”

Then as the figure had appeared, so also it disappeared, growing faint by degrees, and vanishing away into the night out of which it came.

It was morning at Thebes, and Abi sat in the great hall of Pharaoh transacting business of the State, while at his side stood Kaku the Vizier.  Changed were both of them, indeed, since they had plotted the death of their guest and king at Memphis, for now Abi was so worn with work and fear and wretchedness, that his royal robes hung about him in loose folds, while Kaku had become an old, old man, who trembled as he walked.

“Is the business finished, Officer?” asked Abi impatiently.

“Nay, Mighty Lord,” answered Kaku, “there is still enough to keep you sitting here till noon, and after that you must receive the Council and the Embassies.”

“I will not receive them.  Let them wait till another day.  Knave, would you work me to death, who have never known an hour’s rest or peace since the happy time when I ruled as Prince of Memphis?”

“Lord,” answered Kaku, bowing humbly, “weary or no you must receive them, for so it has been decreed by her Majesty the Queen, whose command may not be broken.”

“The Queen!” exclaimed Abi in a low voice, rolling his hollow eyes around him as though in fear.  “Oh, Kaku, would that I had never beheld the Queen.  I tell you that she is not a woman, as indeed you know well, but a fiend with a heart of ice, and the venomous cunning of a snake.  I am called Pharaoh, yet am but her puppet to carry out her decrees.  I am called her husband, yet she is still no wife to me, or to any, although all men love her, and by that love are ofttimes brought to doom.  Last night again she vanished from my side as I sat listening to her orders, and after a while, lo! there she was as before, only, as it seemed to me, somewhat weary.  I asked her where she had been and she answered:  ’Further than I could travel in a year to visit one she loved as much as she hated me.  Now who can that be, Kaku?’”

“Rames, I think, Lord, he who has made himself King of Kesh,” replied Kaku in an awed whisper.  “Without a doubt she loved the man when she was a woman, though whom she loves now the evil gods know alone.  We are in her power, and must work her will, for, Lord, if we do not we shall die, and I think that neither of us desires to die, since beyond that gate dead Pharaoh waits for us.”

At these words Abi groaned aloud, wiping the sweat from his blanched face with the corner of his robe, and saying: 

“There you speak truly.  Go, call the scribes, and let us get on with the Queen’s business.”

Kaku turned to obey, when suddenly heralds entered the empty hall, crying: