Then Rames turned to Tua and said: 

“Pharaoh sleeps, but in your hand is the sceptre.  Slay me, O Queen!”

Now Tua, who all this while had watched like one frozen into stone, seemed to thaw to life again.  Her danger was past.  She could never be forced to wed that coarse, black-souled Nubian, for Rames had killed him.  Yonder he lay dead in all his finery with his hideous giants about him like fallen trees, and oh! in her rebellious human heart she blessed Rames for the deed.

But as she, who was trained in statecraft, knew well enough, if he had escaped the sword of Prince Amathel, it was but to fall into a peril from which there seemed to be no escape.  This dead prince was the heir of a great king, of a king so great that for a century Egypt had dared to make no war upon his country, for it was far away, well-fortified and hard to come at across deserts and through savage tribes.  Moreover, the man had been slain at a feast in Pharaoh’s Court, and by an officer of Pharaoh’s guard, which afterwards had killed his escort under the eyes of Egypt’s monarchs, the hand of one of whom he sought in marriage.  Such a deed must mean a bitter war for Egypt, and to those who struck the blow—­death, as Rames himself knew well.

Tua looked at him kneeling before her, and her heart ached.  Fiercely, despairingly she thought, throwing her soul afar to seek out wisdom and a way of escape for Rames.  Presently in the blackness of her mind there arose a plan and, as ever was her fashion, she acted swiftly.  Lifting her head she commanded that the doors should be locked and guarded so that none might go in or out, and that those physicians who were amongst the company should attend to the wounded, and to Pharaoh, who was ill.  Then she called the High Council of the Kingdom, all of whom were gathered there about her, and spoke in a cold, calm voice, while the company flocked round to listen.

“Lords and people,” she said, “the gods for their own purposes have suffered a fearful thing to come to pass.  Egypt’s guest and his guard have been slain before Egypt’s kings, yes, at their feast and in their very presence, and it will be said far and wide that this has been done by treachery.  Yet you know well, as I do, that it was no treachery, but a mischance.  The divine prince who is dead, as all of you saw, grew drunken after the fashion of his people, and in his drunkenness he struck a high-born man, a Count of Egypt and an officer of Pharaoh, who to do him greater honour was set to wait upon him, calling him by vile names, and drew his sword upon him to kill him.  Am I right?  Did you see and hear these things?”

“Aye,” answered the Council and the audience.

“Then,” went on Tua, “this officer, forgetting all save his outraged honour, dared to fight for his life even against the Prince of Kesh, and being the better man, slew him.  Afterwards the servants of the Prince of Kesh attacked him and Pharaoh’s guard, and were conquered and the most of them killed, since none here had arms wherewith to part them.  Have I spoken truth?”