Page:Edmund Dulac's picture-book for the French Red cross.djvu/178

JUSEF AND ASENATH is not only beautiful, but a queen. Faugh! I will none of them. I am a maiden, and a maiden I will remain.'

Now, although Asenath treasured her mother's memory, and for Hebrew loveliness was as beautiful as Rachel; although she liked not the Egyptians and their rule, yet, perforce, she knew no other religion than theirs. Her father had brought her up in the worship and fear of the Egyptian gods. Every day she repaired to the highest story of the tower, where, in the central chamber of twelve—a chamber splendidly adorned with rare stones of many colours and workmanship—those gods, who were many, were wrought in silver and gold, even upon the purple ceiling. There, day by day, she worshipped and feared and paid them sacrifice. This done, she would retire into a luxurious chamber which had a great window looking towards the east, and there she would sit and muse and ponder, gazing out beyond the palace courtyard and away to the lonely waters of the Nile, now plying her needle on delicate embroideries which she loved, and now playing sweet music on her lute and singing to the silver moon. Always her damsels were about her; and always the feet of men, for whom she had neither love nor fear, trod far below in the ways of the city, no foot among those thousands ever destined to tread the marble stairway leading to her palace tower.

Rich and rare were the priceless things the twelve chambers contained. Apart from treasure-rooms stocked with precious stones and rare ornaments and linen and silk of striking splendour there were broad balconies and pillared alcoves where the soft breezes rustled in the branches of great palms and the spray of clear fountains sparkled in the sunlight ere it fell to rest on a bed of moss or strayed further to caress the foliage of rare ferns nodding dreamily in deep grot or cool recess. No flower that ever delighted the eyes of king or peasant was absent from Asenath's abode, and such a fragrance hung upon the air that one had but to close one's eyes and yield to the sweet influences of Paradise.

On the day when Asenath was speaking to her maidens, as has 126