Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/140

122 tears shed for her hapless son. Ah, me! It was indeed a lovely myth."

"Oh, lovely!" said Shama, with a sneer. "But you must forgive me for reminding you that my own surface is just as dewy as yours at daybreak, and, further, that since we are as like as two beans in one of those pods down below in the field yonder, my claim to be a statue of Memnon would appear to be every bit as good as yours. Besides, why keep up the pretence of believing this silly old fable between ourselves? You must know as well as I do that the whole of the Memnon legend arose out of a ridiculous Greek misunderstanding of an Egyptian word, and that we are neither of us anything more romantic or mysterious than a sandstone portrait model of His Majesty King Amenhotep III."

In the stony recesses of his inmost heart—say, at a depth of about five feet from the surface—the Northern Colossus was as well aware of this fact as his brother, and he relapsed into a melancholy silence of some