Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/122

 "Girls are thoughtless and selfish," she said sweetly; "it is for the older and the wise to counsel them."

"Dost propose then to counsel one of thy young kinswomen to give up her life, and what is dearer than life, for the sake of praying for thy sick son?" asked Hugh, who, I think, as well as I, was beginning to perceive the subtle game his bride was playing.

"I cannot counsel, I am but a woman, and the Pharaoh's kinswoman is wilful and proud," she said with a sweet smile.

"The Pharaoh's kinswoman? Art speaking of one young maiden then?"

"What other being is there in this fair land more worthy of the honour to be priestess of Ra than my sister's child, the Princess Neit-akrit? I cannot counsel her, for, alas! she hath hatred for me, but thou, oh, son of Ra! canst give her the message which emanates from the god himself. Thou canst command, and she will not disobey. Then, when shut off from all temptations, all turmoil and strife of this world, she will soon forget that she was once young and fair, and killed the souls of men by her wiles and her beauty; then she will bless thee for that command, and cherish thy name in her heart as she would a god's."

So that was the hidden game Queen Maat-kha was playing. She was madly, barbarously jealous of her young kinswoman, and in that passionate, exotic nature love and hate were absolute, simple and paramount.

She had fallen a ready prey to Hugh's mystic personality; his handsome presence, his supposed supernatural origin had invested him with a halo of romance. But she knew that Princess Neit-akrit was young and beautiful, she scented a probable rival, and being a woman, a simple, ardent, semi-barbaric creature of flesh