Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/261

 have given my double crown, my life, my honour to possess."

"Dost mean the love of thy people?"

"No! the love of Neit-akrit."

Queen Maat-kha shrugged her shoulders and laughed a low, derisive laugh.

"'Twere better thou didst go back to thy sick-bed, oh, mighty Pharaoh! and didst take some of the soothing potions thy medicine men do order thee. Thy mind doth indeed begin to wander. Love! and Neit-akrit! … was there ever a more impossible union? Why, 'twere easier to credit the jackals of the wilderness with pity for the corpses they devour than Neit-akrit with human love!"

"Were it easier too," sneered the Pharaoh, "to credit the son of Ra with love for Neit-akrit?"

But Maat-kha turned upon her son as if she had been stung.

"Beware, oh, most holy Pharaoh!" she whispered between her clenched teeth, "beware of the might of the gods, and rouse not the dormant passions in a woman's heart."

He laughed.

"Nay! it was to rouse these dormant passions that I came to-night, oh, mother mine! Didst think, perchance, that I meant to leave thee in peace and happiness, taking away from me all that the gods did give? I had a crown. Thy lover came, and with one blow struck it from off my head. Am I the Pharaoh? Ask my people whom it is they love, and whom they obey. Who sits upon the throne of Kamt? Not I, surely, for his hands deal favours and sign the decrees of justice.

"I am sick and of no account; my open enmity could but heighten thy lover's fame. But my hatred has been