Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/279

 "If thou refuse," I heard finally Ur-tasen saying in threatening accents; then he paused, and added with a touch of satire, "Thou art still at liberty to refuse, Maat-kha, to break the oath thou didst swear just now. The body of thy murdered son still lies there, and I, the high priest, can yet summon the people of Tanis and show them their criminal Queen, she who then, to-morrow, will be for ever cast out of Kamt, a prey to the jackals and vultures, while in Tanis the wedding festivities will not even have been put off for so trifling a matter, seeing that the beloved of the gods, the son of Ra, will still be there, ready to wed Neit-akrit of the house of Usem-ra. Ay! thou canst still refuse, and think, when the gates of Kamt are shut for ever upon thee, of that same nook beside the sacred cataract, where the stranger will wait for the beautiful princess with the ardent hair and the eyes as blue as the waters of the lake; surely these will soon help him to forget the erstwhile Queen, the criminal, murderous Maat-kha."

I knew that she would give in, of course. Her love for Hugh was a barbaric, sensuous one, which would ten thousand times prefer to see the loved one dead than happy in another's arms. There was no object in my listening any further. The plot was hideously vile and treacherous, and perfectly well-conceived. I shuddered as I thought of what might have happened had not divine Providence led me here.

It did not need much reflection as to what I should do. My first impulse had been to go to the top of the temple steps and there to shout until I had assembled the people of Tanis round me, and then to show them the dead body of the Pharaoh, its murderess and her accomplice. In any case I had not many minutes