Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/326

 Neit-akrit's head, I will kill thee, even where thou dost stand?"

Ur-tasen made not a movement, only his eyes started out of their sockets, and his lips parted, for the grip round his throat must have been very tight. At last he began in a choked voice which gradually grew stronger and firmer as Hugh relaxed his hold:

"Kill, oh! son of Ra! … kill! if it is thy will! Dost think I would make the faintest struggle? or call my priests to my aid? There are a hundred well within my call, and yet, see! I do not even raise my voice. Kill me! Ay! how gladly would I die, knowing that my death had at last encompassed thy ruin, after I had succeeded in wrecking thy soul. Ay, I think we are quits, oh, beloved of the gods, who with thy mighty hand didst break the wand of office of the high priest of Ra. In exchange for that wand I have broken thy heart, and I will die happy, knowing that that which thou lovest best in all the world will become more abject, more pitiable than Kesh-ta, the slave, whom thou didst snatch from out the clutches of the inexorable justice of Kamt.… Nay, why dost thou hesitate? In the name of Ra, thy sire, and Osiris, whose beloved thou art, strike, oh, emissary of the gods! strike! and with the blow which sheds the blood of the high priest even within the temple which it will desecrate, perhaps the people of Kamt and the priests of their gods will waken from the spell which thou hast cast over them with thy magic. Strike! for beyond that one act of brutish force, thou art powerless! Neit-akrit is a prisoner in the hands of the priests of Kamt. Hidden from all eyes, none can know where she is. Her sin, in this land, is not judged in open court, nor doth anyone hear judgment pronounced upon her…. But, to-morrow, a being—blind, maimed, bruised, who once was the fairest in