Part 13 (1/2)

And Tahoser proceeded to put to each one that question, and each and all replied: ”We are only nuhts of God, but not one of us is the true God”

Then Poeri appeared on the threshold of the teht so brilliant that in comparison with it the sun would have seele words unknown to her

Meanwhile Pharaoh's chariot flew over all obstacles, and the axles of the wheels rayed the walls in the narrow lanes

”Pull in your horses,” said Thamar to the Pharaoh; ”the noise of the wheels in this solitude and silence ain escape you”

The Pharaoh thought this advice sound, and in spite of his impatience made his horses slacken their impetuous pace

”There is the place,” said Thamar; ”I left the door open Go in I shall look after the horses”

The king descended fro his head, entered the hut The la beaht up Tahoser in his strong arms and walked towards the door of the hut

When the priest's daughter awoke, and saw fla face of the Pharaoh, she thought at first that it was one of the fancies of her dreaht which struck her face soon restored her to the sense of reality Mad with terror, she tried to scream, to call for help; the cry reainst the Pharaoh?

With one bound the King sprang on to his chariot, threw the reins around his back, and pressing to his breast the half-dead Tahoser, sent his coursers at their top speed towards the Northern Palace

Thalided like a serpent into the hut, crouched down in her accustoazed with a look almost as tender as a mother's on her dear Ra'hel, as still sound asleep

XIII

The draught of cold air, due to the speed of the chariot, soon ainst the breast of the Pharaoh, by his two stony arms, her heart had scarce roo theirslackened by bending towards the front of the car, rushed furiously forward, the wheels went round like inds, the brazen plates justled, the heated axles suely, as in a dreas, clumps of trees, palaces, teht hts that filled her ht as little as thinks a dove, fluttering in the talons of a hahich is carrying it away to its eyrie Mute terror stupefied her, s Her li limp; her as relaxed like her muscles, and, had she not been held firmly in the arms of the Pharaoh, she would have slipped and fallen in a heap on the bottom of the chariot like a piece of stuff which is let drop Twice she thought she felt upon her cheek a burning breath and two lips of fire; she did not attempt to turn away her head, terror had killed ainst a stone, a di with her hands to the shoulder of the King and press closer to hiain and leaned with her whole weight, light though it was, upon those arms which held her

The chariot entered the avenue of sphinxes, at the end of which rose a giant pylon croith a cornice on which the sy darkness allowed the priest's daughter to recognise the King's palace Then despair filled her heart; she struggled, she strove to free herself from the eainst the stony breast of the Pharaoh, stiffened out her are of the chariot Her efforts were useless, her struggles were vain Her ravisher brought her back to his breast with an irresistible, slow pressure, as if he would have driven her into it She tried to scream; her lips were closed with a kiss

Meanwhile the horses in three or four strides reached the pylon, under which they passed at full gallop, glad to return to the stable, and the chariot rolled into the vast court The servants hastened up and sprang to the heads of the horses, whose bits hite with foah brick walls formed a vast square enclosure in which rose on the east a palace, on the west a tereat pools, the piscinae of the sacred crocodiles

The first rays of the sun, the orb of which was already rising behind the Arabian s, the lower portions of which were still plunged in bluish shadows

There was no hope of flight The buildings, though in no wise glooth, of absolute will, of eternal persistence: a world catastrophe alone could have opened an issue through these thick walls, through these piles of hard sandstone To overthrow the pylons built of fragments of mountains, the earth itself would have had to quake; even a conflagration could only have licked with its fiery tongues those indestructible blocks

Poor Tahoser did not have at her command such violent means, and she was compelled to allow herself to be carried like a child by the Pharaoh, who had sprung froh columns with palm-leaf capitals for entered, still pressing to his breast the daughter of Petaently placed his burden on the ground, and seeing Tahoser stagger, he said to her: ”Be reassured You rule the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh rules the world”

These were the first words he had spoken to her

If love followed the dictates of reason, Tahoser would certainly have preferred the Pharaoh to Poeri The King was endoith supreular features seehtest imperfection could be detected in thelance that penetrating gleanisable His lips, one word froed the face of the world and the fate of nations, were of a purple red, like fresh blood upon the blade of a sword, and when he ss which nothing can resist His tall, well proportioned, ure presented the nobility of form admired in the temple statues; and when he appeared soleems, in the midst of the bluish vapour of the censers, he did not seeeneration falls like leaves, and is stretched, sticky with bitumen, in the dark depths of the mummy pits

What was poor Poeri by the side of this demiGod? Nevertheless, Tahoser loved hi to explain the heart of woy, and arithin of the world, and can tell where were the planets at the very moment of creation; they are sure that the moon was then in the constellation of Cancer, the sun in that of the Lion, Mercury in that of the Virgin, Venus in the Balance, Mars in the Scorpion, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Saturn in Capricorn; they trace on papyrus or granite the direction of the celestial ocean, which goes from the east to the west; they have summed up the number of stars strewn over the blue robe of the Goddess Neith, and make the sun travel in the lower or the superior hemisphere with the twelve diurnal and the twelve nocturnal baris under the conduct of the hawk-headed pilot and of Neb Wa, the Lady of the Bark; they know that in the second half of the month of Tobi, Orion influences the left ear, and Sirius the heart; but they are absolutely ignorant why a woman prefers one man to another, a wretched Israelite to an illustrious Pharaoh