第31章

Then the roof closed in again, and for a moment's space once more there was silence, whilst men looked with white faces, each on each, and even the stout heart of the Wanderer stood still.

Then suddenly all down the hall, from this place and from that, men rose up and with one great cry fell down dead, this one across the board, and that one across the floor. The Wanderer grasped his bow and counted. From among those who sat at meat twenty and one had fallen dead. Yet those who lived sat gazing emptily, for so stricken with fear were they that scarce did each one know if it was he himself who lay dead or his brother who had sat by his side.

But Meriamun looked down the hall with cold eyes, for she feared neither Death nor Life, nor God nor man.

And while she looked and while the Wanderer counted, there rose a faint murmuring sound from the city without, a sound that grew and grew, the thunder of myriad feet that run before the death of kings.

Then the doors burst asunder and a woman sped through them in her night robes, and in her arms she bore the naked body of a boy.

"Pharaoh!" she cried, "Pharaoh, and thou, O Queen, look upon thy son-- thy firstborn son--dead is thy son, O Pharaoh! Dead is thy son, O Queen! In my arms he died suddenly as I lulled him to his rest," and she laid the body of the child down on the board among the vessels of gold, among the garlands of lotus flowers and the beakers of rose-red wine.

Then Pharaoh rose and rent his purple robes and wept aloud. Meriamun rose too, and lifting the body of her son clasped it to her breast, and her eyes were terrible with wrath and grief, but she wept not.

"See now the curse that this evil woman, this False Hathor, hath brought upon us," she said.

But the very guests sprang up crying, "It is not the Hathor whom we worship, it is not the Holy Hathor, it is the Gods of those dark Apura whom thou, O Queen, wilt not let go. On thy head and the head of Pharaoh be it," and even as they cried the murmur without grew to a shriek of woe, a shriek so wild and terrible that the Palace walls rang. Again that shriek rose, and yet a third time, never was such a cry heard in Egypt. And now for the first time in all his days the face of the Wanderer grew white with fear, and in fear of heart he prayed for succour to his Goddess--to Aphrodite, the daughter of Dione.

Again the doors behind them burst open and the Guards flocked in-- mighty men of many foreign lands; but now their faces were wan, their eyes stared wide, and their jaws hung down. But at the sound of the clanging of their harness the strength of the Wanderer came back to him again, for the Gods and their vengeance he feared, but not the sword of man. And now once more the bow sang aloud. He grasped it, he bent it with his mighty knee, and strung it, crying:

"Awake, Pharaoh, awake! Foes draw on. Say, be these all the men?"

Then the Captain answered, "These be all of the Guard who are left living in the Palace. The rest are stark, smitten by the angry Gods."

Now as the Captain spake, one came running up the hall, heeding neither the dead nor the living. It was the old priest Rei, the Commander of the Legion of Amen, who had been the Wanderer's guide, and his looks were wild with fear.

"Hearken, Pharaoh!" he cried, "thy people lie dead by thousands in the streets--the houses are full of dead. In the Temples of Ptah and Amen many of the priests have fallen dead also."

"Hast thou more to tell, old man?" cried the Queen.

"The tale has not all been told, O Queen. The soldiers are mad with fear and with the sight of death, and slay their captains; barely have I escaped from those in my command of the Legion of Amen. For they swear that this death has been brought upon the land because the Pharaoh will not let the Apura go. Hither, then, they come to slay the Pharaoh, and thee also, O Queen, and with them come many thousands of people, catching up such arms as lie to their hands."

Now Pharaoh sank down groaning, but the Queen spake to the Wanderer:

"Anon thy weapon sang of war, Eperitus; now war is at the gates."

"Little I fear the rush of battle and the blows men deal in anger, Lady," he made answer, "though a man may fear the Gods without shame.

Ho, Guards! close up, close up round me! Look not so pale-faced now death from the Gods is done with, and we have but to fear the sword of men."

So great was his mien and so glorious his face as he cried thus, and one by one drew his long arrows forth and laid them on the board, that the trembling Guards took heart, and to the number of fifty and one ranged themselves on the edge of the da?s in a double line. Then they also made ready their bows and loosened the arrows in their quivers.

Now from without there came a roar of men, and anon, while those of the house of Pharaoh, and of the guests and nobles, who sat at the feast and yet lived, fled behind the soldiers, the brazen doors were burst in with mighty blows, and through them a great armed multitude surged along the hall. There came soldiers broken from their ranks.

There came the embalmers of the Dead; their hands were overfull of work to-night, but they left their work undone; Death had smitten some even of these, and their fellows did not shrink back from them now.

There came the smith, black from the forge, and the scribe bowed with endless writing; and the dyer with his purple hands, and the fisher from the stream; and the stunted weaver from the loom, and the leper from the Temple gates. They were mad with lust of life, a starveling life that the King had taxed, when he let not the Apura go. They were mad with fear of death; their women followed them with dead children in their arms. They smote down the golden furnishings, they tore the silken hangings, they cast the empty cups of the feast at the faces of trembling ladies, and cried aloud for the blood of the King.