the Apura, whom Pharaoh, and Pharaoh's Queen, yet hold in Khem."

Now as they cried they saw Pharaoh Meneptah cowering behind the double
line of Guards, and they saw the Queen Meriamun who cowered not, but
stood silent above the din. Then she thrust her way through the Guards,
and yet holding the body of the child to her breast, she stood before
them with eyes that flashed more brightly than the uraeus crown upon her
brow.

"Back!" she cried, "back! It is not Pharaoh, it is not I, who have
brought this death upon you. For we too have death here!" and she held
up the body of her dead son. "It is that False Hathor whom ye worship,
that Witch of many a voice and many a face who turns your hearts faint
with love. For her sake ye endure these woes, on her head is all this
death. Go, tear her temple stone from stone, and rend her beauty limb
from limb and be avenged and free the land from curses."

A moment the people stood and hearkened, muttering as stands the
lion that is about to spring, while those who pressed without cried:
"Forward! Forward! Slay them! Slay them!" Then as with one voice they
screamed:

"The Hathor we love, but you we hate, for ye have brought these woes
upon us, and ye shall die."

They cried, they brawled, they cast footstools and stones at the Guards,
and then a certain tall man among them drew a bow. Straight at the
Queen's fair breast he aimed his arrow, and swift and true it sped
towards her. She saw the light gleam upon its shining barb, and then she
did what no woman but Meriamun would have done, no, not to save herself