shall be the uraeus crest, and mine shall be the double crown of ancient
Khem, and I shall rule like Hatshepu, the great Queen of old, for I am
strong, and to the strong is victory.'

"'Yes,' I made answer, 'but, Lady, see thou that the Gods turn not thy
strength to weakness; thou art too passionate to be all strength, and in
a woman's heart passion is the door by which King Folly enters. To-day
thou hatest, beware, lest to-morrow thou should'st love.'

"'Love,' she said, gazing scornfully; 'Meriamun loves not till she find
a man worthy of her love.'

"'Ay, and then----?'

"'And then she loves to all destruction, and woe to them who cross her
path. Rei, farewell.'

"Then suddenly she spoke to me in another tongue, that few know save her
and me, and that none can read save her and me, a dead tongue of a dead
people, the people of that ancient City of the Rock, whence all our
fathers came.[*]

[*] Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient
books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were
written in this dead language of a more ancient and now
forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in
the sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. "The whole
earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book." A
scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another
indecipherable ancient writing. "Thou tellest me thou