and the divine Pharaoh Meneptah, with many lords and ladies of the
Court, all crowned with roses and with lotus blooms.

The Queen was decked in Royal attire, her shining limbs were veiled in
broidered silk; about her shoulders was a purple robe, and round her
neck and arms were rings of well-wrought gold. She was stately and
splendid to see, with pale brows and beautiful disdainful eyes where
dreams seemed to sleep beneath the shadow of her eyelashes. On she swept
in all her state and pride of beauty, and behind her came the Pharaoh.
He was a tall man, but ill-made and heavy-browed, and to the Wanderer it
seemed that he was heavy-hearted too, and that care and terror of evil
to come were always in his mind.

Meriamun looked up swiftly.

"Greeting, Stranger," she said. "Thou comest in warlike guise to grace
our feast."

"Methought, Royal Lady," he made answer, "that anon when I would have
laid it by, this bow of mine sang to me of present war. Therefore I am
come armed--even to thy feast."

"Has thy bow such foresight, Eperitus?" said the Queen. "I have heard
but once of such a weapon, and that in a minstrel's tale. He came to
our Court with his lyre from the Northern Sea, and he sang of the Bow of
Odysseus."

"Minstrel or not, thou does well to come armed, Wanderer," said the
Pharaoh; "for if thy bow sings, my own heart mutters much to me of war
to be."