"Follow me, Wanderer, however it fall out," said the Queen.

So he followed her and the Pharaoh till they came to a splendid hall,
carven round with images of fighting and feasting. Here, on the painted
walls, Rameses Miamun drove the thousands of the Khita before his single
valour; here men hunted wild-fowl through the marshes with a great cat
for their hound. Never had the Wanderer beheld such a hall since he
supped with the Sea King of the fairy isle. On the daïs, raised above
the rest, sat the Pharaoh, and by him sat Meriamun the Queen, and by the
Queen sat the Wanderer in the golden armour of Paris, and he leaned the
black bow against his ivory chair.

Now the feast went on and men ate and drank. The Queen spoke little, but
she watched the Wanderer beneath the lids of her deep-fringed eyes.

Suddenly, as they feasted and grew merry, the doors at the end of the
chamber were thrown wide, the Guards fell back in fear, and behold, at
the end of the hall, stood two men. Their faces were tawny, dry, wasted
with desert wandering; their noses were hooked like eagles' beaks, and
their eyes were yellow as the eyes of lions. They were clad in rough
skins of beasts, girdled about their waists with leathern thongs, and
fiercely they lifted their naked arms, and waved their wands of cedar.
Both men were old, one was white-bearded, the other was shaven smooth
like the priests of Egypt. As they lifted the rods on high the Guards
shrank like beaten hounds, and all the guests hid their faces, save
Meriamun and the Wanderer alone. Even Pharaoh dared not look on them,
but he murmured angrily in his beard:

"By the name of Osiris," he said, "here be those Soothsayers of the