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She looked out of the window of their compartment at the green plains of doura, at the almost naked brown men bending rhythmically by the shadûfs, at the children passing on donkeys, and the women standing at gaze with corners of their dingy garments held fast between their teeth; and she felt as if she still saw the dark courts of Hathor's dwelling, as if she still heard the cries of the enormous bats that inhabit them.
The dwarf cried out, as if an asp had stung him. "Who dared to bid against such a mad stake?" "The Lady Hathor's son, Antef," answered Katuti, "who has already gambled away the inheritance of his fathers, in Thebes." "He will not remit one grain of wheat of his claim," cried the dwarf. "And Mena?" "How could my son turn to him after what had happened?
Lead us to the Hathor's Shrine!" Rei the Priest saw and heard. Then turning, he stole away through the maddened throng of women and fled with what speed he might from the Temple. His heart was filled with fear and shame, for he knew full well that Pharaoh was dead, not at the hand of Hathor, but at the hand of Meriamun the Queen, whom he had loved.
Cleopatra did not cry out when suddenly we came in sight of Hathor's temple, honey-gold against the turquoise sky, and vast as some Wagnerian palace of the gods. Or perhaps she did not consider me worth talking to, as we approached the temple toward which all her previous travelling had been a mere pilgrimage.
And as the human face changes when terror and sorrow come, I felt as if Hathor's face of stone had changed upon its column, looking toward the Nile, in obedience to the anguish in her heart; I felt as if Denderah were a majestic house of grief. So I must always think of it, dark, tragic, and superb.
The dwarf cried out, as if an asp had stung him. "Who dared to bid against such a mad stake?" "The Lady Hathor's son, Antef," answered Katuti, "who has already gambled away the inheritance of his fathers, in Thebes." "He will not remit one grain of wheat of his claim," cried the dwarf. "And Mena?" "How could my son turn to him after what had happened?
"This is a picture of Cleopatra and her son Cæsarion," said Mahmoud, as we inspected the reliefs on the outer walls, "and this is King Ptolemy offering incense to the gods Osiris and Isis, and hawk-headed Horus their son. Here also is Hathor's picture repeated many times."
The pale, delicious blue that here and there, in tiny sections, broke the almost haggard, greyish whiteness of this first hall with the roof of black, like bits of an evening sky seen through tiny window-slits in a sombre room, suggested joy, was joy summed up in color. But Hathor's face was weariful and sad.
It is fitting enough that Cleopatra's form should be graven upon the temple of Hathor; fitting, also, that though I found her in the presence of deities, and in the company of her son, Caesarion, her face, which is in profile, should have nothing of Hathor's sad impressiveness. This, no doubt, is not the real Cleopatra.
She wore Hathor's vulture headdress, and on it the disc of the moon fashioned of silver. Also were present Roi the head-priest, clad in his sacerdotal robes, an old and wizened man with a strong, fierce face, Ki the Sacrificer and Magician, Bakenkhonsu the ancient, myself, and a company of the priests of Amon-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu.
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