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Updated: June 13, 2025
He laid the gold king on the board, and began listlessly to cast the dice. He threw the "Hathor" as it chanced, the lucky cast, two sixes, and a thought of better fortune came to him. "How did the song run, Meriamun? It is many a year since I heard thee sing." She touched the lute lowly and sweetly, and then she sang.
The echo of the awful words died away in the silence. Then fear took hold of the multitude of women because of the words of the Dead, and some fell upon their faces, and some covered their eyes with their hands. "Arise, my sisters!" cried the voice of Meriamun. "Ye have heard not from my lips, but from the lips of the dead. Arise, and let us forth to the Temple of the Hathor.
'There are still two sets to play. See, the board is set and I take the field. "This time the game went differently, for the Prince could scarce make a prisoner of a single piece save of one temple and two bowmen only, and presently it was the turn of Meriamun to cry 'Pharaoh is dead, and to sweep the pieces from the board.
"'By Ptah, but thou art fair, he cried, 'and I pardon my father at last for willing thee to be my Queen! "'But I will never pardon him, said Meriamun. "Now the Prince had drunk much wine. "'Thou shalt be my Queen, he said, 'and for earnest I will kiss thee.
Now Meriamun looked, and shuddered as she looked. Yet she put her hand into the box, and muttering "Come forth come forth, thou Ancient Evil," drew somewhat to her and held it out from her on the palm of her hand. Behold, it glowed in the dusk of the chamber as a live ember glows among the ashes of the hearth.
Hearing these words Meriamun bent forward to look on the face of the speaker and to see what was written there; and as she moved, her cloak slipped apart, showing the Snake's head with the eyes of flame that was set about her as a girdle. Fiercely they gleamed, and the semblance of them was shown faintly on the polished surface of the brazier wherein the fire burned at the Wanderer's feet.
Then, as must be done, I drew the circle round us and round the altar and the statue of Osiris, and that which sat upon his knee. With my staff I drew it, and standing therein I said the holy words which should ward away the evil things that come near in such an hour. "Now Meriamun threw a certain powder into the flame upon the altar.
He looked around the chamber there on the walls were the graven images of the Gods of Khem, there above the bed the names of Meneptah and Meriamun were written side by side in the sacred signs of Khem. Not with the Golden Helen had he slept, but with the wife of Pharaoh! To her he had sworn the oath, and she had worn the Helen's shape and now the spell was broken.
Now the feast was done. They sat in the ante-chamber, for all were gone save Meneptah and Meriamun. Then he came to her and took her hand, looking into her eyes, nor did she say him nay. There was a lute lying on a golden table, and there too, as it chanced, was a board for the Game of Pieces, with the dice, and the pieces themselves wrought in gold.
It caught, and the Shrine was but a sheet of raging flame that lit the white-walled city, and the broad face of the waters, as the sun lights the lands. The alabaster walls of the Shrine turned whiter yet with heat: they cracked and split till the fabric tottered to its fall. "Now there is surely an end of the Witch," cried Meriamun, and the women screamed an answer to her.
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