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"Has the good god been gathered to Osiris?" asked Amenmeses presently in a hoarse voice, "because if it be so, I am Pharaoh." "Nay, Amenmeses," exclaimed Userti, "the decrees have not yet been sealed or promulgated. They have neither strength nor weight." Before he could answer the physician cried: "Peace! Pharaoh still lives, his heart beats. This is but a fit which may pass.
"It seems so, Count Saptah, unless you stop your ears," replied Pharaoh. "She says she will not marry me," went on Saptah, "me who from childhood have been a slave to her and to no other woman." "Not by my wish, Saptah. Indeed, I pray you to go and be a slave to any woman whom you will," exclaimed Userti.
Of the first of these Userti warned me by a messenger, but the second and worse Ki discovered in some strange way, so that the murderer was trapped at the gate and killed by the watchman, whereon Seti said that after all he had been wise to give hospitality to Ki, that is, if to continue to live were wisdom.
Moreover, the people, who fear trouble ahead in Egypt if we, who alone are left of the true royal race born of queens, remain apart and she takes another lord, or I take another wife, demand that it should be brought about, since they believe that whoever calls Userti the Strong his spouse will one day rule the land." "Why does the Princess wish it that she may be a queen?"
I, the Princess of Egypt, cannot live as the wife of a common man who falls from a throne to set himself upon the earth, and smears his own brow with mud for a uræus crown. When your prophecies come true, Seti, and you crawl from your dust, then perhaps we may speak again." "Aye, Userti, but the question is, what shall we say?"
I do not believe that either the high-god of Egypt or the god of the Israelites will stir, but I am quite sure that the priests of Amon will avenge the sacrilege, and that cruelly enough. The dice are loaded against you, Lady. You shall not prove your faith with blood." "Why not?" asked Userti.
"Meanwhile," she added, as she turned, "I leave you to your chosen counsellors yonder scribe, whom foolishness, not wisdom, has whitened before his time, and perchance the Hebrew sorceress, who can give you moonbeams to drink from those false lips of hers. Farewell, Seti, once a prince and my husband." "Farewell, Userti, who, I fear, must still remain my sister."
Begone, every one, he must have quiet." So we went, but first Seti knelt down and kissed his father on the brow. An hour later the Princess Userti broke into the room of his palace where the Prince and I were talking. "Seti," she said, "Pharaoh still lives, but the physicians say he will be dead by dawn. There is yet time.
I do not love Saptah, but one of the royal blood of Egypt a jackal! Then there is Nehesi the Vizier, or the General of the escort whose name I forget." "Do you think, Userti, that I wish to talk about state economies with that old money-sack, or to listen to boastings of deeds he never did in war from a half-bred Nubian butcher?" "I do not know, Husband. Yet of what will you talk with this Ana?
Prince Seti, in the presence of these royal ones, and these my councillors, I " He said no more, for the Princess Userti, who till now had remained silent, ran to him, and throwing her arms about him, began to whisper in his ear. He hearkened to her, then sat himself down, and spoke again: "The Princess brings it to my mind that this is a great matter, one not to be dealt with hastily.
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