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For ever as they sat at the sad feast there came a sound of the tramping feet of armies, and of lowing cattle, and songs of triumph, sung by ten thousand voices, and thus they sang the song of the Apura: A lamp for our feet the Lord hath litten, Signs hath He shown in the Land of Khem. The Kings of the Nations our Lord hath smitten, His shoe hath He cast o'er the Gods of them.
They drift to and fro in the Sea of Weeds they lie by tens of thousands on its banks; the gulls tear their eyes, the lion of the desert rends their flesh; they lie unburied, their breath sighs in the sea gales, their blood sinks into the salt sands, and Osiris numbers them in the hosts of hell. Hearken! I came upon the tribes of the Apura by the banks of the Sea of Weeds.
So he answered that if it were pleasing to Pharaoh and the Queen he would willingly stay and command the Guard. And Pharaoh said that it should be so. At midday on the morrow Pharaoh and the host of Pharaoh marched in pomp from Tanis, taking the road that runs across the desert country towards the Red Sea of Weeds, the way that the Apura had gone.
"She whom they name the Hathor hath passed here, and these, and another who lies yonder, do but mark her path. Speak!" "Ay, I will speak, Queen. I have a merry tale to tell. Thou sayest that the Hathor hath passed here and these mark her footsteps. Well, I can cap thy story. He whom the Apura name Jahveh hath passed yonder by the Sea of Weeds, and there lie many, lie to mark His footsteps."
"The tale has not all been told, O Queen. The soldiers are mad with fear and with the sight of death, and slay their captains; barely have I escaped from those in my command of the Legion of Amen. For they swear that this death has been brought upon the land because the Pharaoh will not let the Apura go.
"Look now on the brow of pride, look on the deep, dark eyes of storm, the arched lips, and the imperial air. Ah, here indeed is a Goddess meet for worship." "Not so I see her," cried a fifth, that man who had come from the host of the Apura.
He thought also of the host of the Apura, who made a mock of him in the desert. But most of all he brooded on the tidings that the messenger had brought, tidings of the march of the barbarians and of the fleet of the Aquaiusha that sailed on the eastern stream of Sihor.
"What passes now in this haunted land of thine, old man?" said the Wanderer, "for of all the sights that I have seen, this is the strangest. None lifts a hand to save his goods from the thief." Rei the Priest groaned aloud. "Evil days have come upon Khem," he said. "The Apura spoil the people of Khem ere they fly into the Wilderness."
"Some there be," quoth a fourth, "who say that not the Hathor, but the Gods of those Apura brought the woes on Khem, and some that Pharaoh was slain by the Queen's own hand, because of the love she bears to that great Wanderer who came here a while ago." "Thou fool," answered the first; "how can the Queen love one who would have wrought outrage on her?"
Draw near!" cried the priest again. "This one is fallen. Let him who would win the Hathor draw near!" Then the man who had fled from the host of the Apura rushed forward, crying on the Lion of his tribe. Back he was hurled, and back again, but at the third time once more there came the sound of clashing swords, and he too fell dead. "Draw near! Draw near!" cried the priest. "Another has fallen!
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