CHAPTER I: THE PLOT OF ABI

IT WAS EVENING IN EGYPT, thousands of years ago, when the Prince Abi, governor of Memphis and of great territories in the Delta, made fast his ship of state to a quay beneath the outermost walls of the mighty city of Uast or Thebes, which we moderns know as Luxor and Karnac on the Nile. Abi, a large man, very dark of skin, for his mother was one of the hated Hyksos barbarians who once had usurped the throne of Egypt, sat upon the deck of his ship and stared at the setting sun which for a few moments seemed to rest, a round ball of fire, upon the bare and rugged mountains, that ring round the Tombs of the Kings.

He was angry, as the slave-women, who stood on either side fanning him, could see well enough by the scowl on his coarse face and the fire in his large black eyes. Presently they felt it also, for one of them, staring at the temples and palaces of the wonderful city made glorious by the light of the setting sun, that city of which she had heard so often, touched his head with the feathers of her fan. Thereon, as though glad of an excuse to express his ill-humour, Abi sprang up and boxed her ears so heavily that the poor girl fell to the deck.

“Awkward cat,” he cried, “do that again and you shall be flogged until your robe sticks to your back!”

“Pardon, mighty Lord,” she said, beginning to weep, “it was an accident; the wind caught my fan.”

“So the rod shall catch your skin, if you are not more careful, Merytra. Stop that snivelling and go send Kaku the Astrologer here. Go, both, I weary of the sight of your ugly faces.”

The girl rose, and with her fellow slave ran swiftly to the ladder that led to the waist of the ship.

“He called me a cat,” Merytra hissed through her white teeth to her companion. “Well, if so, Sekhet the cat-headed is my godmother, and she is the Lady of Vengeance.”

“Yes,” answered the other, “and he said that we were both ugly—we, whom every lord who comes near the Court admires so much! Oh! I wish a holy crocodile would eat him, black pig!”

“Then why don’t they buy us? Abi would sell his daughters, much more his fan-bearers—at a price.”

“Because they hope to get us for nothing, my dear, and what is more, if I can manage it one of them shall, for I am tired of this life. Have your fling while you can, I say. Who knows at which corner Osiris, Lord of Death, is waiting.”

“Hush!” whispered Merytra, “there is that knave of an astrologer, and he looks cross, too.”

Then, hand in hand, they went to this lean and learned man and humbly bowed themselves before him.

“Master of the Stars,” said Merytra, “we have a message for you. No, do not look at my cheek, please, the marks are not magical, only those of the divine fingers of the glorious hand of the most exalted Prince Abi, son of the Pharaoh happily ruling in Osiris, etc., etc., etc., of the right, royal blood of Egypt—that is on one side, and on the other of a divine lady whom Khem the Spirit, or Ptah the Creator, thought fit to dip in a vat of black dye.”

“Hem!” said Kaku glancing nervously over his shoulder. Then, seeing that there was no one near, he added, “you had better be careful what you say, my dear. The royal Abi does not like to hear the colour of his late mother defined so closely. But why did he slap your face?”

She told him.

“Well,” he answered, “if I had been in his place I would rather have kissed it, for it is pretty, decidedly pretty,” and this learned man forgot himself so far as to wink at Merytra.

“There, Sister,” said the girl, “I always told you that rough shells have sweet nuts inside of them. Thank you for your compliment, Master of learning. Will you tell us our fortune for nothing?”

“Yes, yes,” he answered; “at least the fee I want will cost you nothing. Now stop this nonsense,” he added, anxiously, “I gather that he is cross.”

“I never saw him crosser, Kaku. I am glad it is you who reads the stars, not I. Listen!”

As he spoke an angry roar reached them from the high deck above.

“Where is that accursed astrologer?” said the roar.

“There, what did I tell you? Oh! never mind the rest of the papers, go at once. Your robe is full of rolls as it is.”

“Yes,” answered Kaku as he ran to the ladder, “but the question is, how will he like what is in the rolls?”

“The gods be with you!” cried one of the girls after him, “you will need them all.”

“And if you get back alive, don’t forget your promise about the fortunes,” said the other.

A minute later this searcher of the heavens, a tall, hook-nosed man, was prostrating himself before Abi in his pavilion on the upper deck, so low that his Syrian-shaped cap fell from his bald head.

“Why were you so long in coming?” asked Abi.

“Because your slaves could not find me, royal Son of the Sun. I was at work in my cabin.”

“Indeed, I thought I heard them giggling with you down there. What did you call me? Royal Son of the Sun? That is Pharaoh’s name! Have the stars shown you——?” and he looked at him eagerly.

“No, Prince, not exactly that. I did not think it needful to search them on a matter which seems established, more or less.”

“More or less,” answered Abi gloomily. “What do you mean by your ‘more or less’? Here am I at the turning-point of my fortunes, not knowing whether I am to be Pharaoh of the Upper and Lower Lands, or only the petty lord of a city and a few provinces in the Delta, and you satisfy my hunger for the truth with an empty dish of ‘more or less.’ Man, what do you mean?”

“If your Majesty will be pleased to tell his servant exactly what you desire to know, perhaps I may be able to answer the question,” replied Kaku humbly.

“Majesty! Well, I desire to know by what warrant you call me ‘Majesty,’ who am only Prince of Memphis. Did the stars give it to you? Have you obeyed me and asked them of the future?”

“Certainly, certainly. How could I disobey? I observed them all last night, and have been working out the results till this moment; indeed, they are not yet finished. Question and I will answer.”

“You will answer, yes, but what will you answer? Not the truth, I fancy, because you are a coward, though if anyone can read the truth, it is you. Man,” he added fiercely, “if you dare to lie to me I will cut your head off and take it to Pharaoh as a traitor’s; and your body shall lie, not in that fine tomb which you have made, but in the belly of a crocodile whence there is no resurrection. Do you understand? Then let us come to the point. Look, the sun sets there behind the Tombs of Kings, where the departed Pharaohs of Egypt take their rest till the Day of Awakening. It is a bad omen for me, I know, who wished to reach this city in the morning when Ra was in the House of Life, the East, and not in the House of Death, the West; but that accursed wind sent by Typhon, held me back and I could not. Well, let us begin at the end which must come after all. Tell me, you reader of the heavens, shall I sleep at last in that valley?”

“I think so, Prince; at least, so says your planet. Look, yonder, it springs to life above you,” and he pointed to an orb that appeared at the topmost edge of the red glow of the sunset.

“You are keeping something back from me,” said Abi, searching Kaku’s face with his fierce eyes. “Shall I sleep in the tomb of Pharaoh, in my own everlasting house that I shall have made ready to receive me?”

“Son of Ra, I cannot say,” answered the astrologer. “Divine One, I will be frank with you. Though you be wrath, yet will I tell you the truth as you command me. An evil influence is at work in your House of Life. Another star crosses and re-crosses your path, and though for a long time you seem to swallow it up, yet at the last it eclipses you—it and one that goes with it.”

“What star?” asked Abi hoarsely, “Pharaoh’s?”

“Nay, Prince, the star of Amen.”

“Amen! What Amen?”

“Amen the god, Prince, the mighty father of the gods.”

“Amen the god,” repeated Abi in an awed voice. “How can a man fight against a god?”

“Say rather against two gods, for with the star of Amen goes the star of Hathor, Queen of Love. Not for many periods of thousands of years have they been together, but now they draw near to each other, and so will remain for all your life. Look,” and Kaku pointed to the Eastern horizon where a faint rosy glow still lingered reflected from the western sky.

As they watched this glow melted, and there in the pure heavens, lying just where it met the distant land, seeming to rest upon the land, indeed, appeared a bright and beautiful star, and so close to it that, to the eye, they almost touched, a twin star....