straight as a column and her hair was heavy and midnight-black. Hers
was the Semitic cast of countenance, the features sharply chiseled, but
without that aggressiveness that emphasizes the outline of a withered
face. Every passing year had left its mark on her, but she had grown
old not as others do. Here was flesh compromising with age--accepting
its majesty, defying its decay--a sublunar assumption of immortality.
There was no longer any suggestion of femininity; the idea was dread
power and unearthly grace. Of such nature might the sexless archangels
partake.

"Holy Amen!" one of the awed bystanders exclaimed in a whisper to his
neighbor. "Who is this?"

"A princess from Punt," [2] the neighbor surmised.

"A priestess from Babylon," another hazarded.

"Nay, ye are all wrong," quavered an old man who had been looking at
the new-comers under the elbows of the crowd. "She is an Israelite."

"Thou hast a cataract, old man," was the scornful reply from some one
near by. "She is no slave."

"Aye," went on the unsteady voice, "I know her. She was the favorite
woman of Queen Neferari Thermuthis. She has not been out of the Delta
where her people live since the good queen died forty years ago. She
must be well-nigh a hundred years old. Aye, I should know her by her
stature. It is of a truth the Lady Miriam."

At the sound of his mistress' name one of the bearers turned and shot a