"Lord," added the captain, "that is not all Pharaoh's message. He says
that it has been reported to him that you are accompanied by a guard of
three hundred soldiers. These soldiers he refuses to allow within the
gates. He directs that you shall appear before his Majesty attended by
five persons only."

"Indeed," answered Abi with a scornful laugh. "Does Pharaoh fear, then,
lest I should capture him and his armies and the great city with three
hundred soldiers?"

"No, Prince," answered the captain bluntly; "but I think he fears lest
you should kill him and declare yourself Pharaoh as next in blood."

"Ah!" said Abi, "as next of blood. Then I suppose that there are still
no children at the Court?"

"None, O Prince. I saw Ahura, the royal wife, the Lady of the Two Lands,
that fairest of women, and other lesser wives and beautiful slave girls
without number, but never a one of them had an infant on her breast or
at her knee. Pharaoh remains childless."

"Ah!" said Abi again. Then he walked forward out of the pavilion whereof
the curtains were drawn back, and stood a while upon the prow of the
vessel.

By now night had fallen, and the great moon, rising from the earth as it
were, poured her flood of silver light over the desert, the mountains,
the limitless city of Thebes, and the wide rippling bosom of the Nile.
The pylons and obelisks, glittering with copper and with gold, towered
to the tender sky. In the window places of palaces and of ten thousand