H. R. H.




MORNING STAR

by H. Rider Haggard




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,