the young person whom I should find with the Prince here this morning
would be one who loved him with all the heart, and it is only a woman
who loves with all the heart, is it not? Or so the world believes. Well,
I will talk the matter over with Ki. Hush! Pharaoh comes."

As he spoke from far away rose a cry of--

"Life! Blood! Strength! Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh!"



CHAPTER IV

THE COURT OF BETROTHAL

"Life! Blood! Strength!" echoed everyone in the great hall, falling to
their knees and bending their foreheads to the ground. Even the Prince
and the aged Bakenkhonsu prostrated themselves thus as though before the
presence of a god. And, indeed, Pharaoh Meneptah, passing through the
patch of sunlight at the head of the hall, wearing the double crown upon
his head and arrayed in royal robes and ornaments, looked like a god, no
less, as the multitude of the people of Egypt held him to be. He was an
old man with the face of one worn by years and care, but from his person
majesty seemed to flow.

With him, walking a step or two behind, went Nehesi his Vizier, a
shrivelled, parchment-faced officer whose cunning eyes rolled about the
place, and Roy the High-priest, and Hora the Chamberlain of the Table,
and Meranu the Washer of the King's Hands, and Yuy the private scribe,
and many others whom Bakenkhonsu named to me as they appeared. Then