perishes."

Paaker's eyes rolled as he spoke, and his voice sounded hoarsely as he
went on.

"But Mena was near to the king--nearer than I, and your mother--"

"My mother!"--Nefert interrupted the angry Mohar. "My mother did not
choose my husband. I saw him driving the chariot, and to me he resembled
the Sun God, and he observed me, and looked at me, and his glance pierced
deep into my heart like a spear; and when, at the festival of the king's
birthday, he spoke to me, it was just as if Hathor had thrown round me
a web of sweet, sounding sunbeams. And it was the same with Mena; he
himself has told me so since I have been his wife. For your sake my
mother rejected his suit, but I grew pale and dull with longing for him,
and he lost his bright spirit, and was so melancholy that the king
remarked it, and asked what weighed on his heart--for Rameses loves him
as his own son. Then Mena confessed to the Pharaoh that it was love that
dimmed his eye and weakened his strong hand; and then the king himself
courted me for his faithful servant, and my mother gave way, and we were
made man and wife, and all the joys of the justified in the fields of
Aalu

[The fields of the blest, which were opened to glorified souls. In
the Book of the Dead it is shown that in them men linger, and sow
and reap by cool waters.]

are shallow and feeble by the side of the bliss which we two have known--
not like mortal men, but like the celestial gods."