No, not all, since Smith yet stood before the draped colossi and the
empty steps, and beside him, glorious, unearthly, gleamed the vision of
Ma-Mee.

"I, too, must away," she whispered; "yet ere I go a word with you who
once were a sculptor in Egypt. You loved me then, and that love cost you
your life, you who once dared to kiss this hand of mine that again you
kissed in yonder tomb. For I was Pharaoh's wife in name only; understand
me well, in name only; since that title of Royal Mother which they gave
me is but a graven lie. Horu, I never was a wife, and when you died,
swiftly I followed you to the grave. Oh, you forget, but I remember!
I remember many things. You think that the priestly thief broke this
figure of me which you found in the sand outside my tomb. Not so. _I_
broke it, because, daring greatly, you had written thereon, 'Beloved,'
not 'of _Horus_ the God,' as you should have done, but 'of _Horu_ the
Man.' So when I came to be buried, Pharaoh, knowing all, took the image
from my wrappings and hurled it away. I remember, too, the casting of
that image, and how you threw a gold chain I had given you into the
crucible with the bronze, saying that gold alone was fit to fashion me.
And this signet that I bear--it was you who cut it. Take it, take it,
Horu, and in its place give me back that which is on your hand, the Bes
ring that I also wore. Take it and wear it ever till you die again, and
let it go to the grave with you as once it went to the grave with me.

"Now hearken. When Ra the great sun arises again and you awake you will
think that you have dreamed a dream. You will think that in this dream
you saw and spoke with a lady of Egypt who died more than three thousand
years ago, but whose beauty, carved in stone and bronze, has charmed
your heart to-day. So let it be, yet know, O man, who once was named