VIII
THE LOOSING OF THE SPIRIT OF REI
Rei the Priest had fled with what speed he might from the Gates of
Death, those gates that guarded the loveliness of Helen and opened
only upon men doomed to die. The old man was heavy at heart, for he
loved the Wanderer. Among the dark children of Khem he had seen none
like this Achæan, none so goodly, so strong, and so well versed in all
arts of war. He remembered how this man had saved the life of her he
loved above all women--of Meriamun, the moon-child, the fairest queen
who had sat upon the throne of Egypt, the fairest and the most
learned, save Taia only. He bethought him of the Wanderer's beauty as
he stood upon the board while the long shafts hailed down the hall.
Then he recalled the vision of Meriamun, which she had told him long
years ago, and the shadow in a golden helm which watched the changed
Hataska. The more he thought, the more he was perplexed and lost in
wonder. What did the Gods intend? Of one thing he was sure: the
leaders of the host of dreams had mocked Meriamun. The man of her
vision would never be her love: he had gone to meet his doom at the
door of the Chapel Perilous.
So Rei hasted on, stumbling in his speed, till he came to the Palace
and passed through its halls towards his chamber. At the entrance of
her own place he met Meriamun the Queen. There she stood in the
doorway like a picture in its sculptured frame, nor could any sight be
more beautiful than she was, clad in her Royal robes, and crowned with
the golden snakes. Her black hair lay soft and deep on her, and her
eyes looked strangely forth from beneath the ivory of her brow.
He bowed low before her and would have passed on, but she stayed him.
"Whither goest thou, Rei?" she asked, "and why is thy face so sad?"
"I go about my business, Queen," he answered, "and I am sad because no
tidings come of Pharaoh, nor of how it has fared with him and the host
of the Apura."
"Perchance thou speakest truth, and yet not all the truth," she
answered. "Enter, I would have speech with thee."
So he entered, and at her command seated himself before her in the
very seat where the Wanderer had sat. Now, as he sat thus, of a sudden
Meriamun the Queen slid to her knees before him, and tears were in her
eyes and her breast was shaken with sobs. And while he wondered,
thinking that she wept at last for her son who was dead among the
firstborn, she hid her face in her hands upon his knees, and trembled.
"What ails thee, Queen, my fosterling?" he said. But she only took his
hand, and laid her own in it, and the old priest's eyes were dim with
tears. So she sat for awhile, and then she looked up, but still she
did not find words. And he caressed the beautiful Imperial head, that
no man had seen bowed before. "What is it, my daughter?" he said, and
she answered at last:
"Hear me, old friend, who art my only friend--for if I speak not my
heart will surely burst; or if it break not, my brain will burn and I
shall be no more a Queen but a living darkness, where vapours creep,
and wandering lights shine faintly on the ruin of my mind. Mindest
thou that hour--it was the night after the hateful night that saw me
Pharaoh's wife--when I crept to thee and told thee the vision that had
come upon my soul, had come to mock me even at Pharaoh's side?"
"I mind it well," said Rei; "it was a strange vision, nor might my
wisdom interpret it."
"And mindest thou what I told thee of the man of my vision--the
glorious man whom I must love, he who was clad in golden armour and
wore a golden helm wherein a spear-point of bronze stood fast?"
"Yes, I mind it," said Rei.
"And how is that man named?" she asked, whispering and staring on him
with wide eyes. "Is he not named Eperitus, the Wanderer? And hath he
not come hither, the spear-point in his helm? And is not the hand of
Fate upon me, Meriamun? Hearken, Rei, hearken! I love him as it was
fated I should love. When first I looked on him as he came up the Hall
of Audience in his glory, I knew him. I knew him for that man who
shares the curse laid aforetime on him, and on the woman, and on me,
when, in an unknown place, twain became three and were doomed to
strive from life to life and work each other's woe upon the earth. I
knew him, Rei, though he knew me not, and I say that my soul shook at
the echo of his step, and my heart blossomed as the black earth
blossoms when after flood Sihor seeks his banks again. A glory came
upon me, Rei, and I looked back through all the mists of time and knew
him for my love, and I looked forward into the depths of time to be
and knew him for my love. Then I looked on the present hour, and
naught could I see but darkness, and naught could I hear but the
groans of dying men, and a shrill sound as of a woman singing."
"An ill tale, Queen," said Rei.
"Ay, an ill tale, Rei, but half untold. Hearken again, I will tell
thee all. Madness hath entered into me from the Hathor of Atarhechis,
the Queen of Desire. I am mad with love, even I who never loved. Oh,
Rei! Rei! I would win this man. Nay, look not so sternly on me, it is
Fate that drives me on. Last night I spoke to him and discovered to
him the name he hides from us, his own name, Odysseus, Laertes' son,
Odysseus of Ithaca. Ay, thou startest, but so it is. I learned it by
my magic, and wrung the truth even from the guile of the most crafty
of men. But it seemed to me that he turned from me, though this much I
won from him, that he had journeyed from far to seek me, the Bride
that the Gods have promised him."
The priest leaped up from his seat. "Lady!" he cried, "Lady! whom I
serve and whom I have loved from a child, thy brain is sick, and not
thy heart. Thou canst not love him. Dost thou not remember that thou
art Queen of Khem and Pharaoh's wife? Wilt thou throw thy honour in
the mire to be trampled by a wandering stranger?"
"Ay," she answered, "I am Queen of Khem and Pharaoh's wife, but never
Pharaoh's love. Honour! Why dost thou prate to me of honour? Like Nile
in flood, my love hath burst the bulwark of my honour, and I mark not
where custom set it. For all around the waters seethe and foam, and on
them, like a broken lily, floats the wreck of my lost honour. Talk not
to me of honour, Rei, teach me rather how I may win my hero to my
arms."
"Thou art mad indeed," he groaned; "nevertheless--I had forgotten--
this must needs end in words and tears. Meriamun, I bring thee
tidings. He whom thou desireth is lost to thee for ever--to thee and
all the world."
She heard, then sprang from the couch and stood over him like a
lioness over a smitten stag, her fierce and lovely face alive with
rage and fear.
"Is he dead?" she hissed in his ear. "Dead! and I knew it not? Then
thou hast murdered him, and thus I avenge his murder."
With the word she snatched a dagger from her girdle--that same dagger
with which she had once struck at Meneptah her brother, when he would
have kissed her--and high it flashed above Rei the Priest.
"Nay," she went on, letting the knife fall; "after another fashion
shalt thou die--more slowly, Rei, yes, more slowly. Thou knowest the
torment of the palm-tree? By that thou shalt die!" She paused, and
stood above him with quivering limbs, and breast that heaved, and eyes
that flashed like stars.
"Stay! stay!" he cried. "It is not I who have slain this Wanderer, if
he indeed is dead, but his own folly. For he is gone up to look upon
the Strange Hathor, and those who look upon the Hathor do battle with
the Unseen Swords, and those who do battle with the Unseen Swords must
lie in the baths of bronze and seek the Under World."
The face of Meriamun grew white at this word, as the alabaster of the
walls, and she cried aloud with a great cry. Then she sank upon the
couch, pressing her hand to her brow and moaning:
"How may I save him? How may I save him from that accursed witch?
Alas! It is too late--but at least I will know his end, ay, and hear
of the beauty of her who slays him. Rei," she whispered, not in the
speech of Khem, but in the dead tongue of a dead people, "be not wrath
with me. Oh, have pity on my weakness. Thou knowest of the Putting-
forth of the Spirit--is it not so?"
"I am instructed," he answered, in the same speech; "'twas I who
taught thee this art, I, and that Ancient Evil which is thine."
"True--it was thou, Rei. Thou hast ever loved me, so thou swearest,
and many a deed of dread have we dared together. Lend me thy Spirit,
Rei, that I may send it forth to the Temple of the False Hathor, and
learn what passes in the temple, and of the death of him--whom I must
love."
"An ill deed, Meriamun, and a fearful," he answered, "for there shall
my Spirit meet them who watch the gates, and who knows what may chance
when the bodiless one that yet hath earthly life meets the bodiless
ones who live no more on earth?"
"Yet wilt thou dare it, Rei, for love of me, as being instructed thou
alone canst do," she pleaded.
"Never have I refused thee aught, Meriamun, nor will I say thee nay.
This only I ask of thee--that if my Spirit comes back no more, thou
wilt bury me in that tomb which I have made ready by Thebes, and if it
may be, by thy strength of magic wring me from the power of the
strange Wardens. I am prepared--thou knowest the spell--say it."
He sank back in the carven couch, and looked upwards. Then Meriamun
drew near to him, gazed into his eyes and whispered in his ear in that
dead tongue she knew. And as she whispered the face of Rei grew like
the face of one dead. She drew back and spoke aloud:
"Art thou loosed, Spirit of Rei?"
Then the lips of Rei answered her, saying: "I am loosed, Meriamun.
Whither shall I go?"
"To the court of the Temple of Hathor, that is before the shrine."
"It is done, Meriamun."
"What seest thou?"
"I see a man clad in golden armour. He stands with buckler raised
before the doorway of the shrine, and before him are the ghosts of
heroes dead, though he may not see them with the eyes of the flesh.
From within the shrine there comes a sound of singing, and he listens
to the singing."
"What does he hear?"
Then the loosed Spirit of Rei the Priest told Meriamun the Queen all
the words of the song that Helen sang. And when she heard and knew
that it was Argive Helen who sat in the halls of Hathor, the heart of
the Queen grew faint within her, and her knees trembled. Yet more did
she tremble when she learned those words that rang like the words she
herself had heard in her vision long ago--telling of bliss that had
been, of the hate of the Gods, and of the unending Quest.
Now the song ended, and the Wanderer went up against the ghosts, and
the Spirit of Rei, speaking with the lips of Rei, told all that
befell, while Meriamun hearkened with open ears--ay, and cried aloud
with joy when the Wanderer forced his path through the invisible
swords.
Then once more the sweet voice rang and the loosed Spirit of Rei told
the words she sang, and to Meriamun they seemed fateful. Then he told
her all the talk that passed between the Wanderer and the ghosts.
Now the ghosts being gone she bade the Spirit of Rei follow the
Wanderer up the sanctuary, and from the loosed Spirit she heard how he
rent the web, and of all the words of Helen and of the craft of him
who feigned to be Paris. Then the web was torn and the eyes of the
Spirit of Rei looked on the beauty of her who was behind it.
"Tell me of the face of the False Hathor?" said the Queen.
And the Spirit of Rei answered: "Her face is that beauty which
gathered like a mask upon the face of dead Hataska, and upon the face
of the Bai, and the face of the Ka, when thou spakest with the spirit
of her thou hadst slain."
Now Meriamun groaned aloud, for she knew that doom was on her. Last of
all, she heard the telling of the loves of Odysseus and of Helen, her
undying foe, of their kiss, of their betrothal, and of that marriage
which should be on the morrow night. Meriamun the Queen said never a
word, but when all was done and the Wanderer had left the shrine
again, she whispered in the ear of Rei the Priest, and drew back his
Spirit to him so that he awoke as a man awakes from sleep.
He awoke and saw the Queen sitting over against him with a face white
as the face of the dead, and about her deep eyes were lines of black.
"Hast thou heard, Meriamun?" he asked.
"I have heard," she answered.
"What dreadful thing hast thou heard?" he asked again, for he knew
naught of that which his Spirit had seen.
"I have heard things that may not be told," she said, "but this I will
tell thee. He of whom we spoke hath passed the ghosts, he hath met
with the False Hathor--that accursed woman--and he returns here all
unharmed. Now go, Rei!.
