Sword of Ra - by Geoff St. Reynard

Written by Robert W. Krepps [as by Geoff St. Reynard]

Illustrated by Robert Gibson Jones

Originally published in Fantastic Adventures, February 1951

PART 2

Read Part 1

As a soldier Khafre had defeated many men in mortal combat. But now as a temple priest he faced the wrath of a Goddess...

CHAPTER V

THEY PACED up and down the jasmine terrace in the warm morning sunlight, middle-aged Horemheb trying vainly to match his length of stride with that of young Khafre and the soldier Ramaos.

"As plain as your long face before me this instant, Ramaos!" Khafre was saying. “I thought those awful eyes would engulf me! And when she spoke—gods!" He shuddered, "It was Bast—truly. What might, what powers she must have, to appear thus in a temple of Thueris! I begin to think Psamtik, for all his greed and over bearing manner, is right. A re dedication of the temple would not be too far out of line..."

"Never say die," urged Ramaos, “My Nubians await your call, Khafre,"

"What can man do against the gods?” he asked hopelessly.

"Well, the gods grow old and die, do they not?"

"They do, and their bodies are mummified, where—after they rule the dead in the Underworld. All men know that—except Horemheb, of course."

“Then if they die, why may they not be slain?" asked Ramaos. The priest glanced around him.

"Don't say such things, Ramaos. I tell you this Bast is something new in the way of goddesses. She appears as a corporeal being, with the fragrance of perfume and the odor of cat to herald her. She is not as other deities. By Ra, but I believe Psamtik may be right!"

"Perhaps Ramaos is correct; though," said Horemheb, with that deeply serious expression, the genuineness of which they could never be sure of. "The gods do die. One can journey about Egypt and see the places where their mummies are buried. Isn't the mummy of Anhouri at Thinis? And Toumou's buried at Heliopolis? As for Osiris, you can go practically anywhere and find a bit of him: his backbone at Busiris, his head at Memphis, his neck at Letopolis, his heart entombed at Athribis, another head at Abydos, and his complete mummy at both Mendes and Sais. Surely this plurality of parts shows Osiris to be a veritable wonder among gods!" He could not help grinning then, but went on. "Now as Ramaos says, if they can die so thoroughly, possibly they can also be killed by a mere man, Khafre, let him bring up a squad of Nubians! They'll pink this Bast in the center of her horrid belly and send her to the ministrations of Anubis before you can say Meow."

"Blasphemer," grunted Khafre. "Be sides, it wasn't a horrid stomach at all, it was—well, quite beautiful."

"You can see better than most men in the dark. Or perhaps you got closer to her than you admitted?" asked Horemheb slyly.

Ignoring him, Khafre said, “I wish I'd been a little more sensible with Psamtik. He'll surely do something evil now. How could I know his Bast was so powerful?”

"You aren't talking like yourself, son. Where's the heedless swashbuckler of yore?"

"You didn't see the goddess," said the priest gloomily.

A squat, stolid-looking man in the rough linens and tight-fitting black cap of an embalmer's assistant came up to them as they were arguing. He bowed to Horemheb and said, "Sir, a strange priest has come to our establishment and desires speech with you."

"His name?"

"Psamtik."

"What does he want with me?" asked Horemheb with surprise, and the assistant shrugged. "He didn't say.”

“I suppose I'd best see the man, Khafre. I'll be back soon." He hastened off, tugging fretfully at the metal beard on his strong chin.

It was more than an hour later when he returned. “Well?" asked Khafre eagerly.

"He wasn't there. I waited about, but he never came again. Some fool trick of his, I suppose. I dislike that man more with every passing minute. He made me walk two miles in this heat for nothing."

THEY SAT down and drank pomegranate juice. Another figure appeared on the temple path and came slowly toward them. They recognized an old slave of the ka-priest Sekht. "Well?” said Khafre.

"My master wishes to know if Ateera is here, Oh priest," said the old fellow formally. "She has vanished from the house, and it is unlike her to leave without some word of her destination."

“No, she isn't here. Maybe she's visiting in the town."

"Not without telling her father," said the slave, shaking his grizzled head. "She never wanders away in such a fashion."

"I don't like this,” said Khafre to Horemheb. The embalmer frowned. "Neither do I. Ateera may be a scatter-brained little nuisance at times, but she's too dutiful a daughter to skip off without a word." He stood up. "Khafre, it occurs to me—"

"What has already occurred to me," said Ramaos. "The priest of the cat has a finger in this thing."

Khafre bounded up, hand seeking hilt as he moved. “Psamtik! He said—he said I would sustain a loss." He looked at Horemheb uncertainly. "Could he have meant—Ateera?"

"By Ra, if he did, he's dead meat, him and his cursed goddess," said Horemheb wickedly. "He is, indeed, a fool; but this...!”

Ramaos pointed silently down the path. Another figure was climbing toward them, "What now?" asked Khafre. Then they saw it was the priest of Bast.

"I'll slit his damned gullet," rum bled Khafre, drawing his sword.

"Lad, you'll have that blade dulled with all your hauling at it. Put it up. Ateera may very well be asleep under a grapevine somewhere."

"I have a feeling," said Khafre, and left it at that; but he did not sheathe the weapon.

"The fighting man rises above the priest," said Horemheb to himself wisely. "Good! Some action is what we can use in this silly affair." And he awaited the coming of Psamtik with more eagerness than was quite proper in a peace-loving embalmer.

Psamtik stood before them. Black eyes glistened in the bony face and he smiled grimly, "Well, priest of the hippopotamus?” he said.

"Where is Ateera?" grated Khafre.

“How should I know? Have you seen anything in your temple?"

"How did you know that?" cried Horemheb, leaning forward. "How did you know that, priest?”

"Bast tells me many things in the watches of the night," said Psamtik smoothly. "She relies on me to further her cause. She says she has spoken with this acolyte."

"Acolyte!” roared Khafre indigenantly. He waved his bronze blade under Psamtik's nose. "What have you done with Ateera, you swine herd?" he howled. "Produce her this instant, or I carve your jackal-face in two!”

Psamtik stepped back. "Gently, gently. If the lovely Ateera has dis appeared, I know it not. I saw her but this morning."

"You saw her? Where?"

“This priest was at the home of Sekht," put in the ka-priest's old slave. "He had speech with Ateera in the court by the lotus pool. There after we saw her no more, I remember."

KHAFRE DROPPED his sword, leaped upon Psamtik and began to throttle him. Horemheb and Ramaos hastily separated them. Khafre was bellowing like a goaded bull. "I'll cleave him to the breastbone! I'll tear out his slimy eyes!”

"Fine talk for a priest," said Psamtik, feeling gingerly of his throat. "If the girl has gone, truly, then perhaps Bast is punishing you thus for disregarding her commands. I know nothing of the girl.” He turned and hurried away down the path toward the city. Horemheb pushed the maddened Khafre into an armchair and held him there until the insane light of battle left his dark eyes. Then he said, "Steady, son. We must move with circumspection. Ateera is at stake."

"He knows something, Horemheb." Ramaos was thoughtful.

“Yes, he knows all right."

"Then I'll rip it out of him!” shouted Khafre

"No, no. He's a fanatic. You can't torture a confession from a fanatic, even if he's only fanatical about wealth. Let's use our brains, Ramaos, can you detail some of your soldiers to search for the girl?"

"I can."

“Do it. Have them beat the reeds for a mile around her father's house. Have them drag the lotus pool. Have them search the quarters of this stranger, wherever he's staying. They all know Ateera. See that they look everywhere for her, in every home and grain-bin" He girded up his belt. "I'll go down to my embalming rooms and start out from there through the town. We'll find the girl, never fear."

"And I'11—"

"You'll stay here, Khafre. You can't leave the temple. You know that."

"If Ateera's in danger I—"

“Will leave it to your friends!" Horemheb glared at him. "You chose the priesthood, Khafre. Stick to it. Besides,” he said, stroking his false beard, "there's something here that's out of joint that annoys me; and you're the logical man to unravel it. It's that goddess Bast. That apparition business. I don't like it. And if it's ever to have light shed on it, I think it will have to be here in the temple. Stay here and keep your eyes open, Khafre—your eyes and your keen nostrils."

Khafre watched them go, his face despondent.

The sun god climbed the heavens in his sacred blazing-hot bark, and reached his zenith and sailed slowly down toward the horizon. No one came back. All through the town and along the Nile black soldiers sought for the missing gin; Ramaos harried them to superhuman speed, while Horemheb ferreted about here and there and asked penetrating questions; but nightfall came and no trace of the beautiful Ateera had been found. Alone and nearly out of his wits with rage and worry, Khafre the priest paced through his empty pillared corridors and waited for something to happen. His supper was laid out and the venison and goose grew stone cold on the table. The oil lamps were lit, and the shadows grew black as the bitumen on a tomb's guardian statues. And no one came, and nothing happened. The anniversary of Osirist murder drew slowly and ominously toward its close.

CHAPTER VI

ABOUT THE tenth hour after midday he retired to his quarters and taking off his garments began to shave his whole body. A priest was obliged to do so thrice a week. Now it helped to pass the time, that dragged so dreadfully.

When he had finished, having cut himself with the razor half a dozen times and sworn viciously by all the gods he could bring to mind, he robed Himself and went into the hypo-style hall once more. All his servants and the lesser priests were abed now. He bad taken it upon himself to watch through the night before Thueris' statue, in case of a reappearance of the goddess Bast; all the long day he had been working himself into a fury against the sacred teratoid feline. She was behind all the trouble, he was certain of it. Dear Ateera, his friend, stolen or kidnapped or worse; perhaps taken by Psamtik, for use as a kind of club over Khafre's head. And Psamtik served this monstrous cat headed deity. Let her beware! He ground his teeth on a very unreverent curse. Goddess or not, be, who had touched the hand of mighty Ra and served for years in the temple of Thueris, he would outface her and demand...

He halted. She was seated on the broad lap of the hippo's statue, her blue and white draperies floating in the cool gusts of a small stray wind that penetrated the temple. Oil lamps shed their beans directly upon her, and she was as corporeal and ponder able as Khafre himself. The body was flawless in its svelte lines indeed, one naked leg thrust out provocatively from the folds of the fine linen was as perfect a limb as he had ever seen or imagined—but the head was a horror. The fur, gray and rather ratty looking, lay not as that of a cleanly cat, but rumpled and raised in tufts, sleeked here and there as though by moisture, dull brownish in other patches like a thing that was long dead. The eyes bore into him, huge ovals of pulsating green-blue irisation; and even twenty feet away Khafre could discern in them a ghastly lifeless quality, a lack of emotion that raised the skin of his body in cold sweaty bumps of fear.

With an effort of will that did him great credit, Khafre moved slowly to ward the goddess Bast.

In one hand she held a gilt sistrum, the rounded frame with its quartet of transverse musical rods topped by a tiny figurine of herself. She lifted it idly and shook it, so that the high pitched tinkle of its voice jangled away amongst the pillars of the temple.

"Come here, mortal," she said, the purring voice emerging between motionless lips; her mouth was partially opened and it was scarlet and black within, two pointed fangs projecting from the sides evilly. "Come here, handsome priest. Do honor to the goddess of Bubastis. Kneel to Bast."

He stood stiff-necked and proud before her, looking up into the prismatic eves that never blinked. "I bow to no interloper in the sacred place of Thueris, Oh cat."

"Rash man, I could blast you where you stand." She waved the sistrum at him in an effeminate gesture. “Are you so brave that you do not fear me, then?"

"I fear you, Bast," he said frankly, and felt that his cold lips were prob ably pale in the lamplight. "But I feared many a foe-man in the days of my free-lancing, and yet faced and conquered them all. I will face you, cat goddess, even if I should not be able to vanquish you."

She leaned forward, and the per fume of her unguent was mingled with the curious dead-pelt reek of her feline head. "Do as Psamtik asks you, Khafre," she murmured softly. “Dedicate this place to me, and I will visit you often. You are as fine a young man as ever I saw, Khafre. Follow Psamtik's desires, and I will accept you—as a lover, Khafre."

He took a pace backwards and nearly gagged. She snarled. "Am I such a crone that you scorn me, a goddess?"

"Your form is perfection, Bast, but a man cannot mate with a cat, nor with a hybrid of cat and woman, however lovely her body may be." Khafre hoped that his words were well chosen. His knees were knocking quietly together. "Leave me, Bast; leave the temple of Thueris, I cajole you in the sacred names of Ra and of Osiris, And of Set," he added hastily, in case she should be one of the gods who feared the great black boar who had murdered Osiris. "In Set's name, go!"

She laughed softly through the immovable cat lips. Then she slipped off the hippo's lap and came toward him. With shaking hand he touched his bronze sword, but it gave him no confidence. He back d into a pillar. She stood toe to toe with him and the unguent was beady in his nostrils, but sharply and unpleasantly laced with the scent of dead hide. The huge nacreous eyes glared into his own startling dark ones. The feline voice whispered, “Surely any mortal would die for the privilege of loving a goddess..."

But suddenly he was not listening, He was staring at the left eye of the enormous cat head. It was an oval of blue-green fire, with the reflection of the nearest oil lamp dancing on its surface; it had an unholy sheen that stabbed into a man's vitals. He was not looking directly at the eyeball, however, but at the outer corner of the socket. There was a little gap be tween eye and fur, a gap in which showed half a dozen short white tendrils, as though the roots of the orb were exposed by some hideous wound.

Short white tendrils betwixt fur and edge of eye....

Short white lengths of linen thread.

CHAPTER VII

HOREMHEB was going up to the temple. He climbed the hill wearily, for he was out of condition and had been dashing hither and thither all day long. He was, however, talking aloud to himself. It was an old and unshatterable habit of his, acquired on many long lonely journeys about the world. Even shortness of breath could not cure him of doing it.

"By Isis, she can't have puffed into smoke—poo-oof—and she wasn't thrown into the Nile—errgh—because the fishermen were out early with their nets and spears all up and down the river—ah! what a slope!—and she isn't anyplace in town because the whole population is alarmed now poo-oof—and it's clear now that she was either spirited away somehow by Psamtik as a sort of hostage, or was slain by him as reprisal for Khafre's stubbornness, and her body hidden. Wowf!”

He stopped to regain his breath, still proclaiming his suspicions to the cool night air.

"It all ties in somehow, though how—there's the problem. Let's see. Psamtik calls at my establishment and sends for me, but when I arrive he's gone. Ateera disappears. Khafre has seen what he swears is a vision of Bast not once but twice, and it's spoken to him. Most ungod-like behavior, judging from my knowledge of hallowed divinities! Now where's the meeting point of all these curious incidents? What ties them together?" He shook his head and began to plod on. "Bast. That's the queerest part of the whole business. Could I have been wrong about the gods? Could forty-two years of experience have taught me nothing but a false theory concerning them? Could there1oof! —could there actually be a hierarchy of gods? With animal heads and all that nonsense?"

He spat dryly. "What, with an Underworld full of dead Egyptians, and Osiris judging them while jackal-faced Anubis looks on and ibis-headed Thoth writes down their deeds on immortal sheets of papyrus? Horemheb, you're getting soft. There's some other explanation. Bast, Bast...a woman with a cat's head, A—I've got it!” he shouted breathlessly, halting and throwing up his arms. "I've solved it! Bast, eh? Ha! I see it all."

"Too bad," said & voice behind him. He turned his head to find who had spoken so close to him; glimpsed a falling object just above the line of his vision; felt a terrific blow on the side of his skull; and fell into a bottomless pit of jetty blackness.

CHAPTER VIII

HE WAS walking, had been walking for many years, it seemed. On through gloomy dim corridors he struggled, his feet lifting slowly as though sucked back by heavy mire. It was a labyrinth he was caught in, a meandering endless path between frowning walls that were sticky to the touch, under a roof of solid unrelieved black.

Horemheb scowled. Where was he? How had he come here? And where on earth was be going?

Or was he on earth at all? Was he not, perhaps, under it?

He thought painfully. He had been going to the temple. He wanted to tell Khafre something. Something about Bast. Bast! He remembered. He had solved the riddle of the apparitions.

Then someone had hit him. Evidently with a club, or a small tree, or the hilt of a bronze sword. Psamtik?

Psamtik, very likely!

And had Psamtik then dropped him into a well or some deep hole, in the rocks beyond the town? A hole that communicated with this underground passage?

He smacked his hands together. The noise was muffled and without echo in this strange place. Suppose, now, that the ancient Egyptians, oh, centuries before King Menes of the First Dynasty, suppose they had tunneled out these galleries for reasons of —

Well, for reasons of their own, Protection, perhaps. From—from somebody else.

And now he'd been pitched into them, to wander around and explore them and find all sorts of interesting relics.

He had a distasteful look at the sticky walls, and went slogging on ward.

There were just two things he didn't understand. Where did the illumination, dim and uncertain though it was, come from? And why couldn't he remember waking up and starting this crazy stroll?

Far ahead a wavering light appeared. He exerted all his strength and went toward it at a shambling trot. Slowly it grew until he saw that the narrow tunnel emerged into a great room filled with golden light. He grinned through his gaspings. Sanctuary from the grisly loneliness of the labyrinth.

He came out into the room and saw that it stretched away limitlessly to horizons so beclouded and distant that they could only be half-seen, half-imagined. The ceiling was all a high gold glow. A light soft wind played about his whitened cheeks and touched his clammy hands.

Directly before him stood a gigantic table built in the shape of a coffin. Upon it was a huge gold-and-silver balance, on one scale of which lay a feather. The legend shot into his mind: the heart of a dead man was weighed against the feather that was Truth, and if it were found wanting in good deeds and honest reverence well, that was a pity, but then a man had had every chance during his life to be decent and pay the requisite homage to the gods, so whatever he got was his own fault.

Behind the scales a tall man was seated with his head down so that his face could not be seen. Surrounding him, great anthropomorphous figures were gathered. Horemheb in an ecstasy of horror saw a hawk's beak, an ibis' long bill, the mask of a feral looking jackal. Emblazoned every where on the coffin-table, on the silver scales of the balance, on the garments of these incredible creatures themselves, was the Aten, the sacred solar disk, symbol of Ra who is above all.

The embalmer gaped, his whole body trembling like a reed in the wind.

The man behind the balance looked up and saw him. On his head was the pure white crown of Egypt. His countenance was bright, kindly, but firm; perhaps even a little stern as he gazed on the terrified Horemheb.

"Well?" said Osiris...

CHAPTER IX

KHAFRE regarded the left eye of Bast. The perfume and the cat smell were reeking in his nose. The fantastic muzzle almost touched his face, and the woman's hands caressed him tenderly. He watched the unwinking eye. Then he did a bold thing, from his viewpoint an incredibly rash and dangerous act. He reached out and took the big feline head by its two pricked-up ears, and he yanked powerfully upward.

Even at the moment of the action he was not sure that he had interpreted correctly the thing he had seen in the eye socket. But for Ateera and for Thueris and for his pride in him self as a man, he had to attempt the proving of it; or never sleep sound again.

So he tugged heartily on the ears of the goddess, and she gave a queer muffled shriek, and the head came up off her shoulders and suddenly was so light in his hands that he fell back and sideways and sat down hard on the floor of the temple.

Bast's body had turned and was streaking away into the shadows, so that between his tumble and the un certain lighting, he was not sure whether there was any sort of head upon her slim neck now or not. But he held between his hands the giant cat head with the opalescent eyes, and now he turned it upside down and burst into a roar of genuinely amused laughter; for the thing was no more than a mask, made to cover the en tire head and quite effective at a distance, as he could attest, but now patently a fraud! He gazed into the thing. It smelled of hide, all right: hides of slain cats that had gone to make up the imitation head, Not really too bad a job, either. He looked at the eyes. They were marvelously wrought—some splendid craftsman ship there-of poly-chrome glass, trans parent from within the mask but iridescently colored when viewed from without, pigmented changeably like a real cat's orbs. Around the back rim of each was attached a strip of thin metal, and to tiny loops in this strip were tied the white linen threads that held eye to mask. The left eye had evidently been bumped or strained in some manner, so that its threads were exposed. He laughed again. The mask was good, very good. It had almost made the masquerade succeed. A framework of some light metal or wood, covered with cat pelts and set upon the shoulders of a woman—be hold, the goddess Bast incarnate! He slapped his thighs and shouted happily.

Then a sound, the distant mewing of one of the sacred cats of the temple, recalled him to reality. Ateera was missing, Psamtik was waiting to be brought to justice, and somewhere close at hand the wench who had impersonated Bast was no doubt hiding in fright. He jumped to his feet.

Down an aisle he ran, following the scent of her unguent's strong perfume. It was a trail he could have traced through a jungle. It went back through the sanctuaries and ended at the door of his own quarters. He bit his lip, hesitated, then drew his ivory dagger and went in.

SHE LAY on his sleeping couch, elbows raising her upper torso, head cocked to one side as when she had worn the mask. Already he had decided that her body was in no way to be improved upon; now he saw that her face was equally exquisite. Her skin was a smooth bronze hue, not too dark for beauty in his eyes, nor yet too sallow or coppery. Her black shining hair was cut shorter than the prevailing fashion and lay in curls low over her broad forehead. Her features were finely molded and her eyes were unbelievable: long and almond-shaped in the patrician form of Egypt's aristocracy, outlined with kohl, their color was a kind of tawny cream-hue, a fulvous shade that defied analysis. They caught and held Khafre's gaze like those of some great hypnotic snake. Sheathing the dagger, he moved forward slowly, scarcely knowing he moved.

"Who are you?” he asked huskily.

“Sebek-nefru of Bubastis," she told him, her voice low and vaguely sibilant. She had not been imitating a cat's tones in her masquerade. She had been speaking naturally. "Come and sit beside me, Khafre. You revolted at the animal's face, now let me try the woman's."

Unwillingly he came to the couch and stood looking down at her. She turned her face up and slitted her un canny cream-colored eyes mischievously. "Be seated, Khafre dear," she said quietly. "Here on the edge, at first, if you're afraid of me.”

"I am afraid of no mummer such as you," he said.

"Of course not. Sit down, That's it. Do you find me repulsive, Khafre?"

Young Khafre stammered a little and then said, "N—no, no indeed."

Sebek-nefru laughed low in her throat. She laid a slim-fingered hand on his bare arm. "I played my part stupidly tonight, did I not? But I found you so desirable, you hard headed priest, that I allowed emotion to overcome prudence. Oh, well!" she sighed in a faint mockery of sorrow, "you would have found me out sooner or later. Such a silly business it was, anyway...” She propped up one knee and the fine pleated linen fell away, revealed her smooth tan thigh. She looked at it critically.

"No, it doesn't fit a cat somehow, docs it, Khafre?”

"No," said he numbly.

"Nor do these arms" she smoothed her hands over them sensuously—"nor do these. Hmm?"

He shook his head mutely. Her perfume was enveloping him and he felt as though he had been drinking potent wine for days on end. She leaned toward him, laughing. A double strand of big carnelian beads, decorated with gold-foil cats, swung out from her low-necked gown and touched his chest. He reached for her and all at once he froze.

"What is it?" she breathed. Her lips were rich carmine, parted to show white even teeth; the long tawny cream eyes were half-shut. “Afraid?"

Then he drew back his arms and stood up. He gripped her roughly, impersonally, by the shoulder. Her eyes flew wide. "What is it?"

“Those beads. Those beads with the cats on them." He hauled her off the couch and held her upright with one hand on the back of her neck beneath the short-cut hair. “What have you done with Ateera?" he roared at her.

"You devil's brat, what have you done to Ateera?"

She gasped and gurgled under the relentless pressure of bis big hand. "I—I never beard of Ateera," she said.

"Horemheb gave those beads to Ateera on her eighteenth birthday!" shouted Khafre. "I allow you the tenth part of a breath to answer me, cat woman: where is she?"

SHE LOOKED into the face that bad but now been slack and vacant with desire for her; and she said hurriedly and a little sullenly, "I never even saw the girl. Psamtik gave me her beads. He said he had—had gotten rid of her. She was too clever, and—she was a way to repay you for your thickheaded refusal to listen to reason." He threw her across the couch like a discarded garland of scarlet poppies after a festival. She writhed up and away from him.

"Listen to me," he said coldly and seriously. "You do not know where she is? Is that right?"

"I do not." She was afraid of him now. She could see death in the icy dark eyes.

“Then I tell you this, Sebek-nefru of the magical gaze and the false heart: if harm has come to Ateera I will make very sure that do weapon touches you, and that no man dares to lay a finger on you; but I will pry open your jaws with this ivory knife and you will drink a full brimming measure of pig's milk. Do you believe me?"

Color draining from her face, she whispered, "I believe you, Khafre."

"Good. You can't tell me anything more, eh?"

Dumbly she shook her head.

"Pig's milk," he repeated cruelly. "You know what will happen then."

She choked and said weakly, "I would—Isis!—I would contract leprosy.

“That's right. It is a medical fact known, I see, even to a false goddess." He went to the door. "I go to seek out Psamtik. You will remain here. If you try to run away, I will find you and do as I promised."

For a long time after he had vanished she crouched at the head of the rumpled bed, her eyes brimming with terror of this strange warrior-priest who could change in a flash from a captured lover to a pitiless man of stone.

She wished she had never heard of Psamtik, nor ever seen the accursed mask of the cat.

CHAPTER X

“WELL," SAID a loud voice.

"Well, what's this?" Horemheb opened his eyes and shut them immediately, as a brilliant lance of light appeared in the darkness.

"I crave pardon for all my sins and it was only out of ignorance that I committed them including blasphemy, but Oh great Osiris if I may but have one more chance I will be the chiefest of your worshipers," he said loudly and all in one breath.

"Horemheb!” said the voice. “What's happened, man?"

The embalmer risked another look. The light was really not so bright as he had thought. It was shed upon him by a torch held in the hand of a Nubian soldier. Ramaos was bending over him, concern writ large on his homely face. "Are you drunk or dying, Horemheb?” he asked.

Horemheb, with the help of his friend's stout grasp, arose from the cold stones of the path and felt him self gingerly all over.

"Is it really you, Ramaos?” he asked fearfully, prodding the soldier in the stomach. "Yes, it's you. Then I suppose I'm still myself, eh?”

"Drunk," said a big Nubian.

"Not drunk,” said Horemheb indignantly. "Back from the Underworld." He straightened up and opened his eyes widely. "The Underworld?” he repeated. “Did I say Underworld? Great Isis, yes! There was a glorious sunny place, I suppose it was the Hall of the Two Truths, and there was the balance that weighs a man's soul, and the feather of Truth, and Anubis, and Horus, and Thoth writing down all my sins, and Osiris himself. What a bright and beautiful face he has!"

"Surely my old friend Horemheb is mad," said Ramaos sadly.

"Mad? No," said the embalmer, feeling of his beard to make sure it was on straight. "I was hit on the head"

"Oh!"

“—By Psamtik, and I went down to the Underworld to be judged. I suppose, since I'm obviously still alive, that it was a dream. Or a vision sent by the gods." Horemheb was still shaken and decidedly not himself. “By holy Hathor! What an experience!” he exclaimed.

“Why did Psamtik hit you?"

"I merely presume it was Psamtik. Either following me or lurking about this place. I was climbing up here thinking about everything—" He clutched Ramaos' sleeve convulsively. “Quick!” he shouted. "No time to lose-down to my embalming establishment!"

"Why?"

"Because Ateera is in deadly danger, may even be dying, may even come on!" he bawled into the soldier's ear. “No time to waste!”

"What about Khafre?" asked Ramaos, allowing himself to be hauled briskly down the path.

"He's not the lad to be careless at a time like this. He's all right."

"But Bast—"

"Is a woman with a cleverly conceived false head, or I've guessed wrongly. An accomplice of Psamtik's. If she is, she's not a danger to him; if she isn't, then..."

"What?"

"I never thought to say such a thing in all my life, but—then she's a goddess, and there's nothing any mortal can do to help him if he's offended her."

"Horemheb, you have indeed under gone a violent and astounding change of heart." Ramaos cleared his throat. "Horemheb, old friend, how hard was that blow on the head?”

"Oh, save your breath, you regimented idiot. Hasten, and tell those black warriors of yours to quicken their pace. I tell you Ateera may be dying!”

"But where is she?”

"In the only place we failed to search adequately. In my mummifying rooms, drugged or poisoned or stabbed or—don't talk, man! Hasten! Hasten!"

CHAPTER XI

KHAFRE IN a chill rage had stalked as far as the gateway in the massive facade of the temple be fore it occurred to him that he was acting doltishly.

In the first place, if he left the precincts of the temple he would be disobeying the orders of his Divine Fathers. Secondly, his friends with many helpers had been looking for Ateera all day, and if they had not found her by this time would assuredly be searching diligently for the rogue Psamtik. What fifty men had not accomplished, he could scarcely rush out impetuously and do single handed. And then finally he was in the very spot which Psamtik would soon or late be seeking. Sebek-nefru was here. Her partner in guile would come to collogue with her, probably sometime in the night. He turned and went into the great hall once more.

He made a perfunctory obeisance to Thueris' statue as he passed the aisle of pillars at the end of which she sat in stolid composure. He walked to the far end of the central nave where her most important image was up reared before a huge slab of red granite covered with hieroglyphics in gaudy colors, crimson and gold and malachite and the wondrous Egyptian blue that no other country could ever produce. The hieroglyphs told the story of Thueris' life and noble works. The statue in front of them was titanic, more than twice life size. Carven of black basalt, she wore on her breast a sacred scarab of purest gold; her draperies were painted blue, the color of Nut the sky-goddess, her grandmother, and around the hem were carved winged globes and royal asps. She had a serene dignity in this towering representation, Flanked by two seven-foot bronze braziers full of flaming oil was the altar, upon which offerings of food and drink were set in vessels of pottery and fine glass. Khafre knelt to her and after a short prayer from the night ritual he went up the steps and stood beside her, thus placing himself at a point of vantage from which he could see the entire central portion of the hall and much of the pillared remainder. Silently he waited for Psamtik, the priest of the cat.

His left foot began to tingle. It was going to sleep. He had stood motionless for many minutes. He kicked off his sandal, lifted the foot and rubbed it against his right leg. The tingle went away. He tightened his sword-belt and moved the blade up and down in its scabbard of leopard skin over sycamore wood, ascertaining that it was not stuck therein. He felt of the ivory knife in his girdle.

Gradually as he waited the years slipped away, and he was the swash buckling soldier-of-fortune again, the man who had been called The Brand of Ra. His sword had been a flickering thing of light, as swift and pitiless as a shaft of blazing sunlight, Enemies of Egypt had fallen before it like the first sheaves of spring wheat drop from the scythes of the reapers as they lament the necessary death of Isis, who dwells in the grain. Maa-ne-hra, they cry, keening their ritualistic dirge as their brown arms flail the scythes...No one had wailed above his barbaric foe-men, unless it had been their own comrades. Truly Khafre had been The Brand of Ra, The Sword of God, in his free-lancing days!

Impious thoughts crowded his mind, hatred of Psamtik and pictures of the vengeance he would take on him for Ateera's murder. He felt in his heart that the girl was dead. And in a confused way he realized that he had loved her more than he knew, more and in different fashion than he loved his other companions, Horemheb and Ramaos. In a year he might perhaps have married her. She was the daughter of a ka-priest and worthy. And she was lovely, lovely, with strong limbs and slanted eyes of tawny ocher.

He thought of the weird creamy eyeballs of Sebek-nefru. A shiver passed through him, A man desired a sleek strange woman, and in that desire for the first time knew that another girl held his heart in her small and innocent hands. Life was many-faceted and often an incredibly complicated affair. He went back to thinking of how he would carve the skull of Psamtik with his bronze sword.

A FIGURE moved between the two distant columns. He fastened his gaze avidly on the next gap in the rank. It passed across the open space, and he snorted with disgust. Sebek nefru was at her mummery once more. No more than a shadow, it had still been clearly a great cat's head that he glimpsed.

Obviously the girl was as mad as her partner. What could the continued masquerade gain her but ridicule?

He started, and the sword was half out of its sheath before he realized that it was Sebek-nefru herself who had come quietly to his side. "You startled me," he growled. "How did you get here so quickly—and what have you done with your silly mask?"

"I have been watching you for a long time. My mask?" she said, twisting her head in that odd and (he had to admit it) rather endearing little way she had. "I have not touched it since you pulled it off.”

He dismissed the patent falsehood with a shrug. Surely the woman was mad. "Speak softly, cat-wench. I wait for your lover."

She showed her teeth at him. "Psamtik is not my lover, Psamtik loves nothing but gold...and I choose my lovers more carefully than that, warrior-priest. Psamtik Oh, gods!”

"If he isn't your lover, then why did you do his bidding?"

"He promised me a portion of the gain: a quarter of a hundred silver talents by the first year's closing. Who would spurn that, Khafre? Not I!” She laughed. "It would keep me in luxury the rest of my life.”

"Poor child," he said, only half thinking of what she had said, "there is more happiness to be found in serving the gods than in a life of pampered ease."

"Follow your path, priest, and let me alone to follow mine."

“You will follow your path, yes," he said with a touch of savagery. "If Ateera is dead, you will follow it to a leper's grave."

She shrank back against Thueris. Later, when he had almost forgotten her, she said timidly, "I will tell you of Psamtik. He was a priest of Bast at Bubastis, as he said; but he is not a real missionary for her. He disdains all the gods as mere wraiths of imagination. He was expelled from her temple for greed and graft and much dis honesty in the accounting of the revenues. He chose your temple be cause he heard the Divine Fathers were old and he thought you would make a perfect ally for him, once you had been won over by the appearances of Bast. If I had not blundered in my part," she said bitterly, "he might have done it."

"No, because Psamtik is mad, and could not have fooled me for a long period.”

"You are perhaps not so clever as you suppose," said she, “but you are certainly a magnificent figure of a man, Khafre. Will you take me for your sister?"

"I will marry Ateera,” he said. "Speak more quietly, else Psamtik will be warned."

"Ateera? That flat-faced child?"

“She doesn't have a flat face."

"Well, I never saw her, but Psamtik said she was a dish-faced young devil. Khafre," she wheeled, "what can such a provincial virgin teach you of love? Look at me.” Khafre did so, some what unwillingly. "If you expect to find a better body this side of the tomb, you'll be disappointed. See here—“

"Never mind," he said hastily.

"But inspect my hand, then. Is it not perfection in the realm of hands? See—“

ONLY AN accident saved him from death in that instant, Psamtik, sliding around the great basalt statue from the other side, did not see the small glass bowl of dates set close beside Thueris' feet; it rolled over the edge of the platform and smashed to flinders on the stone of the floor, and Khafre pounced sideways like a startled lion to light a-crouch six feet away. Psamtik stepped down from the altar and advanced cautiously.

Khafre spared one angry glance for the girl. “You traitorous bitch," he said quietly, and then gave his attention to the priest of the cat.

Her wail followed him as he stalked toward the slow-retreating Psamtik. "But I didn't know he was there!" she cried.

Psamtik grinned. "She speaks truth, brother. Coming into the temple, I saw you talking with her and knew that my schemes had gone astray." They crossed blades and jockeyed for position. "When you are dead I will make new plans, brother. There will be other priests elsewhere, more amenable than you to sensible suggestions, She will wear the cat mask again, and we will make our miracles and bask beneath showers of gold while you lie rotting in your sarcophagus."

Khafre had discovered by now that Psamtik was a passable swordsman, though not by any means in his own class. He pretended to fence in the crude Egyptian fashion, saving his Barbarian-taught tricks until he had sucked Psamtik dry of information, "You will never use Sebek-nefru in your plans again. She has fallen in love with me. She will never follow you if you slay me, Psamtik."

"She would do anything for money," said the other confidently.

"You lie!" shrieked the girl from the altar. "Psamtik, you lie in your throat! I renounce you and your crooked paths!”

“The gods smile to hear that, my dear," said Khafre, partly to reward her and partly to annoy Psamtik. "Ah, you nearly had me there, cat's false priest. You're clever with a blade."

"I am accounted an excellent swordsman," said Psamtik, preening. He made a clumsy feint that Khafre might have turned into his last move on earth had he chosen.

"Tell me, what did you do with Ateera?" He held his breath for the answer. Psamtik laughed.

"By now she's as dead as Osiris!” And though Khafre tried to bait him and bring out further news, he could not do it. Psamtik closed his mouth and began to try for the kill.

So at last Khafre said, seeing that he could gain nothing more by dallying, “Cat's priest, you think yourself a splendid fencer, eh?”

"As you know, who already taste death on your tongue.”

"Did you ever hear of a swords man called The Brand of Ra?"

"Certainly. All the Two Lands knew of him in the old days. It was said he died fighting the black say ages far to the south."

"He lives, Psamtik. He lives and . fights once more, as he did in his wild youth.” He unleashed a hurricane attack on the pop-eyed Psamtik. "I am The Brand of Ra, cat's priest. I am the avenger of murdered girls. Look at my eyes, you pretender to holiness. See your death there."

Psamtik gurgled inarticulately and fell back as fast as his feet would take him, his sword making a furiously fast circle before him to keep off that living blade of bronze. He re treated until the first step of the great altar caught him, threw him off balance. He fell and screamed and drop ping his weapon clambered up to the feet of Thueris like a fear-maddened beast.

"Come down," said Khafre, waiting. "I won't stain the goddess' robes with your dirty blood."

Psamtik clawed up the idol until he stood on his feet. Darting his eyes hastily about, he moved toward one of the seven-foot braziers. Sebek-nefru, sensing his object, sprang at him like a veritable cat and raked his thin face with her nails. Khafre grinned at that. The wench was not so bad at heart. Truly she must be in love with him, or else the gods had greatly changed her outlook.

Psamtik grasped her by the throat and hurled her off the altar. She fell and did not move. Khafre, roaring, came up the sacred steps after him. Jerking down the tall ornamented brazier, Psamtik, squeaking like a Nile rat, held it horizontally across his chest and with all his strength threw it forward at Khafre. Burning oil flashed and spat around them, running down the stairs, splashing on the floor. Khafre ducked beneath the hurtling metal stand, but uncertain light and great haste caused him to miscalculate its trajectory. It struck him on the temple, hardly more than a grazing blow, yet upon such a sensitive spot that his senses left him be fore he could put out his hands to break his fall.

Psamtik, breathing hard and quivering with the reaction of his dreadful panic, came slowly down the steps and bent over his enemy. Khafre lay inert. The priest glanced at Sebek-nefru, who was stirring a little and moaning.

He chuckled. Then he picked up his bronze sword and leisurely his eyes measured Khafre for the kill.

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT was chill, and Ramaos & was glad when they arrived at the big rambling quarters of Horemheb's business establishment. It was always warm in the inner rooms, what with pitch boiling and gums and other mysterious ingredients steaming and frothing over hot fires. He had small faith in his friend's sudden theory of Ateera's whereabouts, however. That knock he had been given on the pate had changed him oddly: He would keep talking of various gods, and wondering in a loud voice whether he had seen a vision, had a dream, or actually gone to the world of the dead and returned. Poor Horemheb! A night's rest would likely cure him. Meanwhile, here they were.

“You see now, of course, the point that escaped us all this afternoon," said the embalmer, as he led Ramaos and two of his Nubians through the outer rooms where funerary furniture, coffins, sarcophagi, funeral sleds and a multitude of vases and canopic jars made an amazing litter.

"No," said Ramaos.

"Oh, my dear fellow! Psamtik's sending me that message it wasn't meant primarily to bring me here, but to get rid of my assistant for a considerable space of time." He straightened his beard automatically. "Have your men wait here. The secrets of my craft are not to be lightly gazed on by curious eyes." They entered the central room, and Ramaos nearly retched at the smells. "You see, he had to have time to bring in Ateera from wherever he'd hidden her, and dispose of her as he'd very cleverly and very devilishly planned. So he sent my assistant to the temple on a bootless errand, and everything followed after as he knew it likely would. All my other men were working at a tomb up near Sekht's home, a little beyond his old tomb. Psamtik was alone here. If I hadn't been methodical enough to go over the town house by house in my mind, I'd never have bethought myself that after all we hadn't looked in this, the most obvious place of all. Very clever of the man, really."

"Ateera is—here?” asked Psamtik fearfully. He stared about him. The major workroom of the embalmer was like an antechamber of hell. Even at this late hour Horemheb's assistant was working, moving quickly here and there in his tight black cap, naked chest streaming sweat, A number of kinds of incense were being tested, cones of them fuming on various little trays. Multi-shaped utensils held gums and bitumen and salt; pots of embalming honey stood clotting in corners; filthy rags lay about in pro fusion; the reek of natron was heavy, and strange exotic spices shot the atmosphere with trails of cloying sweetness, Smoke and vapor of a dozen different densities and colors fouled the air. And filling one end of the room was a tremendous open furnace, which, although its flames were partially extinguished at the moment, was still adding its portion of dismally sooty smoke to the whole effect.

"Isis!” gasped Ramaos, and tried not to breathe. He looked around once more. A mummy lay on a rough table at one side; as it had not yet been dipped in the gum bath, the linen bandages were as white and fresh as was possible for anything in this inferno.

"You think Ateera—is here some where?" repeated the soldier.

"Where else could she be, Ramaos?" asked Horemheb dismally.

“But where is she, then, in Ra's name?"

The embalmer walked slowly over to the banked furnace. He took a long rod of blackened metal and leaning over stirred the ashes and the half-burnt logs. His face was woeful as a bereaved mother's.

"Oh, no!" cried Ramaos. "No! Not even a madman!”

Horemheb laid the poker down and returned, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. “There are bones in it," he said. "By the gods of the Ennead I swear..." but he could not finish the oath.

Ramaos looked wildly about him. "I will not believe it. No, not even the insane Psamtik could cremate such a beautiful child as Ateera."

“Where else is there?" asked Horemheb despondently. "Before we arrived I had hopes of finding numerous places where one could hide a body, or a drugged girl. But now that I see it, where is there?”

“The sarcophagi. The coffins!" Ramaos was inspired.

THEY BURST together into the next room and began a search through the great coffins. But in ten minutes they met in the center and stared hopelessly at each other.

“Ramaos?”

"Empty."

“Let us go up to Khafre. I have seen the bones..."

"Yes, he'll need us." Then the soldier's jaw dropped and he swung round with a final idea showing plain in his long homely face.

"Horemheb—the mummy!"

"Oh, no, not that.”

But the embalmer led him back into the smoke-clogged workroom. Curiously the bare-chested assistant joined them as they bent over the linen-swatched form of the mummy.

"What is it, sir?”

"Is that my work?” asked Horemheb fearfully. "I can't be sure. I don't think it is, but between that knock on the head and all the worry, I'm not sure of anything. Did I wrap this, did I?"

The burly young man leaned down and twitched the wrappings with professional interest. "No, sir, though I saw you do it, I take oath to Osiris these aren't your turns. No, sir. Somebody's done it over. Not a real embalmer, either. This is an amateur's job—oh, neat, I give him that, but not really fine work, and certainly not yours sir." He stepped back.

Horemheb hesitated only a moment. Then, "Give me your knife," he said huskily.

Cautiously, yet with speed, he slit the bandages at the top of the head and in other places over the face. Deft fingers pulled them aside, unrolled others, and in the space of twenty breaths bad exposed, not the rightful head of a mummy, wizened and bleak from its seventy days in the bath of natron, but the beautiful calm face of the ka-priest's daughter, Ateera.

"Is she alive?" asked Ramaos.

He did not answer, but stripped off more layers of the newly-woven linen, bringing to light her throat, the slope of her breasts. Then he bent down and laid his ear to her heart.

He remained thus for so long that Ramaos thought he would grow old and die before Horemheb ever rose again.

CHAPTER XIII

PSAMTIK measured Khafre for the kill. He decided to lop off his head. It was the surest way. Men sometimes lived with ghastly wounds in their bodies, and this was the famous Brand of Ra—turned priest, true, but still a man compact of energy and vitality, as he had seen to night. Yes, beheading was the safest method of disposal.

He raised his sword above his head, and it was caught and held there.

Psamtik gave a scream of panic. He writhed about, still holding the hilt, and saw a woman with a cat's head standing almost toe to toe with him, her great chatoyant eyes blazing at him uncannily. He nearly sobbed with relief.

"Sebek-nefru! What are you doing, you fool? Let me kill this man and our secret's safe. Release the blade!”

The woman's hand gripped his sword a foot from the point. He would teach the jade a lesson, by Isis! He gave a brisk upward jerk at the weapon. It should have sliced through the tendons of her hand like a knife through a tender roasted duck; but instead the quick effort nearly threw his right arm out of joint. It was as though he were heaving at a sword whose point was buried in granite. In consternation he let go the hilt and stepped back to stand over Khafre's prostrate form.

“Sebek-nefru," he said shakily. “Sebek-nefru, how ”

The enormous eyes that were burning into the core of his soul lidded themselves briefly, and the tip of a pink tongue shot out and licked the whiskery chops.

"What are you doing with your mask on at a time like this?" he demanded. "And how...oh, gods!” he shrieked, and with a convulsive movement making as if to move further from her hybrid form, fell over Khafre's body and lit on the floor with a bone-shaking crash, Like a crab he edged away on his elbows and heels, giving little feeble cries of fear. "How did you close your eyes?” he man aged to ask, as he saw she was not following him. "How—Ra preserve me!—how could you put out a tongue?”

The great cat face grinned. The sword clattered on the stone and the hand pointed beyond him. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Sebek-nefru just raising her head from the floor.

Psamtik, who had always been more than a little crack-brained on a few subjects such as wealth and pow er and his own importance, now began to grow truly mad.

He scuttled away until he had put a dozen yards between himself and the hybrid horror that he could not understand, and then he leaped to his feet and raced for the front gate way, gurgling with frenzy. He risked a swift look back. She had vanished. He turned his head again and saw that he was running straight into her arms. His scream rattled off the pillars and echoed away fantastically into the recesses of the building.

Back toward the unconscious Khafre and the sick-and-sorry Sebek-nefru he ran, spittle flying from his whitened lips. A form was bending low over the priest of Thueris. He swerved to avoid it and it rose up with a quiet laugh to show him a gray face and long iridescent eyes. He emitted the loudest of his cries, tripped, fell on his face, rolled madly over and got up to dash for the black basalt statue of the hippo goddess.

"Thueris!" be called, clutching her cold arms. "Thueris, aid me!" His voice was cracked and hoarsening from the terrible strain of his shriekings. "I'll serve you every minute of my life! I'll get you converts—votive offerings—gold—"

A SLIM HAND touched him on the shoulder, and a breath was in his nostrils that smelled of sweet milk. He did not look around. He vaulted off the altar in a passion of despair. He could literally feel his brain tearing asunder beneath the repeated attacks of this insupportable terror. He began to whimper.

He made for a side aisle, hoping it led eventually to the open. She was there, standing calmly between two hieroglyphed columns and smoothing her whiskers with a terribly long tongue. She was everywhere. She was omnipotent.

Isis and Ra and Anubis defend the poor sinner! She was Bast!

Now he lost what had remained of his wits, and with his linen robes flying and his black eyes bulging like thumb-squeezed grapes he fled from this thing he could not comprehend.

A poor panicked mouse, lashed and goaded by fear too great to be borne, he ran squeaking from the cat; and wherever he went he found her waiting.

At last he cowered in the central aisle, exhausted, bewildered, and utterly insane.

And so it was that Khafre found him when he had revived from the blow on his forehead.

"Psamtik!” he said, touching the shaking bundle that had been a man, "What under the heavens—Psamtik?"

"He has suffered the result of his own blasphemies," said someone be hind the priest. "And now you must kill him, servant of Thueris."

Khafre turned. The cat-headed woman repeated, "You must kill him."

“Sebek-nefru?”

"No, but the goddess Bast, come out of Bubastis to avenge the defiling of her name," said Sebek-nefru quietly. She stood beside the other and she did not appear to be afraid. "And I think that I too must die to cleanse her honor."

Khafre stared at the cat mask. His brain was still misted with the vapors of his unconsciousness. He was not in the least frightened, although he knew that this was surely more than another mortal masquerade; and he did not understand why he should not be afraid.

“There is terror in the gods only for those who have reviled and insulted them, who sin against them in full knowledge of their crime." Bast's voice was a little like the purr of Sebek-nefru herself. She lidded her eyes momentarily and spoke again. "The girl need not die. She was only foolish, only greedy. That man is a dead man, though, because everything he ever did in his life was a blasphemy against the gods, against decency and reverence. Slay him, Khafre, priest of Thueris."

Khafre looked at the drooling Psamtik. "I can't kill an idiot," he said.

"You must."

He stood tall and stern. "The Brand of Ra is no butcher to be told, This is a cow for the slaughter, That is a man you must kill. I am a priest and a warrior. I do no one's dirty work. No, not even yours, sacred cat of Bubastis."

She regarded him thoughtfully. Her feline face was mobile and he could see the thoughts in play across it. Her great shining eyes peered into his own dark ones, and she said admiringly, “By my father Ra, but this is a man!"

"And not a butcher," added Khafre, just in case she was still in doubt of his decision.

"No, no. Not a hireling, I see. And not a man who is obsessed with his own inferiority, as are most of those who whine and grovel at my feet day by day and night by night. You are a man I could raise to a place beside me, you priest and swordsman."

Khafre passed a hand over his bloody forehead and thought weakly, Oh gods, but how many females will tell me they'd like to mate with me in the course of this one night? Now it's a goddess.

SENSING his thought, she said, "The life of a goddess is lonely, Khafre, if she finds no one to share it with her. I am a young goddess, with centuries of worship and honor ahead before I must go down to oblivion in the Underworld. Created in the brains and spawned from the de sire of men who craved for something to venerate, I am more woman than beast. I shall take many lovers in my time, Khafre, and you could be the first."

Sebek-nefru, too humble by this time to be jealous of the goddess who was tempting the man she loved, said, “What of Psamtik?"

"Yes, Psamtik. It is right that you refuse to slay him," murmured the cat-headed hybrid. "It was against me that he sinned in the light of knowledge, not against you, Khafre. I will finish him,"

She went to Psamtik with a gliding, feline motion, and lifted him up to look into his crazed eyes. Deep within him a coal of sanity still burned, for his dripping mouth gave forth a cry of fright. She pointed to the doorway at the end of the hall. He tore himself from her grasp and fled, moaning, into the night. The three stood silent. In a moment there was a long agonized scream. It shut off, and a bird called sleepily in the stillness.

"What happened?” asked Khafre.

“He has thrown himself into the Nile," replied Bast complacently; and now for the first time Khafre was afraid of her.

"I will not harm you, priest of Thueris, nor will I touch this woman who played at being a deity. Her loss shall be her punishment, for you will belong to me." She came toward him.

"I cry mercy for Khafre in the name of Thueris, whose temple you stand in,” said Sebek-nefru on an impulse. "You would not take the priest of another goddess, Bast?"

The uncanny eyes flicked over her. "I have no quarrel with my sister Thueris. The claims of love come before those of duty, even among the gods, Sebek-nefru. Thueris will give up her priest."

"I won't leave the temple," said Khafre valiantly.

"I command you to desire me," said Bast in a very low voice, and her tongue touched her black under lip softly. "If you will not come as a willing lover, swordsman, you must come as a slave. But only at first, only at first. You will find me so pleasing that before the first night is done you will never crave for any thing but the companionship and the love of Bast of Bubastis."

Khafre struggled within himself against the power of the goddess. He shut his eyes to obliterate the sight of the body with its beautiful limbs like soft ivory, the furred gray mask of the cat that was suddenly preferable in his sight to any ordinary-looking and undesirable human face, Yet the mischief was done. He had looked into Bast's eyes, and there was nothing in the universe to content him save her. He lifted his lids again. His surroundings blurred, his memory faded, and he knew only that his desire was Bast. He moved toward her, and to the horrified Sebek-nefru it was like seeing a wooden doll jerked forward by strings.

"No, Khafre, no!" she shrilled.

Bast gestured. Sebek-nefru's lifted hands slumped to her sides, and she bowed her lovely head mutely on her breast. Khafre walked forward. Bast of Bubastis put out her arms with a cat's contented grin.

CHAPTER XIV

"RELEASE HIM, goddess," said a man in the shadow of the pillars. "Give him his mind again." Horemheb came into the light, walking slowly and painfully, for he was very tired.

Bast halted Khafre with a light touch on the chest. "Do you command me, you aging embalmer?" she asked quietly.

“Yes. I command you."

"By whose right?" she asked, smiling her cat's amused smile. "By the right of Osiris, with whom you spoke in the Hall of the Two Truths? By the right of my father Ra?”

"No, by the right of mortal man, Bast, without whose like you would never have been born. Release my friend Khafre, and go your ways."

Now she was suddenly all feline, covetous and supremely selfish, her mouth wide and angry. She spat the words at him. “You dare, embalmer? You would step between me and my desire?"

“Yes," said Horemheb wearily, "I would. For this man who is my friend, and for you yourself, Bast.”

She was startled. "For my sake?"

"Perhaps more than for his, be cause I feel sorry for you in your eternal round of life that will always be the same thing day after day... Yes, you can bewitch him. You have powers I shudder to contemplate. But in the end you would see disillusion and sadness in his eyes, and a healthy disgust for your hybridness. Could you look on that with satisfaction, Bast?"

"I would satisfy him as no mortal ever could!” she said proudly.

Horemheb gazed at her and fingered his little false beard. "Perhaps...physically. But the difference in breed is too great. You could take him as an automaton, a living doll to sport with. Yet finally you would need some return from him that didn't generate in your own magical powers, and you'd find it was not to be had. Think of that, Bast. If you wanted a mere lover, you could have any well-set-up lad in the Two Lands; but you want Khafre for his valiant personality—which you can not have save in artificial fashion."

The strange deity tugged at one ear thoughtfully. The similarity to Horemheb's habitual gesture with his beard might under other circumstances have been laughable. "You are no fool, embalmer,” she said.

"My plea is for you as well as for Khafre, Bast of Bubastis. You see it now. I feel nothing for you but compassion."

"Father Ra! That a man must pity a goddess!” Her purr was satiric.

"Yes, I pity you. I remember the first law of the world, which is that like seeks like through all eternity. I council you to lay your feminine snares for some stray god or other, sacred cat; for I remind you again that man goes to woman, beast to beast, god to goddess at the last. Each to his kind forever."

“By my whiskers, but you have learnt wisdom in your travels, embalmer!” said she, a little sadly, a little wistfully. "Very well. I give you back your swordsman-priest whole and unharmed. He fought my enemies very gallantly, and I reward him with his life, which I also hold dear," she said, staring at Horemheb as if daring him to argue with that. "Waken, Khafre."

Khafre shook his head and blinked. "Horemheb! When did you arrive?"

"Just now, son. You entertain queer visitors tonight."

“This is Bast of Bubastis, a goddess of some power.”

"A little power, a little," said the cat-woman with another grin. "My business here is done. I will return to the city that gave me birth, because there are other cynics and greedy blasphemers there who need a lesson or two. And Khafre "

"Yes, my goddess?" he said, bowing with reverence.

"It will really not be necessary to re-dedicate this temple, for Thueris and I get along well together, and the whole thing was Psamtik's idea; but if you were ever given a leave to travel, and came to Bubastis and laid a small offering on my altar, I am sure no one would take it amiss."

"No one could take offense at such a gesture of piety," agreed Horemheb. "And now, if it won't be too disrespectful, I'd like to sit down. The slope of that hill nearly killed me this time."

BAST SMILED at him. She gazed a moment at Khafre, and be cause he did not remember anything of her attempt to entice him away, be was bewildered by her expression of sorrow. Then, quite abruptly, without a word of farewell, she vanished; and the air rushed together in the place where she had stood and made an odd small sound like distant thunder.

Horemheb sat down on a bench and sighed, "I was wondering how she'd take her leave. Quite impressive, I admit."

Khafre collapsed beside him. "Surely Egypt is returning to her former glories," he said, "for the gods begin to walk among us again. A sure sign of prosperity, Horemheb."

"Well, I wouldn't know. Bast struck me as a lady with a mind of her own, and good times or bad, I should not care to try to prevent her strolling about as she pleased. By Isis!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. "In the morning I will undoubtedly give you a long and logical explanation for the whole affair, but tonight

I stand in awe of this creature who has shattered the beliefs and prejudices of a lifetime."

Sebek-nefru touched the priest on the shoulder. "I am glad you are well, Khafre, I was afraid when Psamtik struck you with the brazier..."

"I am well. Horemheb," he said, turning to the embalmer, "what of Ateera? Have you found her?"

Sebek-nefru stepped back a pace. He did not look around at her. With a set expression she began to undo the clasp of the carnelian beads.

Horemheb said, "She should be here in a moment; Ramaos halted with her to rest on the way up here. She isn't too strong yet, but she insisted on coming to see you. We sent Nubians to her father's with the news.”

"Then she is alive!” he cried joyously.

"Yes, yes. I'll tell you the story. Don't beat me like that! These old bones won't stand much more. Control your glee, curse you. Psamtik drugged her while they sat by the lotus pool. The drug was in some thing he gave her to eat, a tidbit, he said, out of Syria. She felt herself fainting and feared it was poppy juice, but as she's still alive, it must have been some esoteric concoction that drugs but does not kill."

"The swineherd!” growled Khafre, clenching his fists.

"Well, she knew in a vague sort of way that he was leading her by un frequented alleys into the town, and she remembers sitting in a daze be hind a bush near my house; then everything went dark for her. We know now that he took her inside, threw a mummy on which I was working into my furnace, and ghoulishly wrapped her up to simulate it. If it hadn't occurred to me that she might have been taken to the embalming rooms, by now she'd have been dipped in gum and dead as Sesostris."

"She was bound as a mummy? And survived?"

"He wrapped her head thinly. I think perhaps he was interrupted by my coming, and had to get out quickly. I think he meant to finish the wrapping and let her suffocate. He had a sadistic twist to his mind. It must have pleased his devilish sense of humor, to picture us dipping her in gum and burying her for some one else."

"I felt sorry for the way he died," said Khafre bitterly, "but now I am happy that it was so horrible."

"If ever a man deserved a nasty demise, he was that man.”

THEY SAT silently for a space, thinking of Psamtik and of the goddess he had called into the mortal world by the vicious and sacrilegious deeds he had done in her name. At last Ramaos came into the temple, Ateera on his arm.

Khafre ran to her side and they stood looking into one another's eyes. Khafre found himself dumb, lacking words to tell her of the love he had discovered; then he realized it was not necessary to say anything. He em braced her gently and with a glad cry she kissed him on the mouth.

"Sekht will lose a daughter before the harvest comes," said Horemheb to Ramaos. "And we will lose a comrade, for he'll be so changed we won't recognize him. It happens thus when a fine young fellow gets married."

"Horemheb, you are a complete cynic.”

"Perhaps so. Ramaos, I have much to tell you, and I'd better do it to night. Tomorrow I will not believe any of it. Tonight, having seen great wonders, I believe; and I am humble in the knowledge of my former ignorance. Tomorrow—tomorrow I shall most likely awake to grave doubts and the old material view of the world will come creeping back into my brain. I think I am too set in my ways for even a goddess to change me."

He linked arms with the soldier and they left the hall, Horemheb busily expounding his theories of the re cent events and pulling at his metal beard. Khafre and Ateera had sunk down on the bench and were deep in incoherent love-talk, when the girl's eyes fell upon the necklace of beads with their cats in gold-foil. She snatched it up with a glad cry.

"Khafre, my good-luck jewels! and for a second he caught the scent even missed them."

He looked at the carnelian ornament Where did you find them? I had not of Sebek-nefru's heady perfume, that clung to the strands like a dying memory. Glancing up into Ateera's delighted eyes, he seemed to see not the tawny ocher hue of her irises, but the fulvous creamy kohl-shaded eyes of the cat-girl of Bubastis.

She must have gone silently, leaving the beads here as a final proof of her reformation. For a moment he felt a pang of sorrow at the thought that he should not see her again...perhaps even a little regret that she had changed, for there had been something attractive about her lack of morals, her lovely lawlessness.

Then Ateera asked him to fix the clasp about her throat, and he forgot the eyes of Sebek-nefru.

Whether he would remember them later was a problem that did not concern him at all.

END

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