"
"Yes, Daughter, why should he not? He is its governor."
"A stranger who did not know the truth might think he was its king,
my father, and to be plain, if I were Pharaoh, and had chosen to enter
here, it would have been with a larger force."
"We can go away when we like, Tua," said Pharaoh uneasily.
"You mean, my father, that we can go away when it pleases the Prince
your brother to open those great bronze gates that I heard clash behind
us--then and not before."
At this moment their talk came to an end, for the chariot was stayed
at the steps of the great hall where Abi waited to receive his royal
guests. He stood at the head of the steps, a huge, coarse, vigorous man
of about sixty years of age, on whose fat, swarthy face there was
still, oddly enough, some resemblance to the delicate, refined-featured
Pharaoh.
Tua summed him up in a single glance, and instantly hated him even more
than she had hated Amathel, Prince of Kesh. Also she who had not feared
the empty-headed, drunken Amathel, was penetrated with a strange terror
of this man whom she felt to be strong and intelligent, and whose
great, greedy eyes rested on her beauty as though they could not tear
themselves away.
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